Early English Ownership Inscriptions

Maximus of Tyre, Dissertationes [Paris] : Ex officina Henrici Stephani Parisiensis typographi, MDLVII [1557]. 

2 v. in 1 ;  19 cm. (8vo)

Renaissance Center copy is in later half calf and marbled boards; signatures of T. Lynford and Christopher Harvey "et amicorum" on title page; the price at the top of the page may be in Lynford’s hand; another ownership inscription in ink on the front pastedown has been almost totally erased

This Estienne edition of the Dissertationes of Maximus of Tyre contains a couple notable inscriptions on its title-page. The "T. Lynford" who signed the right side of page may be the Anglican clergyman (bap. 1650, d. 1724) who wrote a series of polemical religious treatises in the 1680s. As the catalog record (written by John Lancaster) for this book points out, the manuscript price at the top of the page may also be in Lynford's hand. The price reads "Pretium 3s." 

The other inscription (sitting directly above the imprint) was carefully penned in a fine Italic hand, and reads "Christopheri Harvey & amicorum." The designation "& amicorum" ("and friends") is not as uncommon as one might think, and became famous as the French book collector Jean Grolier's (1479-1565) hallmark inscription. Christopher Harvey may be Anglican clergyman and poet (1597-1663) who wrote the series of devotional poems known as The Synagogue (1640). According to an essay and catalog published in 1906 (Rev. W.G. Clark-Maxwell, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society), many books in the library at More Church, Shropshire also bear the manuscript inscription "Chr. harvey et amicorum."

Marco Girolamo Vida, Opera. Lyon: Apud Antonium Gryphium, 1566.

575, [1] p. ;  13 cm

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary calf, with a single large panel stamp on each cover and author’s name in ms. on fore-edge (rebacked; covers detached); in phase box; signature of Richard Harvey on title page; armorial crest bookplate of George Thomas Wyndham (with motto "Au bon droit") on front pastedown; signature "Geo M[aplizdry?] his booke" on rear free endpaper; pencil note and clipped bookseller’s description laid in. 

A sixteenth-century English "Harvey" also owned this pocket-sized collection of Vida's works, printed in Lyon by the famed Gryphius Press. The Italic inscription "r. harueij" ("R. Harvey's") belongs to Richard Harvey (1560-1630), the astrologer and younger brother of  Gabriel Harvey (1552/3-1631), scholar and friend of Spenser. Harvey inscribed the author's name on the book's fore-edge:

 

It reads "uid:" i.e. "vid[a]." An early owner (perhaps Harvey) added this note to a detached leaf

 

It reads:

Huius Auctoris Constitutiones Synodales excusa sunt Cremona A.D. 1562. vide Auctarium  Verderii ad Bibliothecam Simleri p. 24

or

The Synodical Decrees of this author were printed [at] Cremona in A.D. 1562. See Auctarium Verderii ad Bibliothecam Simleri [Verderi's addition to Simler's Library] p. 24

Vincenzo Conti printed the quarto Latin book Hieronymi Vidae Albae episc. et comitis Constitutiones synodales eidem ciuitati ac dioecesi praescriptae at Cremona in 1562. A quick search shows three copies in Italy, and one in the United States (Harvard). I have been unable to identify the cited title from the note (lost book?).

A pair of leaves laid in (one probably attached to the book at some time) record bookseller's research into the book, and provide evidence for its sale in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

Finally, the book's front pastedown bears the armorial crest bookplate of George Thomas Wyndham (1806-1830) of Cromer Hall, Norfolk.

Look for an update early next week with more images of manuscript material from this book that I haven't had a chance to photograph. 

UPDATE: You will find two new images beIow just added today, both pieces of manuscript content from Vida, Opera. 

John Lancaster (in his catalog notes) reads this inscription "Geo M[aplizdry?]," and I haven't come up with a better transcription. Anyone heard of this guy?

Finally there is this marginal note in Richard Harvey's hand on p. 193 (mentioned in the bookseller's description shown above). It reads "Homobonus Nouembris. 13," and accompanies some interesting pen marks and underlining. He refers to St. Homobonus of Cremona, whose feast day is November 13. I haven't figured out the Cremona connection between this marginal note and the note earlier in the book about the printing of Vida's Constitutiones synodales.

 

Customizing Camden III

This will be the third and final post on "Customizing Camden," a multi-part series of entries I began three weeks ago that presents images and commentary on the Center's collection of annotated books written by the antiquary William Camden (1551-1623). Today I will focus on two books formerly owned by major figures in early modern England, the London stationer Humphrey Robinson and the Professor of Music at Oxford from 1661-1682, Edward Lowe. 

William Camden, Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha. Lug. Batauorum [Leiden]: Ex officina Elzeviriana, MDCXXV [1625]. [16], XVI, 855, [41] p. :  port. ;  18 cm. (8vo). 

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary calf (lacks portrait); in phase box; inscription on front free endpaper: "Ex dono charissimi amici mri Humphredi Robinson Stationarij Londinensis. a. d. 1627. R.E.", and ms. initials "R.E." on title page; armorial bookplate of J. W & O. Farrer and stamp of the University of Illinois Library on front pastedown; bookseller’s description and invoice (of C.A. Stonehill) to William A. Ringler, Jr., laid in.

First published in 1615, Camden's Annales was the first biography of Queen Elizabeth I. This copy of the 1625 Elzevir edition contains not only the work's first three parts (completed in 1615), but also its fourth (completed in 1617), which Camden instructed his friend Pierre Dupuy of Leiden to publish only after his death (Herendeen, ODNB).

The book was formerly owned by "J.W. and O Ferrer," whose "die-and-sinker style" bookplate (popular in the nineteenth century) sits alongside the ink stamps of the University of Illinois (at Urbana-Champaign) library. 

While the bookplate and stamps may strike one as rather typical marks of provenance in antiquarian books, this gift inscription (on the front free endpaper) is a rarer bird, documenting the book's association with Humphrey Robinson (d. 1670), one of seventeenth-century London's most important and prolific bookseller-publishers. 

The inscription reads:

Ex dono charissimi amici Mri Hum=

phredi Robinson Stationarij

Londinensis. a.d. 1627

                                         R.E.

Translated:

From the gift of [my] dearest friend Mr. Humphrey Robinson of the London Stationers. a.d. 

1627

It may be impossible to determine who "R.E." was (I eagerly invite speculation), but the inscription nonetheless documents the gift-giving activities of an important stationer in the first few years of his full company membership (he became a freeman in 1623). Robinson's career spanned nearly fifty years (1624-1670), during which time he produced such eminent literary works as the Beaumont and Fletcher first folio (with Humphrey Moseley, 1647), John Milton's A Masque presented at Ludlow Castle [Comus] (1637), and Francis Bacon's Essays (1669). As was customary with gift inscriptions of this kind, the text here was written by "R.E.," the recipient of the gift, rather than Humphrey Robinson, the gift-giver. I believe the manuscript price ("4s") is in a different hand, and may have been a retail price associated with the London book trade. 

William Camden, The historie of the most renowned and victorious Princess Elizabeth: late Queen of England: contayning all the important and remarkeable passages of state both home and abroad, during her long and prosperous raigne: composed by way of annals: neuer heretofore so faithfully and fully published in English. 
London: Printed for Benjamin Fisher and are to be sold at his shop in Aldergate streete, at the signe of the Talbot, MDCXXX [1630]. 

[22], 138, 120, 104, [6], 105-148, 224, [20] p. :  port. ;  28 cm. (fol.)

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary (?) calf (lacks Aaa⁴; hinges split at top; final leaf torn); signature "Ed: Lowe" on recto of pi1 and "Edwd. Lowe" on inside front cover; earlier signatures "Richard Whyting [?]" and "John [---]" on recto of pi 1 are partially obliterated in ink; ms. notes on front free endpaper, including "Second hand Cost 4s 2d" in an early hand.  

This 1630 translation of the Annales, "neuer heretofore so faithfully and fully published in English" as the title advertises, contains several interesting manuscript notes dating to the seventeenth century. 

The first of these two inscriptions (the one partially obliterated by ink) appears to read "Robert Whesting." I have been unable to identify him. The second inscription, on the other hand, belongs to Edward Lowe (c. 1610-1682), who served as Professor of Music at Oxford University from 1661-1682. His italic hand and signature survive in a number of contemporary music MSS held in UK institutions. A less stylized version of his signature, from a music manuscript at the British Library, can be seen here.

Lowe also signed the book's inside front cover. 

Perhaps the most interesting manuscript writing in this copy of The Historie of Elizabeth appears on the front free endpaper, a page bearing a number of signatures, scribbles, sums, and notes. I haven't fully worked out the manuscript notes on this page, but there seem to be at least three (probably four) different hands at work. The "Robert Whesting [?]" who signed [pi]1r seems to have begun his signature at the very top of this leaf, to the right of the sum that comes out to 15:0:5. The descender of the majuscule "R" he uses looks very similar to that of the "R" in the note reading "A Receipt" near the edge of the page (both shown below).

Near the top center of the page, in a different hand, a "John W [...]" started to sign his name. In the bottom left-hand corner of the page, in yet a different hand, is a note recording the book's second-hand price: "Second hand / Cost 4s:2d" (shown below).

Finally, in the page's messiest secretary hand (possibly by "John W."), there are a series of notes that appear to relate to someone borrowing the book. 

The annotator begins this note twice (upper center of the page)—"This vnto" and "The Co" —before committing to the substantial note in the page's right center. 

The note itself (marked by two heavily inked vertical lines) reads:

Condicion (of this obligacion)
    is such      s
                               this vnto her returne

                               I affecte as deare

                               as my owne heart

                               yet that receue 

                               mee neare                       

(Special thanks to Heather Wolfe for helping with the transcription.)

The note seems to outline a situation in which someone (probably a lover) was required to return a book to an unknown woman ("her") who the borrower "affecte[d] as deare / as [his] owne heart." This note, along with the book's other manuscript additions, afford us with brief but tantalizing glimpses at both the second-hand book trade and the social practice of book lending in early modern England.

That does it for this week's post and the "Customizing Camden" series. Hope you have enjoyed the entries.

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." 

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.

Packaging a Restoration Play Quarto for the Eighteenth-Century Book Trade

Title Page

John Dennis (1657-1734),

A plot, and no plot : a comedy, as it is acted at the Theatre-Royal, in Drury-Lane / written by Mr. Dennis.

London : Printed for R. Parker, at the Sign of the Unicorn under the Royal Exchange in Cornhil: P. Buck, at the Sign of the Temple, near the Inner Temple Gate, Fleetstreet: and R. Wellington, at the Lute in St. Paul's Churchyard,  [1697].

[8], 79, [1] p. ; 21 cm. (4to). RECENTLY ACQUIRED AND CATALOGED

In most cases I wouldn't get too excited about a Restoration play quarto, especially this one, since it isn't that rare (ESTC lists 38 copies) and the play itself isn't that good (I doubt John Dennis will make it into the Arden Early Modern Drama series). I like the paradoxical title, because it was probably inspired by Beaumont and Fletcher's tragicomedy A King and No King (1619), which enjoyed a considerable vogue during the Restoration. The author is also interesting in his own right. John Dennis was better known as a literary critic than a dramatist, and in a piece of travel writing he recorded an early articulation of the aesthetic concept of the "sublime" that would become famous in the works of Edmund Burke and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His career in the theater was not a success, although one of his failed performances occasioned his coining of the phrase "to steal one's thunder." Dennis had invented a new way to make thunder for theatrical performance, but since his play flopped, he didn't get much use out of the innovation. When a performance of Macbeth used the same thunder a few nights later, Dennis claimed they "stole his thunder."

In any case, what interests me about this book is not its contribution to the history of dramatic literature, but its material form, especially what that material form may reveal about the market for drama in the early English book trade. Unlike most extant play quartos one can find in research libraries today, this particular play has not been rebound. Not only does the quarto bear remnants of its early stab-stitched binding, it also contains the front cover of a nearly contemporary blue paper wrapper. Throughout the hand-press period (and even today) pamphlets and other examples of ephemeral literature are rarely seen bound into codex form (unless they were bound together with other items in a sammelband or nonce collection): a crude stab-stitching or stapling job has proven sufficient for cheap print over the centuries. But this isn't to say booksellers and binders didn't worry about protecting the printed contents of their pamphlets, because they did: they just used cheaper materials to do so. The paper wrapper, therefore, was widely used to create a pamphlet's "covers," and would have been the first defense between the printed text and the outside world. To state the obvious, these paper wrappers just don't survive that often.

recto of front wrapper

This particular paper wrapper has a number of unique qualities. First it must be noted the wrapper isn't contemporary with the printed pamphlet; that's not to say this piece of paper dates to the modern age, but the evidence suggests the wrapper was added about ninety years after the play was printed. I will delve into the details of this evidence in a moment, but for now what this ninety year gap between printing and packaging suggests is that the wrapper was not part of the pamphlet's original packaging, but part of a repackaging, probably for the second hand book trade. And we can can be fairly certain a bookseller (rather than a private or institutional owner) added the wrapper because it bears a few written and printed clues related to the trade. In what could very well be an eighteenth-century hand, a few manuscript notes on the wrapper's recto note the play's title ("Plot & no Plot"), its price ("1s"), and an unidentified number ("6764"), probably an inventory code of some kind. But the wrapper fragment's verso offers even stronger evidence that this is in fact a bookseller's wrapper.

 

verso of front wrapper: English book advertisement ca.1787

The wrapper fragment doubles as a piece of a broadside advertisement marketing a book published in the 1780s. The book in question is Ephraim Chamber's Cyclopedia (editions from 1728-1787), the first major English encyclopedia and a huge influence on important eighteenth-century writings such as Samuel Johnson's Dictionary and the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert. The advertisement markets the book as the source of "information and improvement for mankind," noting its influence in France "where science hath been...cultivated and encouraged." The ad exists in only one full copy at the British Library, so it is an extremely rare piece of printed ephemera. The ESTC record (ESTC T14278) dates it to [1787?], probably because internal evidence refers to the 1753 Supplement of the Cyclopedia issued "some years ago." The record also contains a note identifying the bookseller responsible for the advertisement, a piece of text on the ad missing in the fragment shown here: "Communications may be addressed to the editor, Mr. Longman’s, bookseller..." The title page to the five-volume 1786-88 edition of the Cyclopedia lists a "T. Longman" as one of over a dozen booksellers authorized to sell the work.

This particular book seems to answer a few questions I have about the early English book trade. What could a play quarto have looked like on the stalls of a bookshop in the hand-press period? How were books packaged for the second-hand book trade? What sorts of materials did booksellers use and reuse to package their wares? Although the case of this book can only answer such questions for the eighteenth-century book trade, considering that the ad/wrapper dates to the hand-press period and that it is so rare for these book advertisements to survive, I think it is fair to say this copy of A Plot and no Plot could offer an approximate model for how plays were packaged and sold in earlier periods, perhaps even during Shakespeare's career. The book remarkably demonstrates the ephemeral nature of the play quarto in a number of ways; in this case, the ephemeral printed pamphlet is protected by an even more ephemeral piece of early advertising. The quarto also records an instance of booksellers reusing old advertisements to package their products, modeling a practice of material recycling that must have been vital for a trade in which raw materials were expensive. All things considered, modern readers and scholars may never read this play for its contributions to the history of dramatic literature, but its material form could very well help illuminate the history of the early English book trade and the market for early printed drama.