When thinking about creating a modern edition of “The Carrara Herbal,” there are a few things to consider. Since “The Carrara Herbal” is made up of natural and plant based remedies for medicinal use, the audience for a modern edition would be the naturalistic and holistic health community. With natural remedies being popular in the medical realm, a modern edition of “The Carrara Herbal” could be of great use. For my edition, I would want to create an app as a way to relay the text to a widespread audience. Because having access to these natural remedies everywhere could be beneficial, being able to access the text over a phone or tablet rather than a physical book would be more effective. Also, using an app to make this edition available to the public would open up the door for an online community interested in natural remedies and the modern edition of “The Carrara Herbal.” As far as editing the physical text itself, I would change it to English and edit the font used in the modern edition. In his essay “How Typeface Influences the Way We Read and Think,” Chris Gayomali says that the font Georgia “looks like something off of a blog rather than an academic journal.” A font like Georgia would work well for a modern online/mobile edition of this manuscript because it is easy to read but it is not directly linked to academia. As for changing the language to English, this practice is not very popular. In his essay “The Rationale of Copy-Text,” W.W. Greg says, “The former practice of modernizing the spelling of English works is no longer popular with editors, since spelling is now recognized as an essential characteristic of an author, or at least of his time and locality” (21). Although it is not popular, I think that it would be beneficial to reaching a widespread audience interested in plant based remedies and natural health.

Sources: Gayomali, Chris. “How Typeface Influences the Way We Read and Think”

Greg, W.W. “The Rationale of Copy-Text.”