February 21, 2003

U. of Michigan Team Reconstructs the Diary of a 16th-Century Londoner

By BROCK READ

The daybook of Henry Machyn, a Londoner in the 16th century, is a treasure for students of language and history, says Richard W. Bailey, a professor of English language and literature at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. But there's a problem with the journal: It was badly burned in a fire, and the only published versions of the text are rife with linguistic and narrative inaccuracies.

Mr. Bailey and a team of graduate students have set out to make Machyn's journal more useful