A survey of antiquarian work on early British books should include the contribution of the remarkable palaeographer, Humfrey Wanley. His Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium qui in Angliae Bibliothecis extant. Catalogus provides a conspectus of relevant manuscripts that was not superseded until 1957. In 1910 and 1912 W. M. Lindsay issued his path-breaking handbooks on Early Irish Minuscule Script and Early Welsh Script, and three years later he reported British scribal practices among his exhaustive descriptions of early patterns of abbreviation, Notae Latinae. The number of early British manuscripts that have received detailed scrutiny is comparatively small. Fuller data concerning the survival of particular texts, and more accurate estimates as to the dates of individual manuscripts had facilitated the labours of scholars such as Clemoes, Cross, Godden, Hill, Pope and Scragg in exploring the sources, circulation and dissemination of Old English texts.