The Digital Temple: A Documentary Edition of George Herbert’s English Verse, ed. by Robert Whalen and Christopher Hodgkins. Virginia. Institutional one-time prices range from $347.00 to $695.00. URL: http://digitaltemple.rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/
This digital edition of George Herbert’s The Temple is quite simply an amazing piece of scholarship. Published in the University of Virginia’s Literature and Culture Collection, part of Rotunda, it displays clear digital images of both modern spelling and diplomatic transcriptions of the sources of Herbert’s work (the 1633 edition of The Temple, Williams MS, Jones B62, and the Bodleian MS, Tanner 307). Readers can study the modern edition without notes, with pop-up notes, or with linear notes, and simultaneously examine the manuscripts with Herbert’s revisions from which the modern edition is derived. Readers can also search the collection for metrical patterns or rhyme schemes. The notes provide objective helpful comments that are neither political nor overbearing. Whalen (Northern Michigan Univ.) and Hodgkins (Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro) provide an elegant introduction and a persuasive argument for their edition, generously giving credit to other authoritative editions of Herbert’s poems. A required resource for those interested in early modern literature, history, political science, or textual criticism, this digital edition of the Temple also offers many possibilities for creative assignments that deepen a student’s engagement with scholarly work. Summing Up: Highly recommended. *** Libraries with rich early modern course offerings; indispensable for graduate students, researchers, faculty—M.A. Bushman, Illinois Wesleyan University
