The Oxford Companion to the Book

This is a standard scholarly reference on the history of the book, with entries from named specialists in manuscript and print culture covering how texts were physically produced and transmitted across periods and traditions worldwide, edited by Michael Suarez and H. R. Woudhuysen. That named specialist contributor structure, the same model that gives an edited scholarly reference its real authority, is why this atlas relies on it for questions of textual transmission specifically. Use it for established facts about the manuscript or print history of a specific text, how it was physically transmitted rather than what it says; a claim about a text's religious content or doctrine needs a source addressing that content directly, since this reference is about the book as a physical and historical object.