Seventeenth-Century French Devotional Manuscript

After weeks of writing articles for the Renaissance Center's newsletter and installing our latest rare book exhibit (on early modern emblem books), I can finally turn my attention to the blog and its long overdue first post of 2011. The subject of this post is a recently acquired bound sammelband, composed of several French devotional texts in both print and manuscript. 

Divers Traitez povr la vie spirituelle, & religieuse. À Bray. 1665
Contemporary blind-stamped calf; spine decorated in blind with five raised bands; contemporary [?] metal-clasps; French nonpareil marbled endpapers. 16 cm (8vo). 

Entitled "diverse treatises on the spiritual and religious life," this handy book is a sammelbande of devotional texts and prayers compiled at Bray-sur-Seine, France in 1665. The book is divided into three main sections: the first contains four carefully written fair-copy texts, the second contains part of a printed pamphlet, and the third contains several leaves of miscellaneous devotional materials in MS, primarily prayers. The scribe decorated the fair copy texts with beautiful hand-drawn ornamentation. 

The contemporary calf binding has two metal clasps that probably date to the same time as the composition of the sammelbande. The nonpareil endpapers correspond to the kind used in seventeenth-century France, further suggesting that the binding of the book dates to the same time as the writing of the text. While we have no clues as to the identity of this book's compiler, an endpaper with ink-obliterated gift inscriptions may provide some clues. I am in no way an expert on French paleography or the French language, but I believe the inscription reads "ce livre apartien a ma soeur de la villerobert [?]," or "this book belongs to my sister of [???]." Although I haven't identified what I've transcribed as "villerobert," I think it is clear this book belonged at one point to a nun, probably in a convent near Bray-sur-Seine. 

The fair copy manuscript texts with which the book begins look like they have been copied from printed books, yet we have not been able to find any printed books that correspond to these titles or their texts. The four texts in question—“Maniere d’entendre la Messe” (the way to listen to the mass),  “Discovrs sur la Perfection requise en l’Estat Religieux” (discourse on the perfection demanded in a religious state), “Discovrs de la vie Interieure, Religieuse, & Spirituelle” (discourse of the interior, religious, and spiritual life), and “Discovrs et Exhortation du vray Nouiciat” (discourse and exhortation of the true novitiate)—seem to have been custom-written and copied for the book's audience, although the subject matter details somewhat commonplace knowledge about devotional practices that certainly appears in other printed books and manuscripts.

According to the title of the second and third texts, we are told they were "fait par Messire Octaue de Bellagarde Archevesque de Sens," that is, made for Archbishop Octave de Saint-Lary de Bellagarde, who served as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Sens, France from 1621-1646. The scribe has provided a colophon at the end of the second text which dates its transcription at Bray-sur-Seine to 1665, and indicates that the original writing of the text was completed on July 29, 1620. So it seems like this Archbishop commissioned the writing of these two devotional guides, and at one point manuscript examplars of these texts existed.

The portions of the book in fair-copy feature a number of intricately penned ornaments adorning the text. These seem to be executed in imitation of printed ornamentation, although the detail in the MS drawings is much more fine and intricate. The scribe does not repeat any of the ornaments twice, and at several points adds very ornate drawings to the ends of the individual texts (as seen below).

I still think it is likely some of this ornamentation was copied from printed books, so if anyone recognizes any of these designs please let me know!

The fragmentary printed book that occupies the structural center of the composite volume is exceedingly rare. The text is Pierre de Bérulle, Claude Cayne, and P Jujart, Lettre aux religieuses de l'ordre de Nostre Dame du Mont-Carmel, érigé en France, selon la première observance; Par Monseigneur l'Illustrissime Cardinal de Berulle, leur Superieur et Visiteur. S.l: S.n, 1644. The copy is imperfect, missing A1 and everything after C4, but it is the only copy I could find other than the one held by the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon. These letters to the nuns of Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel—which according to the book's subtitle were intended in part "authoriser le formulaire qu'elles doivent suivre" (to authorize the formula that they must follow)—nicely complement the fair copy texts in their emphasis on the proper way to conduct one's life in a religious order. 

Finally, the volume's concluding leaves form a devotional manuscript miscellany, written far less carefully than the MS texts with which the book begins. As you can see from the images above, this section contains writing in various hands and inks, corresponding to notes and prayers undoubtedly written down at different points in time. If the fair-copy and printed texts that begin the book provide a codified and carefully prepared guide to the "spiritual and religious life," then the miscellany that ends the book seems to be space for collecting prayers and litanies that the book's owner learned elsewhere. This section contains an “oraison a Sainte geneviesue patrone de paris” (Bray-sur-Seine and the Archbishopric of Sens being close southeastern neighbors of Paris), the Litany of St. Bernard, “litanies de notre pere sains francois de salles," and “litanies de la bieu heureux jeanne francoise fremiot de chantal.”

As one of our few bound manuscripts, I am excited to have this book in our collection and would love to conduct more extensive research into its producers and owners, as well as the religious communities/networks through which it might have passed. Information is welcome.

Manuscript verse on the Death of Queen Elizabeth

Raphael Holinshed, Third Volume of Chronicles. [London : Printed by Henry Denham, for John Harrison, George Bishop, Ralph Newbery, Henry Denham, and Thomas Woodcock, 1587]
3 v. in 2 ;  39 cm. (fol.)   STC (2nd ed.) 13569

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary diced calf (rebacked); stamped in gilt on each cover of each volume is the garter, enclosing a griffin crest, surmounted by a ducal coronet (perhaps one of the dukes of Montagu?); this copy includes an additional physical volume, containing most of one of the 18th-century editions (attributed to 1728) of the sheets that had been removed, in which the units are signed a-zz (units a, b, and zz are not present; see Maslen for details); in this copy, v. 3, p. 1328-1331 are not cancelled; in v. 1, A2 is misbound following A3 ; only the text of the title page to v. 3 is present; the woodcut border incorporating 11 portraits (McKerrow and Ferguson 131; this use not noted) has been cut off; the text has been remargined and the page bordered with ms. ink rules; the full title page is supplied in facsimile; front free endpaper and flyleaves of v. 3 detached; there is crude hand coloring of initials and headpieces in v. 3; ms. verse on the death of Elizabeth on p. [1593], v. 3.

In the third volume of our copy of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a former owner has added in manuscript a short poem commemorating Queen Elizabeth I. In all likelihood the poem was written shortly after her death. It reads as follows:

Cum sistures hellep hur body to intear
whose lyuef to us wase odures and swet mear [myrhh]
you sacred nimpes hang gearlandes on hur tome
whose corpes doeth reste till hur redemur Cum

deum Elisabeth

While the italic hand (possibly belonging to a woman) is easy to read, the spelling makes for a relatively challenging transcription; for instance, by rhyming "mear" with "intear" ("inter"), I was able to determine the correct reading of "myrhh." The verse here is not spectacular, but its structure is interesting since the poem begins and ends with the same word. I am assuming the "sistures" and "sacred nimpes" are the muses, whom the poet calls upon to "hellep...intear" the Queen's body.

The volume has several more interesting features. The diced-calf binding features a gilt armorial stamp, which depicts "the garter, enclosing a griffin crest, surmounted by a ducal coronet (perhaps one of the dukes of Montagu?)" (according to our catalog record). The verso of the flyleaf bears an associated book label, which repeats the armorial design from the binding. This particular volume was housed in "Case H, Shelf 1." 

Several of the volume's ornaments and historiated initials have been hand-colored, perhaps by a contemporary. The unpolished coloring job possibly suggests it was executed with a stencil.

 

Special thanks to John Lancaster for finding this poem and cataloging this book. With the end of the semester and the holidays quickly approaching, this will probably be my last blog post of 2010. We've acquired some interesting materials in the last few weeks that I plan to write about in January. Thanks for reading and I'll see you in the New Year!

Family Bibles

The Center owns two copies of the “Geneva Bible,” one of the most famous English translations of the scriptures and an enormous influence on Renaissance literature and culture, including the plays of William Shakespeare. As is the case with copies of most old “family” bibles, they contain various examples and genres of manuscript annotation, all of which reflect various social roles of the book. The Bible held an important function for the early modern family (as it has for families in many historical periods), building community through sessions of reading aloud while at the same time guiding the moral and spiritual development of its owners. It also served as an important educational site, especially in the development of literacy; MS annotations consisting of “pen trials” and other forms of handwriting practice found in bibles suggest they were used in this way. The typically extensive and personalized annotation of bibles should also come as no surprise since many households of the time owned only one book, usually a Bible, Book of Common Prayer, or John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments.

 

The Bible : translated according to the Ebrew and Greeke, and conferred with the best translations in diuers languages [Geneva Bible]. Imprinted at London: By the Deputies of Christopher Barker, printer to the Queenes most excellent Maiestie, 1598. 

[2], 434, [4], 441-554 leaves; [164] p. ; 23 cm. (4to). STC (2nd ed.) 2171   

Renaissance Center copy has the New Testament of the 1599 Barker edition; in later mottled calf, in phase box; births and baptisms of the children of Richard Palmer are recorded on 3I2v and *1v (dated 1627-1638); signature of Edmund Pell (1719) on 3I2v; inscribed on front pastedown: "Geoffrey Palmer bought at Lampert [?] March 1857"; given to the Renaissance Center by William A. Ringler.

These notes, written in English secretary hand, record the births of various members of the Palmer family in the 1620s, including Richard (the father), and his daughters Anne, Jone, and Avelina. I believe that Richard Palmer wrote the entries and crossed out the first record, which is essentially the same as the third (the birth of Anne Palmer), except for its incorrect birth times. But there is the also the possibility Richard wanted his own entry to hold the primary position in the family records. 

The first two entries (for Richard and Anne) read as follows:

Richard Palmer the soone of Jefferie

Palmer was baptised the x daye of Iunne

in the yeare of our Lorde 1572

Anne Palmer the Dautter of Richard

Palmer was borne at Winge the ffifth

daye of September beinge Wedsonda[y]

betwixte one and Twelfe a Cloke at

nighte: 1627    

blank leaf with ms family records

The second leaf continues with seventeenth-century Palmer family records, including the birth (and death) of his son Charles, along with the death and burial of Avelina Palmer. The records also contain the names of two godfathers (Sir Anthony Coolly and Roger Palmer) and a later ownership inscription from an Edmund Pell, dated 1719.

The Bible : translated according to the Ebrew and Greeke, and conferred with the best translations in diuers languages [Geneva Bible]. Imprinted at London : By Christopher Barker, printer to the Queenes most excellent Maiestie, 1586. 

[2], 434, [4], 441-554 leaves; [164] p. ;  21 cm. STC (2nd ed.) 2145.   

See catalog record for detailed local notes. 


Our other copy of the Geneva Bible, published in 1586, probably contains one of the greatest chronological ranges of annotation of any books in the collection."Robert White of Babworth," whose ownership inscription appears several times throughout the book, appears to be one of the bible's earliest owners. On leaf containing the "preface to the Christian reader" (shown above), he has added an inscription in the period's secretary hand: "Who soeuer heare in doe looke Robert White."

This leaf contains a number of additional early inscriptions, including two more by Robert White ("Robert White Bookee" and "Robert White Booke"). Nicholas and Francis Kent, two men who owned the book in the later seventeenth century, have also added their names, as has a Thomas Hemsworth. In a faint ink at the bottom of the leaf one can just make out a record related to his son Robert (I cannot determine if this is a record of birth, baptism, or burial): "Robert hemsworth the sonne of Thomas hemsworth [????] the [??] of marche."

I wrote about these manuscript annotations in an earlier post. It consists of yet another ownership inscription by Nicholas Kent, who has added an amusing piece of doggerel verse relating to the book.

 

 

The three images above depict a series of leaves containing Hindson family records dating to the eighteenth century. The manuscript annotations are fairly standard for family records in bibles, being very similar to the seventeenth-century notes related to the Palmer family I transcribed above. The second image contains not only the Hindson family records but also inscriptions from the book's earlier ownership history, including "Robert" in Robert White's hand and a gift inscription related to the Kents: "John Kent Book given by his Uncle Richard Kent who was Buryed ye 14th day of Aprill, Anno Domine 1671." The third image contains more of the Hindson records, including one related to a family business: "Began to work with my father July 12 1766."

This image contains some of the book's latest family records, related to the Dawbarn family in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Written in a number of different hands and inks, the annotations record births, marriages, and deaths of family members from the 1820s to the 1910s, including Robert Hugh McKay Dawbarn, described as a "noted surgeon." 

The final image bears a gift inscription dated 15 July 1849, when a "Miss Robinson of Newark, England" presented the bible to "Charles Dawbarn of Wisbeck, England." The remainder of the inscription describes the bible's special place within several families during its history:

"This Bible the comfort of 'a family' for many generations, now passes from the possession of its last survivor, with the earnest prayer, that its blessings may rest upon many succeeding generations."

Bookplates and Provenance II: late 19th-early 20th centuries

Since I am giving a talk next Wednesday at the Center (Reading Room at 4pm on 11/10) on "Bindings and Bookplates" from the collection, I have focused this post on some of the materials I plan to discuss. During the talk I will demonstrate the historical styles and materials used in bookbinding with items from the collection, some of which I will pass around. I also plan on showing digital images of bookplates and labels from the collection representative of different styles and subjects. What follows are several bookplates from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. 

Nineteenth-Century Circular Style (1897)

Charles I, King of England, Reliquae sacrae Carolinae, or The works of that great monarch and glorious martyr King 

Charles I 

Hague [i.e. London] : Printed by Samuell Browne [i.e. by William DuGard for Francis Eglesfield], 1651.

[16], 276, [6], 268, 10, 149-324 p., [2] leaves of plates (1 folded) :  ill., port. : ;  18 cm. (8vo).

Renaissance Center copy 1 is in contemporary calf (rebacked; front inner hinge cracked); armorial bookplate of Alan Stepney-Gulston (printed in red, with printed date "1897" and place "Y Derwydd"; an additional portrait, of Charles II at age 19, is bound facing p. 231 of the Eikon basilike. 

Demonstrating the typical nineteenth-century "circular style," this bookplate belonged to Alan Stepney-Gulston of Derwydd estate, Carmarthenshire, Wales. Ownership of Derwydd estate has been traced back to 1500, but it is in the eighteenth century when the Stepney-Gulston family (arising from marriages to Sir Thomas Stepney of of Llanelli and Joseph Gulston) anchored its identity there. It seems the estate was in its heyday during the eighteenth century, went into a slow decline thereafter, and was eventually sold in 1998. Nonetheless, Derwydd's nineteenth-century residents had tried to restore the estate to its former splendor. Alan Stepney-Gulston (1844-1919), an avid collector of artifacts and sometime president of the Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society, refurbished Derwydd and filled it with curious antiquities. Alan was also an accomplished poet, painter, and photographer. The Stepney-Gulston motto—"crescit sub pondere virtus"—commonly translates to "virtue thrives under oppression."

Bookplate as book: Vienna, 1916

Hugo Grotius, De jure belli ac pacis libri tres. Amstelodami : Sumptibus Abrahami à Someren, MDCLXXXIX [1689].
[14], XXXIV, 904, [16], 32, [108] p. :  ill., port. ;  21 cm. (8vo).  
Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary sprinkled calf (hinges partly cracked); bookplate of Oscar Ladner (dated in the plate 1916) on front pastedown

This bookplate adopts the form of an actual book, the title page bearing the typical ex libris information and an "imprint" noting where and when it was produced (Vienna, 1916). The plate belonged to Oscar Leopold Ladner,  an Austrian Jew of Bohemian descent who owned a factory in Vienna. With his wife Alice (depicted in the bookplate's "frontispiece"), he had a son Gerhart, who would become an accomplished twentieth-century art historian and produce important work on papal portraiture. In Vienna, the Ladners were acquaintances of Sigmund Freud and his daughter Anna.

The Lotos Club plate

Thomas De Laune, Tropologia, or, A Key to open scripture metaphors
London : Printed by John Richardson, and John Darby, for Enoch Prosser, at the Rose and Crown in Swithins Alley, at the East-End of the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, MDCLXXXI [1681].
[20], 207, [9], 14 p., 15-16 leaves, 17-328, 76, [12] p. ;  32 cm.   
Renaissance Center is in 19th-century full brown morocco with brown and blue morocco doublures; bookplate of Georgie Briar Slater on verso of front free endpaper; bookplate of the Lotos Club, New York, on front flyleaf; a signature at the top of A2r, dated 1755, with a strip of paper mounted over it, appears to read "John Gweilnap". 
Renaissance Center copy bound with: Benjamin Keach. Troposchēmalogia. London : Printed by John Darby, for the author, 1682. 

"In the afternoon they came into a land / in which it seemed always afternoon." The quote is from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Lotos Eaters" and serves as the motto for the New York City based "Lotos Club" (1870-present). It is one of the United States' oldest literary clubs and was apparently founded as a place to host and impress visitors from abroad. According to its constitution as cited on the club's website, “the objectives of this institution shall be to promote and develop literature, art, sculpture, music, architecture, journalism, drama, science, education and the learned professions, and to that end to encourage authors, artists, sculptors, architects, journalists, educators, scientists and members of the musical, dramatic, and learned professions in their work, and for these purposes to provide a place of assembly for them and other persons interested in and sympathetic to them, and their objectives, effort and work.” The design of the bookplate itself was clearly influenced by Egyptian art and the aesthetics of the Art Nouveau movement.

Harold Chapin's plate, with harlequin

Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso. In Venetia : Presso i Sessa, MDCIX [1609].
365 (i.e. 265), [5] leaves :  ill. ;  17 cm. (8vo).   
Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary (?) vellum (title page mutilated, removing most of date; date and description of 2L7,8 from Agnelli & Ravegnani); ms. "C.W. Heckethorn" on front; bookplate of Harold Chapin on front free endpaper (with the designer’s initials "S.L.R.") and his signature on front pastedown.

Harold Chapin (1886-1915) was an English stage actor and playwright who worked in London for the majority of his career. His plays were produced in the West End theaters as well as in New York City. He wrote several one-act plays and is best known for his three-act "The New Morality." Tragically Chapin was killed in action during World War I in the service of Britain's Royal Army Medical Corps. His "pictorial style" bookplate features a harlequin, one of the comic descendants of the zanni characters from commedia dell'arte and a fitting image for an actor. Chapin's four-act "Marriage of Columbine" features the typical theatrical trio of Columbine, Pierrot, and Harlequin. 

Ex Libris of Frederick Keel

William Hone, Ancient Mysteries Described: especially the English Miracle Plays 
London : Printed for William Hone, 45, Ludgate Hill, by J. M’Creery, Tooks Court, 1823.   
[2], x, [11]-298, [2] p., [4] leaves of plates (1 folded) :  ill. (1 col.) ;  22 cm.    
Renaissance Center copy is in a binding with a modern calf spine and earlier marbled boards and leather corners (lacks final advertisement leaf); bookplate of Frederick Keel on front pastedown, with his note on front free endpaper: "given to me from grandfather Compton’s library 1909. F.K." 

The German-American baritone singer Frederick James Keel (1874-1954) had a keen interest in the songs and ballads of early modern England. In 1909 he edited Elizabethan Love-Songs (London: Boosey and Company), which he dedicated to his wife. Keel also edited collections of folk songs and wrote his own ballads, including several with nautical themes. His pictorial bookplate exhibits influences of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Art Nouveau movement. The pastoral scene represented on the plate depicts two young lovers listening to a harper within a picturesque landscape. As in the Chapin bookplate above, artist-book owners often used the iconography of the bookplate to symbolize their chosen artistic vocations. 

Reactionary Manuscript Annotation

marginal note, p.1

Walter Travers, A full and plaine declaration of ecclesiasticall discipline owt off the word off God, and off the declininge off the churche off England from the same. [Heidelberg]: Imprinted [by Michael Schirat], M.D.LXXIIII. [1574]. STC 24184. 4to. Later half-calf binding with marbled boards.

Polemical religious texts of the period were frequent targets of dismissive, combative, or outright hostile manuscript marginalia. William Sherman investigates this fascinating material practice through an annotated copy of Cardinal Allen’s True, sincere, and modest Defense of English Catholiques (1584), formerly owned by Richard Topcliffe, the Queen’s torturer (Used Books, xvii-xx). While not as offensive as a public defense of English Catholicism, the Ecclesiasticae disciplinae et Anglicanae ecclesiae ab illa aberrationis, plena e verbo Dei, et dilucida explicatio of Walter Travers (a Cambridge-educated English puritan living in Geneva) prompted much criticism from mainstream Anglicans. Published anonymously at Heidelberg in both Latin and English versions, the book espoused a Presbyterian model of church government, which replaced clerical hierarchy with a four-fold ministry of pastors, doctors, elders, and deacons. In applying this model to the Anglican Church, Travers argued against the administrative role of the diocesan episcopate, claiming that the model church in the New Testament presented bishops not as figures of “authority over other clergy, but merely ministers of local congregations” (DNB).

An early reader of the Center’s copy clearly took exception to Travers’ attack on episcopacy, as evinced in a number of reactive manuscript notes. The first, written in response to a sub-title on pg. 1 (“Necessitye off Disciplyne”) and firmly supportive of orthodox English views, reads: “Our State deny it not.”

marginal note, p. 7

A second, lengthier manuscript annotation continues the argument between reader and text, again espousing the orthodox views of the Anglican Church (due to the trimmed margins this is only an approximate transcription):

“we graunt it...certaine yet so...as that liberty is left to nursing [the]...ffaltse [?], & moths...of ye Church t...dispose of man...externall and...indiferent things...according to the...nature age quality & other circum-stances to be con-sidered in ther Child one, state for Hoc [?] omnia omnibus [all things for all people] et semper conveniunt [they always agree] . with this caueat of Pawle. omnia s[....] ant ordine, et a-edificationem, et charitatem conseruandam” (7).

marginal note, p.19

Some of the manuscript notes cite Latin or Biblical authorities, while others clearly voice the reader’s informed personal opinion on the matter. Take this example from p. 19 for instance:

“this also is gran-ted wherfore we haue degrees in vniuersities; [struckthrough] & orders from Bishopes with-out which it is not lawfull for any to take vppon him the ministry. And if th[er] be as euer ther w[ere] faltes committed in this as in all causes it is Personarum not Legum error et peccatum [an error and sin of persons not of law]” (pg. 19; shown here).

marginal note, p.23

A note appearing later in the book, “They are not allow[ed] in the practise of our Church,” responds to a point in the printed text criticizing English “women and midwives” who “take vpon them that parte off the office off the minister To baptize children in case off daunger off their lives.”

This copy of Travers' Full and Plaine Declaration presents a case of readers engaging directly with the ideas of a book through material practices. When readers annotate to "take notes" (as an aide memoire, indexical technique, or method of digesting knowledge), they typically enhance the accessibility of knowledge within the book: it is understood that the book is worth reading, annotating, and digesting, and the notes help to streamline this process. But when readers annotate to disagree, especially when the book in question contains political or religious polemic, they create a sort of "anti-text" in which  manuscript notes consistently undermine the argumentative bent of the printed work. In annotated books on theology such as this one, the back-and-forth argument between printed text and manuscript annotations approximates the discursive practices of the religious polemical dialogue: one side asserts a point, the other side disagrees, the one replies, the other replies to that reply. The biggest difference with the annotated book, of course, is the fact this dialogue is not a dynamic one. Because Travers is not physically present to address the annotator's theological issues, the annotator can continue his argument indefinitely by adding more and more notes without having to consider counterarguments or other developments in the debate: his opponent's position will always remain static, fixed within the print on the page.

John Johnson (1662-1725), The clergy-man’s vade-mecum, or, An account of the ancient and present Church of England; the duties and rights of the clergy; and of their privileges and hardships : containing full directions relating to ordination, institution, induction, and most of the difficulties which they commonly meet with in the discharge of their office. 

London : Printed for John Nicholson, Robert Knaplock, and Samuel Ballard, in Little-Britain and St. Paul’s Church-yard, 1715. 

[24], 362, [34] p. ; 16 cm. (12mo).

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary calf (hinges cracked); in phase box; pencil signature of Will: Laurence dated June 11: 1718 on rear free endpaper (handwriting is questionable as to date); signature "Ed. Griffin. 1751" on rear pastedown; name and date repeated on front pastedown (with addition "Rector of Dingley"), but in the same hand that signs "Edward Griffin - nepos praedicti - Rector of Stoke Albany; extensive ms. marginalia. 1851." 


 This book was first printed in 1708 intended as a manual for members of the English clergy. It outlines various responsibilities and points of information pertaining to clerical life, including chapters on ecclesiastical hierarchy, “pluralities and dispensations,” and the “privileges and hardships of the clergy.”

ownership inscriptions

According to its ownership inscriptions, an Edward Griffin, rector of Dingley, Northamptonshire, owned the book in the middle of the eighteenth century. Rev. Griffin’s annotations suggest he was very concerned with the various responsibilities he held as rector, particularly with those related to the sound management and care of the property. For instance, he took a series of notes on the book’s endpapers referencing sections of the text dealing with the fate of old surplices and other church goods, especially the potential legal ramifications of their improper disposal.

"What if there be no C.Yard?"

In this image Griffin directly replies to the instructions and recommendations found in his clerical manual. Here the text suggests that services be held in a church-yard if the actual building has “fall’n down.” Griffin’s reply at the bottom of the page—“What if there be no C.yard?”—reflects its owner’s doubting and slightly anxious reaction to the book’s instructions. Unless Griffin was just an overly skeptical man, it seems likely that the Church at Dingley was in some state of disrepair, and that it decidedly lacked a church-yard.

"'Two are chosen to serve’ etc. by whom?”

This image contains similarly consternated manuscript reactions to the text. The text discusses the process through which proctors were chosen in dioceses containing multiple archdeaconries. Griffin is clearly confused by the fact that the book doesn’t specify who chooses these proctors: “Two are chosen to serve’ etc. by whom?” The forceful underlining amplifies Griffin’s negative reaction to the text’s imprecise wording and incomplete instructions.

Once again, it is clear the anxiety, frustration, and anger conveyed in these reactionary manuscript notes met with no immediate redress; after all, the book cannot respond to the critical questions its annotator has posed to it. At the same time, the annotations reveal some aspects of Edward Griffin's character: he is clearly a curious and thoughtful man who cares deeply about the welfare of his parish. At least for me, the annotations rouse an amusing sense of pity. Here we have a printed book intended as a handy "how-to" guide for English clergymen, printed in numerous editions throughout the eighteenth century to meet a seemingly large demand for the text. But for Edward Griffin out in Dingley, Northamptonshire (current population of 209)—in a parish apparently dealing with a church in disrepair—the manual simply did not fit the bill. Was the book popular? Yes. Was it in high demand among the English clergy? Probably. Was it useful for Griffin? Evidently not. For him, regardless of the book's utility on a number of topics, it was severely short-sighted on some of the issues he and his parishioners cared most about.

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.