there had to be at least four, perhaps five, different scribes. Some scholars have argued that there were six scribes, yet most agree that the majority of the manuscript is in the hand of one man, who it is believed translated most of the literature. With this knowledge, when one looks at the photographs of the manuscript found on the website of the National Library of Scotland, it is easy to see the discrepancies in the actual handwriting of the scribes. Some is tight and regimented, attributed to Scribe 1, while some is more loosely written, as if the scribe did not make the correct adjustments for space and repeatedly ran out of room at the ends of the lines. While this has an entertaining visual effect when looking at the folios, or pages, its historical importance lies in the clues that it gives to the process of book production for private clients in a secular bookshop at an early period in the emergence of that industry. Language The Auchinleck, in its present state, consists of forty-three pieces of literature. All of these works are in Middle English, but in various dialects such as were in use in different parts of England. These dialects therefore suggest the diverse origins of the scribes, as for example from London as opposed to the south-west Midlands, because their written language probably reflected their manner of speech, and the variations in their spelling reflected what each had been taught: and these considerations again feed into the question of whether they were also translating. Since the language is consistent within each text, it is surmised that the scribes worked independently on each whole story. This contrasts with the method more usual in monasteries whereby the monks would copy directly from the exemplars one page at a time, with a catchword inscribed at the bottom corner for later collation. Although the Auchinleck manuscript includes catchwords, each scribe would have been responsible for all the pages of each of his assignments. From this mode of production, it is inferred that there was one production manager who, having contracted the work, oversaw the project and assigned separate stories to individual scribes, while acting as the person of contact with the patron or client if the book was indeed bespoke, or special order. Also of significance is that the Auchinleck manuscript is the first known anthology of English literature,