Abstract/Summary

The term ‘miscellany’ slowly and unevenly came into usage across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in its modern sense to refer to a book compiled of literary compositions of various kinds and by multiple authors. Looking across early modern miscellanies, it is noticeable that there was no fixed formula or structure in either manuscript or print. Instead, miscellanies are distinguished by an instructive diversity of practice, whether in relation to organising principles, attribution of authorship, or skill. Manuscript verse miscellanies flourished alongside printed collections in the seventeenth century and were produced at universities, the Inns of Court, and in households, both elite and non-elite. Although the history of miscellany production is not evolutionary, progressing incrementally towards stability as a class of books, looking across the seventeenth century, it is possible to see shifts in how miscellanies are framed, the types of poetry they collect, practices of attribution, and how readerships are imagined.