Customizing Camden II

Continuing with the focus of last week's post, today I'll write about a few more of our copies of works written by the antiquary William Camden, all of which contain unique manuscript content added by former owners. Last week I highlighted our two copies of Camden's Remaines, especially how owners added their own manuscript epitaphs, proverbs, and apothegms to the printed book. Today's examples deal more specifically with provenance and ownership inscriptions.

Britannia, sive, Florentissimorum regnorum, Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, et insularum adjacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descriptio. Londini: Impensis Georg. Bishop [at the Eliot's Court Press], 1590
[16] 762, [22] p. : Ill. : 19 cm. (8vo). STC  4505

Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary calf (head and foot of spine, and back hinge, torn; several leaves lacking: C1, 3D1, and 3D8); signed on rear flyleaf: "Thos Charles’s book"; a fragment of a printed (incunable?) bifolium is inside back cover, under the turn-ins; a similar fragment appears to be undeneath the (later) front pastedown; stamp on title page and p. 299 of the Theological College, Bala, noting it as from the library of the late principal, T. Charles Edwards.

The purple stamp on the title page places the book in the library of Thomas Charles Edwards (1837-1900), a Welsh minister who held the post of Principal at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. Dated May, 1900 (two months after Edwards' death), the stamp is associated with the "Theological College, Bala," (Bala, Gwynedd, Wales) a school that Edwards helped found. 

At an earlier point in history (probably the eighteenth century) a "Thomas Charles" owned the book, as can be seen in this manuscript inscription. 

Perhaps shortly after the book was printed, a book craftsman used a fragment of a bifolium (perhaps an incunable) to strengthen the binding. I have been unable to identify the text as of yet.

Britannia, sive, Florentissimorum regnorum, Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, et insularum adjacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descriptio. Londini: [at Eliot's Court Press] per Radulphum Newbery, 1587. 
[16], 648, [24] p. : ill ; 17 cm. (8vo). STC 4504


Renaissance Center copy is in contemporary vellum (portion of backstrip detached, revealing ms. waste in binding; detached piece laid in at back); in phase box; several ornamental initials have been hand-colored, probably much later; signatures on title page: "Jos.a Dobson" and "Carolus [Fynn?] Anno 1771"; some random pen-trials.

This title page of this book bears two ownership inscriptions: "Jos.[eph] a. Dobson" and "Carlous [Fynn?] Anno 1771." While one cannot determine this for certain, it is likely one of these two owners hand-colored several of the book's ornamental initials.

It is unlikely this hand-coloring is contemporary, but considering the late eighteenth-century provenance on the title page it is still possible that this decoration was added several hundred years ago. The colored initials display a variety of inks and paints; I detect no fewer than seven different pigments in this capital "A" for instance. 

The "N" shown here is outlined in gold paint and bears an equal variety of pigments and inks. 

From this broader vantage point, one can see how the color really enhances the aesthetic appearance of the book. 


Unfortunately due to time constraints I will have to wait until the next post to talk about our two Camden books with the most interesting early modern provenance (related to Edward Lowe, seventeenth-century Professor of Music at Oxford University; and the London stationer Humphrey Robinson). I'll be away from the blog next week, but expect "Customizing Camden III" on the following Friday.

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!