Manuscripts, we all know are the chief means by which the records and imaginings of twenty centuries have been preserved. It is my purpose to tell where manuscripts were made and how and in what centres they have been collected and incidentally to suggest some helps for tracing out their history. Naturally the few pages into which the story has to be packed will not give room for any one episode to be treated exhaustively. Enough if I succeed in rousing curiosity and setting some student to work in a field in which an immense amount still remains to be discovered.
