#praeterliminarising

The Discovery of a Book, November 1978

The following is a transcript of a talk given at the Bartholdy Institute in London on the 12th of November, 1978, by Professor Linda Franklin. It details the discovery and subsequent interpretation of a 17th Century book, ostensibly entitled the Bremen MS.209, though known more commonly as the Liber Parvorum Spirituum. At the time of writing, little over a third of the original text had been transcribed, the remaining chapters were undergoing restoration works following water damage some time in the years prior to the book's discovery. Translation efforts were also impeded by the unorthodox approach to grammar in many of the Latin sections of the text. Since the talk was delivered, a consensus has now been reached among the text's translators, with the exception of a few of the more oblique passages. The damaged sections of the text are still undergoing restoration, though new photographic technology is uncovering new details hitherto lost, and a complete edition is lined up for publication in the Autumn of 2015.