Matthew James Driscoll. Scripta Minora. Selected Essays on Icelandic Manuscripts and Texts. Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, 56. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2024, xviii, 508 pp.

Matthew James Driscoll, Professor of Old Norse Philology in the Arnamagnæan Institute at the University of Copenhagen, is well-known for his contributions to the study of manuscripts, textual transmission, and the cultural history of medieval and post-medieval Icelandic literature. Trained as a codicologist and editor, Driscoll has specialized on the vast corpus of Icelandic manuscript production from the late medieval period through the early modern era – particularly the so-called rímur poetry, sagas, and popular prose preserved in paper manuscripts of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. His pioneering studies, such as The Unwashed Children of Eve (1997), brought critical attention to these often-overlooked “post-medieval” texts, demonstrating their importance for understanding the continuity of vernacular narrative traditions and the vibrant manuscript culture that flourished long after the medieval period.