Recovering obscured ownership inscriptions

As a book changes physical form over the course of its life (through factors such as environmental damage, the wear-and-tear of regular use, repairs, and rebinding), the evidential traces of its provenance often undergo a parallel transformation. When rebinding or repairing their books, many later owners set out to obliterate (or at least obscure) all signs of former ownership. Owners might simply cross out an earlier inscription with ink, or in more extreme cases "wash away" manuscript notes and marks chemically (as many French book collectors did in the nineteenth century). By routinely cropping pages and throwing away endpapers during rebinding/repair, book owners and binders may have improved the aesthetic qualities of their books (according to a historical sense of taste), but not without simultaneously eradicating the history of books' social lives. 

Sometimes these efforts to erase the past are reversible. Modern technology has demonstrated its ability to recover texts rendered unreadable by factors such as volcanic eruption (the Pompeii scrolls) and overlaid text (the Archimedes palimpsest). But most cases do not require academic grants, research teams, and expensive equipment to recover the writing that others have attempted to obscure. In today's post I demonstrate how a bit of ingenuity (and a good light source) can help reveal some of these hidden inscriptions and their concomitant histories of ownership. 

Michael Drayton, Poems. London: Printed by Willi[am] Stansby for John Smethwick [1630]
[12], 496 p., [1] leaf of plates ;  16 cm. (8vo). STC 7224. Later polished calf binding. 

It is evident that our copy of Michael Drayton's 1630 Poems was not only rebound and repaired at one point in its life, but that one of its former owners attempted to obscure its series of earlier, eighteenth-century ownership inscriptions. 

 

 

The most noticeable of these inscriptions comes at the very end of the volume: "Elizabeth Savage her book" (see images above). Elizabeth Savage inscribed her name many times throughout the book, but evidently a later owner was not fond of her markings.

This leaf from late in the volume bears three different eighteenth-century ownership inscriptions, all of which show signs of being partially erased. Fortunately the eraser did a poor job and we can easily read the names:

John Bywater 1733 [?]

Elizabeth Savage Her
Book Anne Downy [?] mdccxxx [1730]
Elizabeth Savage 1733


But at other points in the book Savage's inscription is faint and barely legible. 

The two inscriptions read "Elizabeth Savage," although the ink in both has significantly faded. While it is certainly true that ink inscriptions deteriorate over time (especially if exposed to too much light), considering the evidence we have of a former owner attempting to erase or obscure Elizabeth Savage's inscriptions, I think it is likely he or she also meddled with these two marks.

The most elaborate of Elizabeth Savage's inscriptions, however, are obscured to a degree that renders them illegible to the unaided eye. Two of the book's preliminary leaves (engraved title page and the table of contents) have been fortified by what appear to be new sheets of paper cut to size and glued onto the verso of each leaf.

In this image of the second repaired leaf one can make out traces of handwriting in the middle of the page as well as a complete ownership inscription at the top ("John Bywater"). While one might expect to turn the leaf over to get a better look at this faintly visible handwriting, the verso is actually blank (although handwriting is faintly legible). 

verso of contents leaf, rotated

The leaf's thickness (in addition to its handwriting traces) suggest that at some point in time (perhaps during rebinding) a later piece of paper was placed over the original as a strengthening measure. By placing a strong light source behind the leaf, we can actually read the ownership inscriptions now obscured by paper.

The now familiar inscription of "Elizabeth Savage" appears in the middle of the page, underneath "ELIZAB" written in large decorated capitals. 

An additional ownership inscription (John Lawson [?]; surname difficult to make out) is visible below Elizabeth Savage's signature (in this image, to the left of her signature).

The verso of the engraved title page leaf (also repaired with a sheet of blank paper) similarly obscures another set of eighteenth-century ownership inscriptions. 

While this leaf contains much more handwriting than the table of contents leaf, it is much more difficult to read against the background of an engraved title page. It is fairly easy to make out "Elizabeth Savage her book" in the middle of the leaf, as well as the ink "pinwheel" someone added to the reversed coat-of-arms. Unfortunately, modest camera and computer equipment makes it impossible for me to read the ms notes at the bottom of the leaf (although I am sure playing around with computer software could help reveal what these notes say). 


At first glance Elizabeth Savage seems to be just one of two or three owners who penned her name in this copy of Drayton's Poems. But upon closer inspection we know she was the most prolific inscriber of the book's documented owners, a fact that may have lead a later (male?) owner to begin systematically removing her manuscript marks. Since this removal was hardly systematic and only minimally effective, it is possible to recover this particular book's handwritten evidence of provenance, and thereby restore Elizabeth Savage's rightful place in the book's social history.

Annotating a 1643 English-Latin Phrase Book

Traveling has kept me away from the blog for a little while, but today’s post will be the first in a series of uninterrupted weekly entries as we continue into August and finish up the summer. The book I am highlighting today is a copiously annotated dictionary used by an English book owner in the Restoration and early eighteenth century. The Center owns several books with manuscript-enhanced dictionaries, indices, and reference guides, but this is the first one to make it onto the web.

note the faint pen trials

Johann Amos Comenius (Jon Amos Komenský), Janua linguarum reserata (The Gates of Languages Unlocked: or a Seed-Plot of all Arts and Tongues; containing a ready way to learn the Latin and English Tongue). Sixth Edition. London: Printed by James Young, and are sold by Thomas Slater, 1643.
[376] p. ;  18 cm. (8vo); Wing C5512 
Renaissance Center copy is in later half calf and marbled boards (covers largely detached) 

Appearing in over fifteen editions between 1631 and 1672, this portable English-Latin phrase book belongs to one of several different groups of books published in seventeenth-century England under the title Janua linguarum, or "the gates of languages" (literally "gates of tongues"). While this particular book presents a bilingual guide, others might have been trilingual (Comenius' own Janua linguarum trilinguis and Porta linguarum trilinguis with English, Latin, and Greek), quadrilingual (William Bathe's Janua linguarum, first pub. 1617 in English, Latin, French, and Spanish), or even "silingual" (the 1629 and 1630 editions of Bathe add German and Italian). For English publication disputes over Janua linguarum and a table of English editions, see Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 223-6.

Comenius (1592-1670) was an early proponent of universal education and his published works (especially Janua linguarum) were heavily used in European schools (the book also appeared in Continental editions). The popularity of Janua linguarum even prompted authors to compose companion volumes. Jean de Grave wrote a "path-way to the gate of tongues" in 1633, intended as an introduction to Comenius' book for "little children" (STC 12198, often bound with the 1633 edition of Porta linguarum trilinguis). Wye Saltonstall's Clavis ad portam, or a key fitted to open the gate of tongues appeared in 1634, and it too is often found bound with Porta linguarum (ESTC).

The Center's copy is from the 1643 sixth edition of the bilingual Janua, which was "carefully reviewed, and exactly compared with all former editions, foreign and others, and much enlarged both in the Latin and English" by John Robotham (who had also corrected and amended the text in an earlier edition). Our particular copy bears several marks of provenance, recording the association of the book with four different English readers/owners.

eighteenth- or nineteenth-century inscription of "Geo[rge] Jepson"

The second image contains several seventeenth-century inscriptions. They read (in three separate hands):

John Widdowes His Booke
anno dom: 1667 [all struckthrough]

George Yardley His Booke
              1670

George Yardley Liber Eius
Testis Antonius Meeke 1672

From these notes we know that around 1670 the book passed from John Widdowes to George Yardley (who struck out the earlier inscription). The third inscription appears to be in the hand of Anthony Meeke, who has "witnessed" Yardley's ownerships of the book ("testis" means "witness"); it also plays on the common ownership formula "hic liber est meus, Testis est Deus." I have been unable to identify the Greek note at the bottom of the page, which I believe is in Yardley's hand. 

Two other pages contain Greek and Latin notes in the same hand:

unidentified Greek note

"Foemineum servile genus, crudele, superbum" ("womankind is servile, cruel, [and] proud"). From the fourth eclogue of Baptista Mantuanus' Bucolica (first pub. 1503)

An additional (much later) ownership inscription provides more information about our annotator, George Yardley.

Written fifty years after the first inscription (which seems to have been penned by a youth), Yardley's later note is the product of an Anglican clergyman: "A[ssembly].M[inister]. & R[ector] de Notgrove" and "V[icar] de Mickleton." According to British History online, George Yardley attained the post of rector at Notgrove in 1687. To be found in the Mickleton Parish Records (Gloucestershire Archives) is a collection of "[p]rinted almanacs interleaved with manuscript notes, which belonged to Rev George Yardley, Rector of Notgrove and Vicar of Mickleton 1707-1746." (Yardley died in 1746, and his printed almanacs range from 1718-1745.) This note is dated July 20, 1730.

As I mentioned in this entry's headnote, one of the book's former owners (probably Yardley) copiously annotated the two indices that conclude this copy of Janua linguarum. While I don't think paleographical evidence presents a conclusive case for any of the former owners, considering Yardley's known practice of adding manuscript notes to printed books (as in his interleaved almanacs surviving among the Mickleton Parish Records), it seems likely he is the annotator of the indices. The book's first index, the Latin "index vocabulorum," is prefaced by an interesting note about John Robotham's editing of its content:

"The former Index, even in the Dutch copy, was very faulty in the cyphers, and defective in many words; which put me to a needlesse trouble, in striving to insert in the text, such words as I found not in the Index (and therefore thought them lacking) which afterward I met with in the book. This Index is very exact; and may serve as a Dictionary to the learner, and a ready helpe to him that would adde any further supply to the booke it selfe."

The passage is interesting for a few reasons. We know these indices (one of Latin words, the other of English) were "very faulty" in earlier editions, forcing the Janua's English editor to augment the lists with additional entries. The editor also claims the lists "may serve as a Dictionary to the learner," and may even be "a ready helpe to him that would adde any further supply to the booke it selfe." In other words, these printed lists form a complete and "exact" English-Latin dictionary, which a reader may nonetheless supplement with a "further supply" of words in manuscript. 

The book's manuscript annotations respond directly to Robotham's invitation to "adde" such "a further supply" by inserting missing words (according to alphabetical order) into the body of the printed text. Here are three examples from the (less copiously) annotated Latin index:

Added words include abnormis, abramis, absis, adolesere, adultum, arteres, and culsium (with the added note "being compounded it wants the supine").

The "Index Anglicus" is much more heavily annotated and includes words in both English and Latin. Since nearly every page contains manuscript annotation, I have decided not to upload all thirty (or so) images, but instead post a range of images with representative annotation. In each image's caption I have listed some of the words added in manuscript (in modernized English).

acorn, adamant

back, balsam, baron, bay tree

bemoan, bosom, beaver

bastard, camel, cane, capon, carbuncle, carp, carpet, carter, cates

cedar, cellar, center, ceremony, chariot, cherish, crystal, cheekbone, chickpeas, choler, chough

christ, circumference, circumstance, client, cocksure, colander, collar, colt

comfort, comedy, complete, compose, conical, constellation, conscience, consume, contempt, content, contest

The rest of the volume continues in the same way. With further archival research into books annotated by George Yardley and manuscript-enhanced copies of Janua linguarum, one could ask a number of interesting research questions about material reading practices, early modern education, and the development of the English language: how common was dictionary-annotation in early modern England? how did readers customize such books with manuscript notes? what sort of relationships existed among printed dictionaries, manuscript-enhanced printed dictionaries, and manuscript word-lists? what can such annotations tell scholars about the history of our language?

Two Centuries in the Life of a Biblical Commonplace Book

John Merbecke, A booke of notes and common places: with their expositions, collected and gathered out of the workes of diuers singular writers, and brought alphabetically into order: a worke both profitable and also necessarie, to those that desire the true vnderstanding & meaning of the holy Scripture.
Imprinted at London: By Thomas East, 1581
[44], 688, 699-1194 p. ; 19cm. (4to). Plain sheep binding

Our collection's only example of a printed commonplace book in English, this copy of Merbecke's Scriptural handbook is in fairly poor condition, as it clearly has been well used over time. Fortunately a dense layering of ownership inscriptions has survived on the book's opening leaves, documenting two centuries of male and female owners in the British Isles. 

The first inscription (in pencil), reads "W. Blacks Book Kelsocleugh [???] 9 1805 [?]" (Kelsocleugh or Kelso is in the Scottish Borders, Scotland.) In the next couple of leaves W. Black inscribes a prayer taken from Edward Young's verse "Paraphrase on part of the Book of Job," from The complaint: or, night-thoughts on life, death, and immortality. To which is added, a paraphrase on part of the Book of Job (first pub with the paraphrase in 1750; reprinted numerous times throughout second half of eighteenth century). Black has excerpted the paraphrase of Job 42, the book's final chapter.

It reads: 


William Black his Book
Kelsocleugh may the 7 180[*]
William Black Kelsocleug[h]

thou Canst accomplish all things lord of might
and evry thought is naked to thy Sight
But oh thy ways are wonderful and lie
Beyound the deepest reach of mortal eye
oft have I heard of thine almighty power
But never saw thee till this dreadful hou[r]
Oerwhelmed with shame the lord of life I see
abhor myself and give my soul to thee
Nor shall my weakness tempt thine anger mo[re?]
man was not made to question but adore
                        Job 42    1--7
on lifes fair tree fast by ^the^throne of god
what golden joys ambrosial Clustring glow

[second section]

O thou who dost permit these ills to fall
for gracious ends and would that man should mourn
O thou whose hands this goodly fabric framd
who knowst it best and wouldst that man should know
what is this sublunary world a vapour
a vapour all it holds itself a vapour
earths days are numberd or remote her doom
as mortall tho less transient than her sons
yet they doat on her as the world and they
were both eternal      Solid thou [a dream]
                                                    young


[in pencil] O thou [???? this penciled note is difficult to read]


E. Simpson Alnmouth
Jany 5th 1850


William Black transcribed the first part (before "Job 42 1--7") from the concluding lines of Young's "Paraphrase." He extracted the two lines at the bottom of the first page from "Night the First" of Night Thoughts. On the second leaf he wrote down a passage from the eighth night of the same poem. From this passage he omitted three lines between the last "vapour" and "earths days"; they read:


From the damp bed of Chaos, as they beam 
Exhaled, ordained to swim its destined hour
In ambient air, then melt and disappear.


Black attributes the poem to "young" in the final line. The penciled inscription  is in the same hand as William Black's 1805 [?] pencil signature (see above). An additional inscription in ink—"E. Simpson Alnmouth Jany 5th 1850"—documents the book's latest nineteenth-century owner. And as you probably noticed, the verso of the leaf with Black's transcription of Young's "Paraphrase" bears the inscription "W. Leydon."


The next two openings offer rich provenance information, recording numerous owners and dates while also preserving a notice of an early rebinding.

These two pages contain the following items in manuscript:

1) sums in an eighteenth century hand 
2) inscriptions of a Robert Jobson, one dated 1763
3) inscriptions of William Black, dated 1797
4) inscriptions of Thomas Leydon, dated 1794, Denholm [also in Scottish Borders]. Probably  related to the "W. Leydon" mentioned above.
5) pen trials in numerous hands
6) this note: "this Book was printed in the year 1581 Binded 1802 at verry great age"


Here is a similar list for the next opening (see below):

 

1) several inscriptions of Robert Jobson, one dated 1772
2) inscription of Mary Dent, Gateshead June 31th [sic] 1704
3) inscription of John Thomson, dated 1707
4) inscription of William Black, dated 1798

Most of these inscriptions, with the exception of Mary Dent's, have Scottish provenance. The note about the binding in 1802 (on the first leaf) is very interesting, capturing an owner's care for a treasured book "at verry great age." Here is a picture of the plainly bound sheepskin binding:

Sheepskin is softer but less durable than calf or goatskin, and for this reason few sheepskin bindings from the early modern period survive without a few tears or imperfections. Sheepskin was the cheap alternative to calf; the finest bindings were made from goat. 


None of the book's five former owners annotated the printed text of Merbecke's A booke of notes and common places, although the work remains interesting in its own right. Here are several sample images of the text which amply demonstrate the book's content and style:

One leaf bears a final ownership inscription, belonging to Thomas Leydon:

I haven't attempted to track down the identities of the book's former owners, although I am sure the answers lie in Google Books searching nineteenth-century English genealogical works. All in all a book with great manuscript content. This is one of two books we own with extensive Scottish provenance; the other is a copy of Sidney's Arcadia that I plan to write about at some point this summer.

Unique Copy of an East India Company Printed Oath

The Center's copy of King James I's Works (1616), as so many other copies of books with elaborate frontispiece portraits, is imperfect. It lacks the half-title leaf, the verso of which bears a portrait of the seated King engraved by Simon van de Pass. In complete copies the portrait faces the elaborate title page engraved by Renold Elstracke, which depicts peace and religion flanking a triumphantly ascendant crown. 

This happens of course—missing frontispieces. Art-lovers remove their favorite images for presentation on a wall or preservation in a scrapbook. Thieves and unscrupulous dealers excise illustrations (and more famously, maps) for individual sale. What is strange about this particular copy isn't the leaf's absence (a common enough condition), but the presence of something else, something that doesn't belong. 

At some point in the eighteenth century a former owner or bookbinder augmented the volume with a new leaf, an unrelated bibliographical item most likely printed over a century after the Workes' original date of publication. 

The leaf is actually a printed oath of allegiance to the East India Company, an ephemeral  document related to early commercial administration abroad. According to the document's text the company administered this oath to all commanders, mates, pursers, super-cargoes, and factors sailing on ships belonging to the United East India Company. 

Generically speaking, the leaf is a printed form intended for manuscript addition (the document contains a space left blank for the ship's name), and since the space has not been filled in we can assume it was never used as an official company document. 

Dating this item is extremely difficult for two reasons: 1) it lacks any and all publication data; and 2) it seems to be the only surviving copy. John Lancaster (our volunteer rare books cataloger) discovered this item, and he could not find a record of the imprint in any of the usual sources. It appears to be a unique copy (see ESTC N477829). Upon further examination, the sheet reveals a few more clues as to its approximate date range of publication. 

From 1698 to 1708 there were two commercial entities in England known as the "East India Company." Earlier legislation (1694) had deregulated English commerce on the Indian subcontinent, thereby encouraging a group of investors to form "The English Company Trading to the East Indies" in 1698. A decade of competition finally ended in 1708, when the two merged as "The United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East-Indies." Since this is the specific company name used on the form in question, we can confidently set a terminus a quo at 1708, the date of the merger.

document verso

document verso, inverted

document verso, inverted, detail

By flipping the document over, we see that it was once folded up and sent as correspondence. The little packet is docketed "James Goodchild at ye Green Man Canon Street ouer a Gainst Abchurch Laine Cuttler," in what looks like an eighteenth-century hand. The identity of this James Goodchild may reveal yet another clue about the date of the printed document. 

By searching for "James Goodchild" among Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) wills (via the National Archives' "Documents Online" service), I found two mid-eighteenth century Londoners of the same name: the first, a glazier, whose will dates 1729; the second, a cutler, with a will dating to 1751. Is this cutler the "James Goodchild...Cuttler" to whom the folded form is addressed?

The same figure is recorded in a few mid-eighteenth century London commercial directories. A "James Goodchild, Hardwareman, Cannon Street" is listed in the 1737 edition of The Directory: containing an Alphabetical list of the Names and Places of Abode of the Directors of Companies, etc. (p. 22). The same entry appears four years later in A compleat guide to all persons who have any trade or concern with the City of London and parts adjacent (p. 129). (Many tradesmen were known as both "cutlers" and "hardwaremen.") The Court Kalendar for both 1736 and 1737 lists a "James Goodchild" as Common-Councilor representing Candlewick Ward (a small ward just north of the Thames close to London Bridge, encompassing the areas of Abchurch Lane and Cannon Street).

I think it is probable that all of these refer to the same James Goodchild, who is also the James Goodchild who received the folded up East India Company document. This information allows us to set 1751—the date of James Goodchild's PCC will—as our publication date range's terminus ad quem. It appears, then, that the printed form could date anywhere between 1708 and 1751, although typographic evidence would suggest a date closer to 1751.

These binding scraps, made from what seems to be part of an uncut sheet used as printer's waste, could reveal even more clues about publication date, but I have been unable to identify the text. 

The title-page inscription of Stephens Thomson records that the book was a gift from "E. Stephens." The title page also features an early circular book stamp belonging to "Samuel Tvrner," perhaps the East India Company officer who lived from 1759 to 1802. 


The first few pages of the book contain some manuscript doodlings of minor importance.

The beginning of a face.

Fancy "R"?

Poor imitation of the historiated initial? 

While clues in the book have answered some of our questions, many more problems remain. I would be very interested in more information about East India Company printed forms c. 1700-1750 and the publication activities of the Company more generally in the eighteenth century. I found some information about an "R. Penny," printer for the East India Company, who died in the early 1760s, but I'm not sure if he had a hand in the printed oath. Catherine Pickett's Bibliography of the East India Company...1600-1785 (to be released on July 5) looks to be a promising resource.

Look for a potential update next week when I look for a watermark. 

UPDATE (6/23): Although I found a watermark on the printed document in question, its contours are obscured by the woodcut image of the East India Company's coat-of-arms. The watermark looks to be a large coat-of-arms, but without better equipment I simply can't determine for sure what it is. 

In other news, John Lancaster has identified the printed text used as binder's waste in this book:


John Downame, Lectures vpon the foure first chapters of the prophecie of Hosea. At London : Imprinted by Felix Kyngston [and T. East], for William Welby, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Churchyard at the signe of the Greyhound, 1608. 
STC 7145, ESTC S110223 (about a dozen copies recorded).


While the waste does not help us date the printed form (it was printed too early), it does help us date the binding to sometime after 1608.