The Wanderings and Homes of Manuscripts is the title of this book. To have called it the survival and transmission of ancient literature would have been pretentious, but not wholly untruthful. 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 and immense amount still remains to be discovered. —M. R. James (1919) —The Wandering and Homes of Manuscripts (Tertullian)

Great Scott, this is exactly the kind of article I spent about an hour or so looking for yesterday. Thanks for posting it, Eric.