An Early Owner Rewrites Waller

Last week's post highlighted early seventeenth-century bindings from the Center's collection, a post I plan to continue with a discussion of English bindings in the Restoration and early eighteenth century. But in order to conduct a bit of extra research into our later seventeenth-century English bindings, I am saving that post for next week. 

Today's post, on the other hand, focuses on the manuscript emendation of printed poetry in a late seventeenth-century verse anthology. Besides documenting a specific historical reader of Edmund Waller's poetry, the material signs of this book's "use" reveal an amusing and perceptive close reading of a politically charged epithalamium. 

title page

detail of title page

The temple of death: a poem...Horace of the art of poetry...The duel of the stags, by the Honourable Sir Robert Howard: together with several other excellent poems by the Earls of Rochester and Orrery, Sir Charles Sedley, Sir George Etheridge, the Honourable Mr. Montague, Mr. Granvill, Mr. Dryden, Mr. Chetwood, and Mr. Tate. [second edition]
London: Printed by Tho[mas] Warren for Francis Saunders, [1695]
[16], 268, [2], 269-273, [3] p.: 19 cm. (8vo); Wing T663

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary calf (front cover wanting; title leaf detached and mutilated, removing lower outer corner and some text; lacks N3-4 and the blank leaves A1, E8, F1, S8); in phase box; p. 206 has catchword "ON"; early signature of Sarah Kingsman (several times on title page, and elsewhere in the volume); signature of Mary Anne Tillwood (1837) on verso of title leaf; signature of Gwynne Blakemore Evans (1931) on title page and his bookplate on verso of title leaf [JL]

Within this printed verse miscellany is gathered a range of authors and literary forms. It showcases the lyric poetry of the day's most popular writers (Waller, Etherege, Dryden, etc.) and a number of less well known aristocratic poets. The book also presents commendatory verse, works of poetic theory (Horace, Waller), and a translation from the French (Philippe Habert's "Le temple de la mort," trans. by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham). 

An early owner named "Sarah Kingsman" has inscribed her name several times on the book's title page and elsewhere in the volume (as in its final page, shown below). The title page also bears the inscription of "Sally Idle," whereas a later owner's inscription (Mary Anne Tillwood-1837) appears on its verso. Kingsman's inscription within the capital "O" from "POEMS" is a particularly interesting specimen.

the notice at the bottom of the leaf advertises "all sorts of Gilt and Plain paper"

In the final poem of the volume (Edmund Waller's “On the Marriage of the Lady Mary with the Prince of Orange") one of these former owners (probably Tillwood, perhaps Idle or Kingsman) used her pen to strike out and insert a word in the author's text. 

Placed directly after Waller introduces the "triple knot" figure as representative of the pair's virtue, royal blood, and love, the original lines read

The Church shall be the happy place,
Where Streams which from the same Source run,
(Tho' divers Lands awhile they grace)
United there again make one.

Our early reader's version—rewritten in an amusingly satirical style—reads

The Bed shall be the happy place,
Where Streams which from the same Source run,
(Tho' divers Lands awhile they grace)
United there again make one.

Besides revealing her clever, slightly irreverent sense of humor, the change clearly reflects the reader's skepticism towards the Church as a space conducive to marital bliss.While I have not determined whether this emendation is the reader's own invention or a copy of similarly satirical changes to the poem found elsewhere, it may play off of greater topical vogues in contemporaneous satire. Mary II died in 1694 and William would rule until his death in 1702 (the pair came to power in the Glorious Revolution of 1689). It may well be that the manuscript alteration to Waller's poem reflects some satirical aspect of their reign or marriage (or both). But it is just as likely the reader is responding to the poem on a more localized level, exposing what she sees as sham rhetoric in a highly politicized (and idealized) discussion of marriage. By transforming the site of marriage from a sacred to a sexualized space with the stroke of a pen, this early annotator reveals how specific strategies of reading and writing  become manifest in the material elements of books, elements which (as this case illustrates) have a direct bearing on literary interpretation.

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.

Bookplates and Provenance III

Today's post highlights a few more bookplates from the Center's rare book collection. As in similar entries about provenance, I have attempted to track down the people associated with these bookplates and provide you with a bit of information about their lives.

Sir John Vanbrugh, Plays, 2 vols. [Center owns v. 1 only]

London : Printed for J. Tonson, and J. Watts; and for J. Darby, A. Bettesworth, and F. Clay; in trust for Richard, James, and Bethel Wellington, MDCCXXX [1730]. 

Contemporary calf, 12mo

  

Here we have an early twentieth-century plate depicting a pastoral scene. The bookplate was designed by Edwin Davis French (1851-1906), one of the most important bookplate designers of the nineteenth century. This plate is signed 1906 (I think, it may read "1900"), and considering its late date it is likely this is one of the last plates French designed. 

"Nathan T. Porter, Jr." is most likely Nathan Todd Porter, Jr., a New York businessman born in Brooklyn on December 5, 1867. He attended high school in Montclair, NJ, and graduated from Yale in the class of 1890. According to the 1907 edition of Who's who in New York City and State, Porter was a "dry goods commission merchant," and ran the firm Porter Brothers and Company with his brother Thomas Wyman Porter. 

 
The Elizabeth Club at Yale University owns several early printed playbooks with Porter's bookplates. See Stephen Parks, The Elizabethan Club at Yale University and its Library (New Haven: Yale University, 1986), 51, 74, 82, 108, 117, 120.

Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae. Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden]: Ex officina Hackiana, Ao. M D C LXXI [1671]. Contemporary full vellum binding. This bookplate and inscription belong to Augustus Montague Summers  (1880-1948),an eccentric Englishman who wrote on subjects as various  as the occult and Restoration drama. The signature dates from his youth: in 1899 he entered Trinity College, Oxford, where he received two degrees (B.A.1905; M.A.1906). The bookplate (signed by an unidentified "J.W.")  probably dates to this early part of Summers' life as well, since we know of a later bookplate reading "Alphoinvs Montagve Svmmers Liber svvs"  (designed by Eric Gill)—Alphonsus being a name in religion Summers' used after 1910 when he received a clerical tonsure from the Church of Rome (Davies, ODNB).  In fact, the ODNB article on Summers' is quite an interesting read. His career in the Anglican Church was cut short around 1908, when  "rumours of studies in Satanism and a charge of pederasty" became  associated with his name. He wrote a number of books on vampires,  demons, and werewolves. His activities as a literary critic are well known (he published a history of the gothic novel in 1938), and his work on English Restoration drama is particularly important  (including a six-volume Works of Aphra Behn). Pierre de la Primaudaye, Academie Francoise

A Paris : Chez la vefue Claude de Monstr’oeil, ruë S. Iean de Latran, & en sa  boutique en la Court du Palais au Nom de Iesvs, M. DC. X [1610].  Contemporary limp vellum binding The Latin quote on this bookplate is from Lucretius, De rerum natura, Book I, ll. 927-8. In the Rolfe Humphries translation of 1968, the lines read: "I come to fountains / Completely undefiled, I drink their waters, / Delight myself by gathering new flowers." The lines metaphorically link flowers, clear fountains (of the muses), and, of course, books. Katherine Theresa Butler (1883-1950) wrote a two-volume History of  French Literature (London: Methuen, 1923), and at the time of its  publication was Director of Studies in Modern and Medieval Languages at Girton College, Cambridge.

Customizing Camden I

As some of the period's best-selling works of English history, the printed books of the antiquary William Camden—most notably the multiple editions of Britannia (1586) and Remaines concerning Britaine (1605)—appeared in early modern bookshops with particular abundance, and have consequently survived in a relatively large number of extant copies. The Center owns fifteen copies of Camden's works printed between 1587 and 1751, including six copies of the Britannia and two each of the Remaines and Annales. 

Today's entry and a continuation next week highlight the numerous manuscript annotations and additions owners left behind to customize their copies of Camden's works. While the body of manuscript content found within these books is miscellaneous at best, by anchoring a study of these unique additions within the context of Camden's printed record certain patterns of use begin to emerge. Below I will discuss our two copies of Camden's Remaines and how readers augmented them with specific manuscript additions. 

William Camden, Remaines concerning Brittaine: but especially England, and the inhabitants thereof: their languages, names, syrnames, allusions, anagrammes, armories, moneys: empresses, apparell, artillerie, wise speeches, proverbs, poesies, epitaphs. London: Printed by A.I. for Symon Waterson, 1629.

[4], 9, 8-346 p. ; 19 cm. STC  4524

Renaissance Center copy is in modern half calf and brown cloth; signature "Ob: Ghossipp" on title page; some ms. annotations, including additional proverbs.

If Britannia contains the most important points of Camden's antiquarian research, the Remaines offers an overflow of information—mainly items of linguistic curiosity—collected during his extensive travels. As Wyman H. Herendeen summarizes, "[w]ith the first historically organized anthology of medieval poetry, a historical and comparative study of the English language, collections of names and their meanings, of (in the words of one of the chapter headings) ‘grave speeches, and wittie apothogemes,' and of epitaphs, it can be seen as a popular spin-off from its more expensive and serious historical mother lode, the Britannia" (ODNB). The Remaines is essentially a vast print miscellany structured around specific forms and genres, and this format may have invited readers to add their own epitaphs, poems, apothegems, proverbs, etc. 

The manuscript notes and additions in this copy (the fourth edition) were apparently written by the "Ob: Ghossipp" who signed the title page, a reader who sought to augment Camden's study of the English language with new apothegms, "wise speeches," and proverbs. In the (unfortunately cropped) marginal notes above, our annotator responds to Camden's discussion of English punning, especially the word "agnominations," which is underlined. A rough reconstruction of these notes reads "Nicknames [...] more [p]roperly [...] Sr John [...] defines [...] Allusion [...] one word [...] another [...] resemblance [...] sound." It seems that the annotator adds a gloss of "agnominations," buttressing Camden's work with personal knowledge. The second note "[..]hen heart, [ol]d fellow, Coward" refers to the underlined word "Niding," which the printed text defines as "base-minded, false-hearted, coward." Both annotations illuminate the philological study of curious English words.

The annotator's most notable textual interventions take the form of additional proverbs and "wise speeches" inscribed in the book's blank spaces. In the first image, our annotator adds an apothegm or "wise speech": "Captain Gamme at the Battell of Agincourt beinge / sent by the K[ing] to discouer the number of the enimies brought / him word there were ynough to be slaine, enow to be taken / prisoners and enow to runne away. Sr W.R." 

  

The additional proverbs include "agree like harpe and harrow; Dr Abb."; "Goe saith the King, stay saith the tide Sr W:R:"; and "many things fall betwixt the cup and the lipp." "Sr W:R:" is presumably Sir Walter Raleigh.

William Camden, Remaines concerning Britaine. London: Printed by Thomas Harper, for John Waterson, 1636. 

3 p., ℓ., 420, [2] p. :  front., (port.) illus. (coats of arms)  18 cm. STC 4525. 

The next edition of Remaines was published in 1636 by John Waterson, and introduced the engraved image of the author shown here. The title page bears two marks of provenance, the roughly contemporary looking initials "L.J." (or "E.J."), and an early nineteenth-century inscription that reads "Hen: A: Merewether Calne, Wilts[hire] Friday May 30th, 1806 / Nb This was one of my uncle's Books. & given to me by my Brother Francis." 

The front pastedown bears Merewether's (1780-1864) armorial bookplate, along with the inscription "John Wickins 1756" and a manuscript price of "2s." 

On the facing endpaper (probably in John Wickins' hand) is the "Saxon Alphabet," which was probably copied and slightly modified from the "Alphabetum Anglo-Saxiconicum" that accompanied printed copies of the Britannia, as shown below.

Like the annotator of the 1629 Remaines, here a former owner has augmented Camden's collection of verse and sayings with three manuscript epitaphs.

The second epitaph, on "Mr Fenton," was written by Alexander Pope, and also appears in BL Add. MS 28101, f. 115. I have been unable to locate the other two in the Folger-hosted Union First Line Index. 

Stay tuned next week for more "customized Camdens." 

Shakespeare Boiled Down (1890)

Shakespeare Boiled Down (Chicago: New Home Sewing Machine Co., c. 1890)
31, [1] p. : ill. ; 20 cm.

Shakespeare sold sewing machines—well, at least in 1890s-era Chicago. Issued by the New Home Sewing Machine Company, this rare piece of printed ephemera presents "Shakespeare Boiled Down," i.e. a collection of short, typically single page plot summaries of his plays. 

 According to the introduction (above), "the intention of this work is to present the reader a clear and concise description of the different plots and characters of all of William Shakespeare's plays." We are told that "great care has been exercised in the wording, so that both young and old can read understandingly." From the introduction it is clear these plot summaries are not intended for first-time readers of the plays, but instead for "those who wish to refresh their memory before witnessing the presentation of any of the plays," i.e. before seeing a theatrical production of Shakespeare. 

The summaries themselves are relatively standard accounts of the plays, yet in some cases key omissions reflect the day's sense of literary decorum and good taste. The summary of Titus Andronicus, for example, fails to mention any of the play's acts of atrocious violence: Lavinia is "seized," heads and hands are not chopped off, and no mention is made of the decapitated-head pastries Titus serves Saturninus and Tamora. When the summary mentions Act Five's grisly banquet, it only refers to Titus's curious chef's garb: "to humor a fad Titus dressed up as a cook." According to the summary, Lucius (here named "Mertius" for some reason—probably a nineteenth-century performance practice) at the end of the play "was crowned king, and lived to commit many acts of charity." Clearly this statement ignores his violent executions of Aaron and Tamora. Aaron, his child, and his affair with Tamora are strikingly absent. 

There are a few cheap woodcut illustrations of scenes, these from Julius Caesar and Taming of the Shrew. The Julius Caesar summary includes Antony's famous speech ("Friends, Romans, Countrymen") in its entirety.

This small and cheaply printed booklet sold for "15 cents," and in some cases—as with the 1893 reprint associated with the World's Fair—it was given away for free. The book was cheaply made, of course, not because the New Home Sewing Machine Company wanted its customers to have an affordable collection of Shakespearean plot summaries, but because they wanted to advertise their products.  

At the bottom of this page—from the last of the Shakespearean plot summaries—the reader is told "the NEW HOME advertisement occupies the balance of this book. You have permission to read on if you choose." 

 

These ads comprise the pamphlet's final four pages, marketing not only the "best sewing machine money can buy" (the company "challenge[s] the world to produce a better $20 dollar machine for 20 dollars ... than you can buy from one of our agents"), but also the "drop cabinet no. 9" and the "folding case no. 19," billed as "the very latest...something entirely new." Apparently New Home offers "the only Sewing Machine with a Perfect Double Feed." In the second-to-last image the ad informs customers that the company will send a copy of "Shakespeare Boiled Down" for the price of a 2 cent stamp. The pamphlet's lower cover (the last image seen here) bears the stamp of "Geo. A. Hicks Agent Mt. Pleasant, Mich," presumably the man charged with distributing these booklets and selling sewing machines. 

The image of Shakespeare "boiled down" is just delightful. 


Here is the complete digital version of the full text, brought to you via Scribd:


Shakespeare Boiled Down

Copy of Allestree's The Ladies Calling with MS poem "On New years day"

Richard Allestree, The Ladies Calling in two Parts, by the author of the Whole duty of man, &c. Oxford: Printed at the Theater, [1705]
[24], 270, [2] p., [1] leaf of plates : ill. ; 20 cm. (8vo). 

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary red paneled morocco (frontispiece lacking; water stains to lower inner portion of pages throughout; leaf 2L4 pasted to rear free endpaper); in phase box; engraved bookplate of Elma Palmer (printed in brown) on front pastedown; signature "Anne Fonnereau Her Book Feb 23d 1755/34" in ink on front flyleaf; signature "Phebe Fonnereau" in pencil on verso of front free endpaper; signature (partly erased) "[---?] Oliver" in ink on verso of front free endpaper; price, not clearly associated with any name, "Pret: 0:2:0" on verso of front free endpaper; ms. poem "On New Year’s Day," mounted on front flyleaf.

This item offers a great example of how early modern readers customized their personal copies of books with unique manuscript content. Two ownership inscriptions link the book to female members of the Fonnereau family in the mid-eighteenth century. 

It seems likely that this is the Anne Fonnereau (nèe Banbury, d. 1782)  who married Claudius Fonnereau (d. 1785) in 1728; together they had  thirteen children, including Phebe, who was born on December 29, 1747. Anne and Claudius had a daughter Ann, but since she was born in 1731, I doubt it is she who left the inscription. It is also possible this is Anne Fonnereau, ("my father's wife" in Claudius's words), who he describes as a "Grand Mother" in 1738. This information comes from MS records in a bible related to the Fonnereau family; its contents are transcribed in Joseph Jackson Howard, ed., Miscellanea genealogica et heraldica, Second series, volume 5 (1894), 281-3.

The manuscript poem affixed opposite the title page, entitled "On New years day," seems to suggest the book was presented as a New Year's gift; the genre of the New Year's gift poem was quite commonplace and fashionable at this time, and the book's beautiful red goatskin binding suggests it may be a presentation copy. 

But the content of the poem itself does not focus on the act of giving, nor does its speaker (presumably the gift-giver) mention a gift-recipient.

On New years day

Another year, my soul, is past
This I’ve begun may be my last
Think then O think my soul how soon
Wether, in Morning, Night or, Noon,
The solemn howr of death you hear
That call so awful met with fear
Will seal the sentence from that voice
At which the Righteous will rejoice
With fervent prayer May I receive
The blessings Christ alone can give
Jesus. to Thee I humbly bow
From whom the gift I crave must flow
That Saving Name Which Thou didst take
This Day for Man’s eternal sake
O: Let it be to me in heart
That Life Which Thou can well impart
From this day Make me live to Thee
O Holy blessed Trinity
And never more abuse Thy dove
But fix my heart on things above
Renounce the world & every sin
Have life & holiness Within
For Mercies great [?] on Every day
My grateful Praises constant pay.

Rather, the poem is intensely personal and devotional in nature, seemingly written by an older person who feels closer to death with each passing year ("This I've begun may be my last"). The images evoke a close personal and spiritual relationship between the speaker and Christ that is built upon prayer, meditation, and divine blessings.

I am fairly certain the poem is in the hand of Anne Fonnereau, who left her inscription on an endpaper, although the subject matter of the poem suggests the poet may be the "Grand Mother" Anne Fonnereau, who would have been an old woman at this time. 

I have been unable to identify the Elma Palmer whose wreath-and-ribbon style bookplate is displayed on the book's front pastedown. I suspect that the manuscript price (pret: 0-2-0, or 2 shillings) found on one of the endpapers refers to the book's second-hand value.