CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Newsletter

CILIP Rare Books and Special
Collections Newsletter
Issue 99
March 2015
Upper Hall, York Minster Library
Issued March 2015
© CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group and contributors.
ISSN 0959 1656
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Contents
Editors notes
Directory of Rare Book and Special Collections
Visit to York Minster Library
Northern Rare Books Librarians forum
Exhibitions
Book reviews
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Page 3
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Page 9
Editor’s note
Welcome to the 99th issue of the Rare Books and Special Collections Group newsletter. Karen
Brayshaw and Sarah Griffin have just taken over joint editorship and we would like our first task to
be to thank the previous editor Sarah Mahurter for all her work.
This issue includes meeting reports and book reviews which we hope you will enjoy reading. We
would very much like to know the sort of things you would like to see in the newsletter so let Karen
or Sarah know your ideas and suggestions. It would be great to feature a picture of a different library
each issue so please do send us some lovely images of your building.
We would also be delighted to receive articles and notices for inclusion. The newsletter will appear 3
times a year in March, July and November. Last dates for submission will therefore be end of
February, end of June and end of October. We look forward to hearing from you!
Don’t forget to save space in your diaries for the 2015 Rare Books and Special Collections Group
Annual Study Conference Revealing Collections which will be held in London Wednesday 2nd to
Friday 4th September.
Further details and booking will be announced soon on the CILIP RBSCG
webpage http://www.cilip.org.uk/about/special-interest-groups/rare-books-and-special-collectionsgroup and via Twitter @CILIPRareBooks #rbscg15
Karen Brayshaw
Sarah Griffin
[email protected]
[email protected]
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Directory of Rare Book and Special Collections
Those following the blog for the new edition of the Directory of Rare Book and Special Collections in
the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland may have noticed that it has gone dead. Not so
the Directory itself! As we go to press, the final entries are being processed, prior to the writing of
the preliminaries and appendices, and loose ends chased. All sorts of interesting things have
emerged in the compilation of entries: the conglomeration of collections; decentralisation of
collections (away from London); the ubiquity of certain types of material, such as Civil War tracts and
private press books; the corporate, local or national identity noticeable in many collections (the
emphasis on food and drink in collections at London’s Guildhall was striking).
The first publicity about the Directory has taken place. Last November the editor gave an address on
“Our Island’s Printed Heritage: Special Collections in the British Isles Today”, based on the Directory,
as the annual lecture to the Senate House Library Friends (University of London), and in March 2015
librarians from the Rare Books and Special Collections Section of IFLA showed their interest in it at
an introductory talk at the Section’s mid-term meeting in London.
Publication is expected in the autumn.
RBSCG NW - Visit to York Minster Library – 20th July 2014
The RBSCG were warmly greeted by Sarah Griffin, Special Collections and York Minster Librarian who
began the visit by explaining a little about the working relationship between the University of York
and York Minster. The York Minster library is staffed by the University and in return there is free
access for all staff and students at the University. Over 90% of users are university staff and
students, especially postgraduate students studying Medieval Studies; it is much more of a research
library rather than a theological library.
There has been a library at York Minster since the Anglo-Saxon times. York Minster Library is a
collection of collections built up through large donations first established with the deposit of
approximately 70 volumes by John Neuton, one of the largest personal libraries of its time. John
Neuton, as well as being a high-ranking cleric, was a lawyer and an academic. He held several legal
positions within the Church and was master of Peterhouse College, Cambridge from 1382-97. He
was canon treasurer of York from 1393 until his death in 1414 and helped establish the Minster as a
centre of scholarship. His collection encompassed religious and legal texts and also books on history
and philosophy. By 1418 Neuton’s books were secured to the reading desks with chains in the upper
storey of the new building erected on the south side of the nave but by 1810 the collection had
grown so much that new premises were needed. The Library moved to the restored chapel of the
former Archbishop's Palace, to the north of the Minster. With 120,000 volumes including over 100
incunables, the Minster Library is today the largest cathedral library in England. More information on
the history of the library can be found on the York Minster website,
http://www.yorkminster.org/treasures-and-collections/historic-collections/library.
After the welcome and introduction by Sarah we were given a tour of the library by Library Assistant
Steven Newman. Since 1837 the library has been advertised as ‘books for the citizens of York’ and
includes books covering theology, church history, history, architecture, stained glass, art, and the
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history of York and York Minster. Many of the post-1850 books are borrowable, approximately
30,000, one third of the whole collection.
Seminars are run in the library on early printed books using rare books from the collections as
primary material. Handling techniques are also given as part of the University’s taught module in the
English Masters programme, and Sarah is also developing outreach programmes to include the
wider community.
The 13th century library in the Chapel of the Archbishop’s Palace, where Richard III’s son is said to
have been invested as Prince of Wales, is a beautiful space with rare books stored in lattice-fronted
cabinets. It feels deceptively small although it can hold up to 60 people for seminars and
conferences and also used to be an exhibition space until the new museum was built in the undercroft of the Minster. It is worth noting too that, rather enviously, everything is catalogued!
After the tour the RBSCG had the pleasure of being shown some of the treasures from the collection.
One of these included the earliest dental tract The operator for the teeth by Charles Allen and
printed by John White of York in 1685. The Hailstone Yorkshire Collection has many locally printed
souvenir pamphlets, playbills and other interesting ephemera. We were also shown Civil War tracts
dating from the time when Charles I was thrown out of Parliament and went first to Oxford and then
York. If I have my history correct, the Marston Moor battle ensued in 1644 when he lost the North!
York Minster Library has a wonderful collection of chapbooks dating from the 17th and 18th centuries
during the height of their popularity. Chapbooks are small, paper covered booklets cheaply
produced for children and literate adults and sold door-to-door by the ‘chapman’. Subjects included
religious tracts, almanacs, children’s literature, folklore and nursery rhymes. They were printed by
James Kendrew, a local printer from York.
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Other treasures included: Eboracum; or, The history and antiquities of the City of York by Francis
Drake, dated 1788, owned by William White who stuck notes in and annotated in the margins; a
Sarum Missal dating from 1554, during Mary Tudor’s reign, appropriated from the Chapel Royal in
Windsor; and a York Missal with pages dramatically cut out! Also included was a Breviary, dated
1502, owned by Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII, King of England.
Donated by Dean E. Milner-White as part of the Chapter of York Collection is William Caxton’s The
Golden Legend published by Kelmscott Press in 1892, in fact, this copy was second off the press! It is
a magnificent edition with stunningly beautiful woodcuts by William Morris.
My favourite was the King James Bible printed at London by Robert Barker in 1631, known as the
Wicked Bible because of an unfortunate but very serious typo. Exodus 20:14 reads “Thou shall
commit adultery”. When the error was discovered they were immediately recalled and Barker was
fined and sent to prison. There are only 11 known copies of the original in existence and I felt very
privileged to have seen one. I would like to express my gratitude to Sarah and her team for a grand
day out in York.
Karen Backhouse
Special Collections Librarian
The Sheppard-Worlock Library
Liverpool Hope University
A new group for Rare Books Librarians based in the North of England
The inaugural meeting of a group of rare books librarians based in the north of England was held in
Leeds on Wednesday 26th November. Representatives from Leeds, York, Liverpool, Manchester,
Sheffield, Durham and Newcastle attended to hear presentations on implementing new systems,
making rare books more visible, and promoting collections.
The idea behind the group is to provide support and networking opportunities through sharing
experiences and developments in our institutions focused specifically on rare books. Everyone
agreed that the day had been very successful and the group will be meeting again in June in
Manchester where there will be a chance to visit the exhibition 'Merchants of Print'.
The first session was a demonstration of the archives system EMU. Both Leeds and Manchester are
using the system and reported on their progress so far. EMU enables greater exposure of items with
the ability to fully document the life of the object and to add copy specific information, both of
which have tremendous advantage for the researcher. For a brilliant example of EMU in action see
what the Brotherton have done with their first folio. http://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collectionsshakespeare
After lunch there were a series of presentations on promoting the collections.
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Sarah Griffin discussed the benefits that a Partnership Agreement between the University of
York and the Chapter of York Minster has brought to a public engagement programme
around the library collections of York Minster.
Karen Backhouse from Liverpool Hope University talked about how she is encouraging use of
the collection through teaching and learning days. She is also getting students more engaged
with the collections by using them to package and clean.
Jenny Higham and Katy Hooper detailed collaborative projects that are taking place in
Liverpool, a partnership which includes HE, FE and public libraries and allows exhibitions and
events to take place in a variety of venues.
A presentation by Julianne Simpson on the John Rylands Research Institute and the North
West doctoral training programme led the group to think about ways to encourage students
to move into research.
Sheila Hingley led a discussion on USTC, a new initiative to make non-English books available
online.
Rhiannon Lawrence-Francis talked about her project to catalogue the incunabula in the
Brotherton collection and also offered an opportunity for
the group to view some of the highlights from the pre
1501 collection including this image of the birth of Eve
from the Spanish translation of Batholomaeus
Anglicus’ De proprietatibus rerum of 1494.
Sarah Griffin
Special Collections and York Minster Librarian
University of York
De las propiedades de la cosas
Toulouse, Henricus Mayer, 18 September 1494
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Exhibitions
Please let us know of exhibitions you have running and if anyone would like to submit a review of an
exhibition they’ve been to we would be happy to include it.
The great leveller: humanity's struggle against infectious disease
Exhibition from the collections of the Foyle Special Collections Library, King’s College London
The Weston Room, Maughan Library, Chancery Lane
London WC2A 1LR
26 January - 15 April 2015
Free admission
For more information
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/collections/archivespec/exhibitions/maughan.aspx
Infectious disease has been the inseparable companion of human
development, insinuating itself into patterns of settlement, trade, conquest
and war, and showing no sign of abating.
After a brief period in the mid-20th century, when it appeared to many that
the conquest of infectious disease was at hand, the pressure of population
on natural habitats has produced new illnesses, including AIDS and several
haemorrhagic fevers, such as Lassa, Marburg and Ebola.
If medical advance no longer appears unproblematic, it could be said that at
least we now have the knowledge of public health to fend off preventable
disease. During most of the historical period covered by this exhibition, cure for most infectious
diseases was scarcely imaginable.
In this exhibition we examine the long struggle to understand, contain
and treat infection. Some diseases, such as smallpox, are no longer
active threats to humanity, while others, such as tuberculosis and
sleeping sickness, are still claiming lives today, despite the availability
of effective methods of prevention and treatment.
Highlights include copies of Edward Jenner’s account of his
experiments in smallpox vaccination, Henry Vandyke Carter’s
pioneering 1874 study of leprosy, John Snow's On the mode of
communication of cholera, which traced the source of London’s 1854
outbreak to the Broad Street pump, and a number of photographic sets published by the Central
Office of Information, showing disease control in Africa.
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Merchants of Print
from Venice to Manchester
Thursday, 29 January to Sunday, 21 June 2015
This exhibition celebrates the legacy of Aldus Manutius (1449 – 1515), an Italian humanist scholar
who founded the Aldine Press at Venice. His publishing legacy includes scholarly editions of classical
authors, the introduction of italic type, and the development of books in small formats that were
read much like modern paperbacks. The firm was continued after his death by his son and grandson
until 1598.
The John Rylands Library holds one of the largest collections of Aldine editions in the world. Many of
these come from the Spencer library, purchased by Mrs Rylands in 1892. There are also other stories
of local collectors, such as Richard Copley Christie and David Lloyd Roberts, and how the citizens of
19th century Manchester looked to Italy, and Venice in particular, for inspiration.
For more information http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/exhibitions/merchantsofprint/
Ingenious Impressions: The Coming of the Book
27 February - 21 June 2015
Hunterian Art Gallery
Admission free
The University of Glasgow holds one of the UK's most important collections of early printed books,
or ‘incunabula’, published over the fifty years from the invention of printing in the mid-15th century.
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The collection is the largest in Scotland and more than half comes from the library of Hunterian
founder Dr William Hunter (1718-83).Showcasing the University’s rich collections and the results of
new research from the Glasgow Incunabula Project, this major exhibition charts the development of
the early printed book in Europe, exploring the transition from manuscript to print and its impact on
late medieval society. The invention of mechanical movable type printing revolutionised book
making in Europe and was instrumental in the emergence of the Renaissance and the spread of
learning more generally. The exhibition also features a replica 15th century printing press, on loan
from the University of Reading.
For more information:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/hunterian/visit/exhibitions/major%20exhibitions/ingeniousimpressions/
For more information about the project see: http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/
Book Reviews
Robert J. Kirkpatrick, From the Penny Dreadful to the Ha'penny
Dreadfuller: a Bibliographic History of the Boys' Periodical in Britain
1762-1950. London: British Library, 2013. ix, 576 p., illus. ISBN
9780712309547. £50.
This work tells the history of the boys' periodical from its beginnings in
the late eighteenth century until the death of the story paper following
the Second World War. This field has been under-represented in
scholarship, and this detailed survey, covering some 600 titles, will be a
tremendously useful resource.
The range of periodicals discussed encompasses the whole gamut of subjects and styles, from the
religious and educational journals whose aim was to purely didactic, to the gory adventure and
crime stories in “penny dreadfuls” which were blamed by commentators for juvenile delinquency.
There are figures like Billy Bunter of Greyfriars who have stood the test of time, and others whose
names and stories have largely been forgotten. The painstakingly researched narrative shows how
“the history of boys' periodicals is far more complex than has previously been realised” (p.457).
The huge increase in literacy in the nineteenth century widened the potential audience for boys'
periodicals to cover all social classes. Though there were a wide variety of journals, with differing
audiences and aims, the author highlights a similarity of theme common to most, throughout the
period the book covers: the pre-occupation with “manliness”, with teaching boys to admire and
emulate physical and moral strength. This was linked to the needs of the Empire and wider ideals of
patriotism.
As well as the periodicals, their fictional heroes and villains, and their readers, the author discusses
the lives of the real people behind the industry – the authors, illustrators, editors, publishers and
printers, not forgetting critics – and the relationships and rivalries between them. Some of these
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people are already well-known and well-documented, but some are shadowy figures brought into
the light for the first time here.
The appendices form a particularly useful reference resource. There are alphabetical and
chronological lists of boys' periodicals which demonstrate various trends, such as the vast number of
periodicals which were extremely short-lived, and the intensity of the competition for circulation
around the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition a checklist of juvenile periodicals for both
sexes indicates the scope for further research in this area.
This is a thoughtful and comprehensive work, well-produced and well-illustrated, and is a satisfying
and informative read.
Naomi Percival, Lambeth Palace Library
Martha W. Driver and Veronica O’Mara (eds.) Preaching the Word in
Manuscript and Print in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Susan
Powell, Turnhout: Brepols , 2013. xv, 393 p., illus. (SERMO: Studies on
Patristic, Medieval, and Reformation Sermons and Preaching). ISBN
9782503541853. EUR 100 (excl tax).
This publication, the eleventh in Brepols’ SERMO series, offers a set of
essays concerned with how sermons were used, read and circulated in
manuscript and print. A cliché often used when reviewing such publications is to comment on how
the individual works sit together as a coherent whole. Here, the volume is usefully separated into
two sections, ‘Studies’ and ‘Texts’; the former being comprised of analytical essays whilst the latter
features more focused editorial work. Both sections are arranged chronologically by subject matter
allowing the reader to dip in and out or gain a more comprehensive overview of developments as
they wish. Separate to this arrangement is the first essay by Pearsall on G.R. Owst, arguably the
founding father of sermon studies. The historiography of sermon studies is a theme that reoccurs
throughout the volume and O’Mara’s entertaining final study is an investigation into Victorian
efforts to produce an edition.
Early essays in the volume by Swanson and Hudson address the transmission of texts whilst the work
of Marx, Connolly, Thompson and Gillespie are focused more on the use of manuscripts. These
essays go well beyond sermon studies and will appeal to a broad audience, as too will the
contribution by Morrison on scribal error. The editors have done well to ensure a balanced amount
of background information is provided. Thompson, for example, gives a biographical account of John
Mirk which the general reader will find useful but which the specialist reader will not consider to be
too overloaded with well-known facts. As the chronological arrangement of the essays progresses,
the contributions by Smith, Driver and Boffey offer insights into the transmission of ideas from
manuscript into print.
An essay by Joseph Gwara’s on dating works printed by Wynkyn de Worde sits a little uncomfortably
amongst the more discursive essays dealing with printed material. Gwara’s work is heavy on detail,
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moving a publication date a year this way or that, but light on any real demonstration of how his
findings may be usefully applied in a wider context. Gwara suggests applications for his analysis in a
final paragraph and it is perhaps unfair to criticise him too harshly for producing an essay which may
well provide the foundation upon which future studies are built. Finally, textual studies by Pickering
and Rand are well placed to give the reader an impression of the sort of texts which have just been
discussed.
The volume is not profusely illustrated but images are well chosen, though not always of the highest
quality. If I have one reservation about the volume it is for the number of essays highlighting the
need for further research. This suggests authors grappling with questions that they have not quite
yet answered. Whilst this reflects a vibrant field of study it can be frustrating for the reader who may
not wish to delve much further into the subject matter. Perhaps the most successful essays are the
longest, where the authors have allowed greater room for the development of an argument. This,
however, is a minor criticism. In their introduction, the editors summarise their intentions thus: “the
focus of this volume [is] how homilists and teachers in the Middle Ages preached the word of God in
the widest possible sense”. With this broad aim stated, the editors have successfully brought
together a collection of engaging essays which will be of interest to both the specialist and the
general reader alike.
Richard Wragg, Institute of English Studies, University of London
Carrie Smith and Lisa Stead (eds.) The Boundaries of the Literary Archive:
Reclamation and Representation, Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, 210 pages, ISBN
9781409443223, £55.00
This absorbing volume looks at the use and study of literary archives, exploring
the importance of the archival process behind research, as well as the way in
which the archive can be subject as well as source. The introduction explains
that there are four threads to the collected essays, comprising: archival theory
and textual production, authorial legacies and digital cultures, gender issues in the archive, and
practical concerns of archival research and curatorship. Emphasis is placed on promoting the work of
scholars from different disciplines and their interaction with the literary archive, with the resulting
interplay making for thought-provoking reading. The challenges and issues in relation to what the
archive can offer current literary scholarship are also explored, making the appeal of this volume
extensive.
From the studies proffered it is evident that literary archives can offer a fresh perspective on literary
figures as well as the processes behind the creation of their work. However, how the archive is
ultimately interpreted will depend on how it has been configured and by whom. The influence of
historic and contemporary custodians will affect the final composition, including the authenticity of
the ‘original order’ that archivists strive so hard to preserve. Jennifer Douglas’s chapter, ‘Original
Order, Added Value?’, explores this concern, highlighting the resulting sway this can have on how a
collection is ultimately interpreted by researchers.
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Although literary archives cannot allow us to pinpoint a creator’s exact thought processes they can
provide crucial evidential value, enabling the creation of as accurate a picture as possible. Wim Van
Mierlo’s fascinating chapter on ‘The Archaeology of the Manuscript’ argues that students of
manuscripts are using the same investigation processes as those employed by archaeologists. As a
result this chapter highlights the scientific nature of using the archive, how by examining their
physical structure, manuscripts can act as windows into the past. In this way the study of archives
can be seen as part of a wider inter-disciplinary combination of processes that allow us to more
accurately examine the past. In the same way that we can now x-ray paintings to show past
alterations to composition, so can literary archives be fundamental in revealing the layers in the
drafting and construction of a literary work. The idea of the archaeology of the manuscript raised in
Wim Van Mierlo’s chapter harmonises with the discussion in Karen V. Kukil’s chapter: ‘Teaching the
Material Archive at Smith College’, concerning the importance of literary archives in teaching
students at the college as part of their Archives Concentration programme. Students undertaking
this course are encouraged to explore the manuscripts as physical artefacts, looking to their material
culture for pedagogical relevance.
The value of returning to the archival source, whilst also being open to the possible variations in how
it can be utilised, is a common theme throughout the studies. Although the remit of the volume is
literary archives, the chapters contain themes universal to all archive collections and provide much
food for thought in general. Widespread issues addressed include those of privacy and
confidentiality which are raised in Sara S. Hodson’s article: ‘To Reveal or Conceal: Privacy and
Confidentiality in the Papers of Contemporary Authors’, or the need for flexibility to accommodate
hybrid collections highlighted in Carrie Smith’s articles: ‘Illustration and Ekphrasis: The Working
Drafts of Ted Hughes’s Cave Birds’. Most importantly the studies frequently advocate interdisciplinary work and ideas, thereby broadening the appeal and relevance of this work and making it
an inspiring read for all.
Megan Dunmall, Lambeth Palace Library
Roger Chartier. The Author’s Hand and the Printer’s Mind. Translated
by Lydia G. Cochrane. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014. 224 pp. ISBN:
978-0-7456-5602-1 £17.99 (pbk).
The Authors Hand and the Printer’s Mind is a collection of twelve
lectures given by Roger Chartier on a list of interrelated topics over a
decade. In his “Preface” and by example in the essays, Chartier
encourages historians to engage related fields such as literature and
print studies to benefit and broaden their own work. In the essays
collected here, he exemplifies the kind of historicity he advocates by reaching into 16th and 17th
century printing in order to look forward to digital textuality. Working largely within the framework
of printing in Early Modern Europe, Chartier raises and develops a number of related and farreaching themes, providing readers with a snapshot, as it were, of many relevant issues confronting
print scholars, literary scholars and historians today. In topics ranging from what it means to trust a
printer with publication rights to how digital presentation might alter our understanding of textual
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coherence, Chartier integrates evidence and questions seamlessly, providing an overarching
discussion of pertinent issues confronting scholars in all aspects of textual studies.
The opening essay “Listen to the Dead with Your Eyes” outlines several material and theoretical
concerns facing thinkers who would grapple with what a book means in a digital world as well as
those who would understand what it meant for a pre-industrial but post-Medieval world to receive
books from a printing press. The simultaneous invocation of the future and the past interconnects
with Chartier’s assertion that historians must celebrate a multidisciplinary approach to strengthen
their own understanding of the place of the text—physical or digital, scroll or codex, manuscript or
print publication—in the history of the Western world.
The various issues that Chartier raises in the essays all correspond to the struggle between macroand micro-history, which issue is most clearly outlined in his delightful “History and Social Science: A
Return to Braudel.” In this debate, as in others raised throughout the essays, Chartier’s call is for a
re-examination and the construction of a via media. For instance, his “Publishing Cervantes”
addresses a methodological divide among scholars and stresses that we must find a middle ground
between the obsessive/excessive presentation of variants and the arbitrary decisions that present a
unified monolithic text.
Although these essays echo similar themes, they are not repetitive or merely variations on a single
argument. They can each also be read alone, which makes The Author’s Hand and the Printer’s Mind
ideal for refreshers on areas within print history or localized reading. I found the essay “Pauses and
Pitches” especially readable and interesting. One might be tempted to skip a chapter on “mere”
punctuation, but Chartier’s examination of which party or parties bear historic responsibility for
textual punctuation and how (as well as why) those decisions affect our understanding of a text
encapsulates the erudition and ease with which Chartier presents ideas on a range of texts and interrelated ideas.
Linda Englade, Indiana University
Pollie Bromilow (ed.) Authority in European book culture, 1400-1600,
Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. vi, 232 p., illus. (Material readings in early
modern culture). ISBN 9781472410108. £60.00.
In the introduction to this volume, Pollie Bromilow convincingly argues
that the concept of authority in the pre-modern age and its role in the
production and dissemination of books has often been overlooked in
the scholarly discourse on early modern book culture. This book, a
collection of essays resulting from a conference held at the University
of Liverpool in 2006, goes some way in rectifying the gap in our understanding of authority and its
influence on book production in this period. In the eleven essays that make up this volume, the role
of authority in early modern book culture is considered from a range of perspectives: the interplay
between authorship and authority, the influence of religious and secular authorities on book
production, dissemination and reception, and the authority associated with the medium of textual
transmission. The volume is wide in scope: the essays cover Italy, France, Germany, and England,
and address both manuscript and print cultures. Some authors present case studies of how authority
functioned in practice in a particular milieu, such as Robert Markys’ study of the interplay between
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authorship and authority in the reception of a sixteenth-century Jesuit penitential manual, whereas
others adopt a more theoretical approach, such as Adrian Armstrong, who reconsiders the concept
of authority as related to the European book culture in the light of Foucault’s writings on power.
Although the ambitious scope of the work and the disparity of its topics is somewhat to the
detriment of its overall consistency, this volume nevertheless presents a fresh perspective on the
role of authority in late medieval and early modern book production and distribution, and does so in
a nuanced and thought-provoking manner. As such, it will appeal to anyone with an interest in the
socio-political context of the European book culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Erika Delbecque, St Hilda’s College, Oxford
Travis McDade, Thieves of Book Row: New York’s Most Notorious Rare Book Ring and the Man Who
Stopped It. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. 216 p. ISBN 9780199922666. £18.99.
Travis McDade is the curator of rare books at the University Of Illinois College Of Law. Along with
this book, he’s also written The Book Thief: The True Crimes of Daniel Spiegelman and teaches “Rare
Books, Crime & Punishment” at Illinois.
Thieves of Book Row tells the tale of the largest book theft ring in New York during the Depression
and the events that led to its downfall. It consists of a prologue, eight chapters, and an epilogue. The
index and endnotes are very well-done, informative, and comprehensive, which makes this book
fantastic for people who want to do further research into the many aspects the story touches upon.
To tell this story in its full capacity, McDade realised the reader needs a wide frame of reference to
fully understand how events conspired to their ultimate climax. To accomplish this, McDade has
woven a broad range of information into the story. These topics include: the history of libraries in
New York, Boston, and Philadelphia; the history of the rare book trade; the effects of the Depression
on libraries and bookselling; the evolution of library security from the nineteenth to the twentieth
century; the training of book thieves and how thieves and booksellers removed identifying marks
from books; and much more. It was an ambitious feat for McDade to take on, and I think he did a
commendable job. He goes into backstories and explains histories thoughtfully without diminishing
or interrupting the story in the process. It’s a large amount of information conveyed in one book, but
this adds to the complexity of the story. In addition, the amount of information provided helps paint
a detailed and tangible portrait of New York during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.
Although a non-fiction book, McDade’s narrative flows so well you may forget you’re reading actual
events. He is somehow able to emphasise the close-calls and suspense of the story without
sensationalising or exaggerating what occurred, as well as making you truly feel for the main
characters. The book is very descriptive and involved, and I highly recommend it.
Diana La Femina, J & J Lubrano Music Antiquarians
Malcolm Walsby and Natasha Constantinidou (eds.) Documenting the early modern book world:
inventories and catalogues in manuscript and print. Leiden: Brill, 2013. xv, 416 p. (Library of the
written word ; volume 31 ; The handpress world ; volume 23). ISBN 9789004258891 Euros 154
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As historians of the book such as Andrew Pettegree and Ann Blair have shown, the urge to organise
bibliographical information in early modern Europe arose both from the increase in the proportion
of books available and from their being regarded, in an age of often extreme ideological polarisation,
as carriers of dangerous ideas. This monograph includes some of the most recent scholarship on the
diverse methods of listing books (including sales catalogues, records of donations, Papal Indexes,
inventories, book trade accounts, and correspondence).
Although Malcolm Walsby’s excellent and sober introduction contains a number of salutary warnings
concerning the usefulness of book lists from this period (ephemera were often deliberately
overlooked, as were books bound with other books, and compilers of catalogues often paid scant
attention to details such as language, imprint, correct form of title, and differentiating between print
and manuscript) the remainder of the book shows how, with care, book lists can illuminate both
historical bibliography and cultural history more generally. The book has four sections, dealing with
university libraries (the Bodleian and Leiden); individuals; three groups of ecclesiastical readers ; and
the book trade.
The articles, which, in their clarity and thoroughness are uniformly excellent, show the relevance of
book catalogues as primary source material for most aspects of historical bibliography. At the very
end of the period covered by this book, John A. Sibbald in his article on the sale catalogue of the
library of the 17th century Dutch scholar Nicolas Heinsius demonstrates that an examination of this
catalogue can reveal the first flickering of a sustained interest in book collecting not only for
scholarly, but also for antiquarian purposes.
However, the majority of the articles concentrate on the use of book catalogues and inventories to
the scholar who is interested in an age before these books had accrued value as collectors’ items
and are documentary evidence of working libraries. As Kevin Stevens and Malcolm Walsby
demonstrate in the cases of Queen Catherine of Portugal and the historian and jurist Bertrand
d’Argentré, respectively, inventories, for all their bibliographical limitations, are all that remain of
private libraries which existed for humanist scholarship. Alexander Marr’s article on donations of
scientific books to the Bodleian reminds us that book catalogues can demonstrate that, for scientists
at least, indistinguishable in their practical use from scientific instruments, which were often
included in such lists.
On the other hand, Andrea Ottone’s essay on the book collections of clergy in three southern Italian
dioceses shows the limitations of the penetration of humanist scholarship. Many clergy had very
limited collections of books: even their libraries of theological texts were inadequate. The limited
appeal of those humanist texts which many today consider to be central to the Renaissance underlay
the eventual failure of the Academia Venetiana, a publishing venture which, as Shanti Graheli shows,
was perhaps too high-minded for its own good.
There are several more essays which also contain fruitful ideas for further research. In addition to
the quality of its intellectual content, the book contains much primary source material which is well
presented.
Brandon High, King’s College London
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Michael F. Bemis, Library and Information Science: a key guide to
literature and sources. London: Facet Publishing, 2014. xii, 292 p. ISBN
9781783300020. £49.95 pbk
Michael Bemis’ bibliography, listing nearly 1600 resources relevant to
library information science, is an impressive achievement which goes
some way to meeting his goal of providing ‘a current annotated
bibliography of library science’. Covering a range of topics as diverse as
libraries in popular culture, awards, philosophy and humour alongside
more expected topics such as cataloguing and classification, collection management and patron
services, this printed bibliography is a useful tool for initial investigation into areas of library science.
Focussing on books, with some mention of journals, websites and other resources, the bibliography
provides a brief summary for works which Bemis considered timely, authoritative and of
professional integrity, or including special resources. Others merit a short bibliographic listing under
‘additional resources’.
A reprint of an American Library Association publication, this bibliography is heavily biased towards
American sources, understandable in its origin but somewhat frustrating at times. Useful sections
focussing on law, including copyright, and ethics, are therefore less practical to a European or British
audience, unless interested in the impact of American legislation such as the USA Patriot Act (p.69).
It is interesting to note that most British publications are listed under ‘Additional Resources’,
including stalwarts such as Tim Padfield’s Copyright for Archivists and Records Managers and Ned
Potter’s Library Marketing Toolkit. A section on ‘International Librarianship’ appears promising but
includes few items which are not American publications.
The works listed cover a wide range of sectors including schools, academic and public libraries. The
majority of works of interest to those in Special Collections and Rare Books seem concentrated in
the ‘Miscellaneous’ section, with more general works, such as administration or marketing of
collections, dispersed throughout.
Bemis sees this work as the successor of the American Reference Books Annual, providing
information on works from 2000-2012 (p.132). With the move towards easily updated databases
and online listings, there is inevitably a question as to whether a printed bibliography is out of date
as soon as it is produced. Here some areas suffer from this, such as the chapter on Information
Technology, in which even 2012 feels somewhat outdated. Discussion of digital exhibitions in 2002,
or adapting to e-books in 2009 feel less relevant now than they were at the time of publication.
Equally, references to e-books are scarce, which perhaps may be addressed should an updated
edition be issued within the next few years. Some reference to online access is made in the case of
journals listed, along with some websites, but again there are dangers that these will be redundant
by the time the researcher of 2014 seeks them out. Once again, the ‘additional resources’ section
highlights a number of the more recent works, but a focus on books necessarily draws this
bibliography back from the cutting edge of library research.
The bibliography is an interesting work and valuable in its scope. However, the geographical bias and
issues of timeliness make this less useful for areas in which there is rapid change, such as
Information Literacy (here largely subsumed by practical teaching issues) and Information
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Technology. Areas of ethics, architecture, management and administration are, however, well
covered, and would enable a librarian to begin investigating any of these topics.
Jane Gallagher, Special Collections and Archives, University of Kent
Andy Kesson and Emma Smith (eds.) The Elizabethan Top Ten: Defining
Print Popularity in Early Modern England. Material Readings in Early
Modern Culture. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Ill. 269p. £49
Kesson and Smith are to be congratulated on bringing together this
eclectic collection of essays on what constituted popularity in print in
Elizabethan England. The book is split into two, the first part dealing
with methodological issues surrounding the definition of what
constitutes popular print while the second half of the book consist of
ten diverse essays in which their authors argue the case for a particular genre or work.
For me, the strongest of the methodological contributions is from Alan B. Farmer and Zachary Lesser
who outline a new system to analyse the economic success of various categories and genres of
printed material in this period, excluding what they call non-speculative titles, such as theses,
commercial advertisements and proclamations. In addition to the total number of editions and
market share of particular categories of books their analysis also takes into consideration reprint
rates and profitability. Lucy Monro’s discussion of the publication of antiquarian texts in Elizabethan
England, how they were marketed, and the ways in which they were popular is also of note.
The ten short chapters in the second part of the book deal with a diversity of genres and titles,
including damask papers, almanacs, international news pamphlets, the anonymous play Mucedorus,
Anthony Munday’s serialized translations of Iberian chivalric romances, and the popular genres that
Spenser drew upon for his own works.
As one might expect in a volume on Elizabethan bestsellers several chapters are given over to
religious works or those with a spiritual dimension. Beth Quitslund discusses the popularity of the
metrical psalms of Sternhold and Hopkins and Lori Anne Ferrell deals with the sermons of the now
obscure, but once very popular, Henry Smith, concentrating on his The Trumpet of the Soule
Sounding to Judgement, that he preached at St Paul’s Cross. Catherine Richardson takes household
manuals as her subject, arguing that their popularity amongst Protestants of the middling sort was
because ’they gave confessional identity a clear and unequivocal shape’ and valuable to their
readers because ‘they were insistently moral, and their readers’ interest in learning their lessons in
itself demonstrated their election’.
I particularly enjoyed Brian Cummings essay on The Book of Common Prayer. In their introduction
the editors posed the question whether a book which every parish in England was legally obliged to
have could be described as popular. In his contribution Cummings makes the case for its popularity
by noting that the sheer number of copies produced (1/2 million by the time of the Civil War) went
way beyond ‘what is required for church use or clerical use outside of a church’ and that its
infrequent mentions in the inventories of the time can be explained by it being bound with other
titles, particularly the Bible. He argues that by the end of Elizabeth’s reign The Book of Common
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Prayer was a commonplace object and ‘bore all the signs of familiarity and even ordinariness that
everyday objects posses’. Furthermore, in an age when many were illiterate it was ‘the book
through which more people filtered their experience than any other’.
Despite it humorous title this is a very serious book and worth reading by anyone interested in print
culture in this period.
Hugh Cahill, Lambeth Palace Library
Sandra Hindman and James H. Marrow (eds.) Books of Hours
Reconsidered, London; Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers (Brepols),
2013. 532 p., illus. (Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art
History). ISBN 1905375948. £130.
This is a splendidly weighty tome from the publishers of the Survey of
Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles series. All essays are copiously illustrated in black and
white and many feature extensive notes and useful appendices. However, there is only a short
general bibliography (pp. 481-484), and no general index. The book ends with 32 pages of 117 colour
plates.
The contents pages reveal the structure as, following the introduction by Sandra Hindman, there are
twenty-one essays by expert art historians, divided into six sections. These sections refer to
questions posed by L. M. J. Delaissé (1914-1972) famous for his quip about Books of Hours being
‘medieval bestsellers’ and his emphasis on the ‘archaeology of the book’. Hindman and Marrow
dedicate this book to him, having held a 2007 conference in his memory from which half these
essays derive. Therefore the ‘reconsidered’ of the title is not a response to Eamon Duffy’s
inspirational recontextualisation, Marking the Hours (Yale: 2006) but instead aims to continue
Delaissé’s ‘archaeologist’ approach, although most essays concentrate on style, painting
programmes and means of attribution rather than the book of hours as a material object.
Section One is on the Hours’ origins (with case studies of early Hours by Adelaide Bennett) and the
development of the current art market (rather anecdotal essays by Christopher de Hamel and Roger
Wieck). Section Two on production centres has excellent surveys by Nigel Morgan on English Hours,
Jeffrey Hamburger goes into detail on the German lack of a standard Hours tradition, and Francesca
Manzari focuses on the later development of Italian Hours, all with useful appendices listing the
most important manuscripts. Section 3 on history of use has a substantial essay by Gregory Clark
who uses variants in the Litanies, the prayers Obsecro te and O intemerata, as well as comparison to
other Hours and artists, to localize and date Hours, taking the d’Orge Hours as a case study. Section
4 on workshop problems has six essays including: Anne-Margareet As-Vijers on the workshop run by
Carmelite nuns in fifteenth-century Bruges, identifying nun Cornelia van Wulscherke’s painting in
Books of Hours for lay patrons; and Eberhard König presents a short piece on revisionism, suggesting
a new emphasis on ‘illuminations in their entirety’ (p. 348) and dismissing the generally held idea of
large workshops. Section 5 concerns illustration cycles and texts with two iconographical studies on
Hours from the Low Countries and Italy respectively. The final Section 6 on Hours in the age of print
include essays by Todor Petrev and Ariane Bergeron-Foote on printed yet hand-finished Books of
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Hours; and Mary and Richard Rouse end with an analysis of the 1544 inventory of Parisian
illuminator and bookbinder Jean Leclerc.
Any bibliophile will appreciate the high production standards of the book. However, the quarter
page images that make up the ‘Colorplates’ section do not convey Books of Hours’ individuality. This
is because they have all been cropped to the same size, so that they look homogenous and lack
context and impact.
Is this likely to become the go-to book for art historians on Books of Hours? Yes: it is an excellent
essay collection and reference tool despite having little on digitalization, codicology, bindings or
historical context. Doubtless this ‘reconsideration’ will inspire much new research.
Diane Heath, University of Kent
Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon, Samuel Beckett’s Library. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2013. 330 p., ISBN 9781107001268. £50.00.
Samuel Beckett’s Library records and analyses for the first time the full extent of Beckett’s library.
His library was not previously consultable in its entirety by scholars. At the centre of this book lies
the tricky relationship between reading and writing. It investigates the assumption that a writer’s
library is often viewed as offering a ‘key’ to ‘unlock the mysteries of texts’ (xiii). In comparison, this
volume’s aim is to suggest that whilst ‘It is impossible to look “inside” a reader’s or a writer’s mind
with hindsight, [...] its transformations are partially retraceable on the basis of reading notes.’ (19)
The first half of book is arranged by the language in which the books are written (Literature in
English etc.). These sections are then further broken down into influential authors or time periods.
The second half is arranged by type of literature (Classics, Philosophy, Religion etc.). Samuel
Beckett’s Library includes an enormously valuable appendix of the texts in Beckett’s library. This list
is made intelligible by the extraordinary intellectual work undertaken in the rest of the volume:
drawing together different influences, noting the presence of various writers across Beckett’s
notebooks and papers in various archives and their echoes in his published work and so on. The
book is aware of its own limitations and indicates that studying an author’s library does not provide
the scholar with an exhaustive picture – books are disposed of when moving and, in Beckett’s case,
he often read books in public libraries particularly during the 1930s.
This book is also important for the scholarly techniques it brings to bear on the archive. It draws on a
vast array of scholarship to delineate ways of understanding the more nebulous areas of library and
archive study. For example, the book deals with problems such as: how can we know that the dog
ears and underlining or ‘non-verbal codes’ (Jackson 2001, 14) are attributable to Beckett? The
authors also find methods to deal with ‘non-marginalia’ – incidents when passages from texts recur
repeatedly in Beckett’s works but are not marked in his copy of the source text despite other
sections of the same text being heavily marked. The author’s theorising of these kinds of issues will
make this volume of interest more generally to anyone working on marginalia and literary influence.
The book is not for the uninitiated Beckett reader as it often refers in passing to aspects of the
Beckett canon without fuller explanation. It can also be a demanding read as the level of detail –
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which is a strength of the volume – can become overwhelming. The book could, therefore, be
considered as a reference text of Beckett’s reading and engagement with literary texts to be dipped
into for specific research questions.
Carrie Smith, Cardiff University
Thank you to all the publishers and reviewers for their generous contribution.
All book covers appear with the kind permission of the publisher.
Books for reviews should be sent to:
Karen Brayshaw
Canterbury Cathedral Library
The Precincts
Canterbury
CT1 2EH
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