An aristocratic gift

In 1859 John Etherington Welch Rolls gave his son-in-law, John Taylor Harding, a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, published in 1844 by the Chiswick Press.  

John E.W. Rolls became the High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1842 and lived at the family home, The Hendre, a fine Victorian Mansion.  His son John Allan Rolls, an MP, became Baron Llangattock of the Hendre in 1892; meanwhile his daughter Patricia (Patty) Rolls married John Harding of Pentwyn on 25th June 1857; he was a vicar of Rockfield (Monmouthshire), and canon of Llandaff. 

Apart from turning The Hendre into “…the grandest and most important Victorian park and garden in Monmouthshire”. [Elisabeth Whittle, Welsh Historic Gardens Trust: Bulletin Autumn 2003], the Rolls family are also known for the exploits of Charles Stewart Rolls (Patty’s nephew) who co-founded Rolls-Royce, was a keen balloonist, and has the unfortunate accolade of being the first person to be killed in an aviation accident (in 1910).

This Chiswick ‘Book of common prayer’ was one of a set of seven editions of different historical versions, ranging from Edward VI, 1549 up to the ‘modern’ Victoria edition of 1844.  It was done for the publisher,William Pickering of London, by Charles Whittingham the younger at the Chiswick Press. It is bound in vellum, with gold tooling and dark morocco labels on the spine.

The inscription to John Taylor Harding from his father-in-law has been done in decorative lettering in red and black ink, to tie in with the design of the text inside.

In addition, inserted into the book is a hand made bookmark; made of pink satin with a cross stitch pattern on a card base (in the shape of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper), saying “Watch and pray”.  Made by Patty perhaps?

Postgraduate Curators 2012

Postgraduate Curators is a programme that offers curatorial skills training to PhD students, and gives them the opportunity to curate their own exhibitions. This programme is organised by the Graduate College and SCOLAR, and open to PhD students from all disciplines – this year we had attendees from ENCAP, WELSH, JOMEC and SHARE.

The format consists of a half day workshop, with Peter Keelan speaking on project management, Alison Harvey on research and selection, and a senior lecturer from SHARE, Jane Henderson, on conservation issues. At the end of the workshop, we ask the students if any of them would like to volunteer to spend the next week planning a small exhibit on their PhD topic. This year, five of the eight students agreed to take part, and of these five, three had never visited SCOLAR before.

For those who wish to take part, we ask that in the week following the workshop, they use Voyager and our Excel lists to collate a long-list of potential material. We retrieve the items and they visit SCOLAR to examine them and make selections to cut the long-list down to a short-list. We ask them to research and write captions for each item on the short-list, and we ask them to design a poster for the exhibition. Once they have their short-lists, captions and poster, we ask them to all come in on an agreed half-day to set up the exhibits. We then talk through each exhibit to review each other’s work, and generally reflect on the experience.

The students gain time management and project management experience, as well as research and information literacy skills in searching for relevant material. In the case of those who have not visited us before, they may discover untapped resources for their research. They gain employability skills, and two types of work experience which can be very difficult to obtain – specifically in special collections work, but more broadly in the creative and cultural industries. They learn to think visually, and to phrase their research in non-specialist terms.

If the students gain a new perspective on their work – so do we. They extract and draw significance from material in our collections, of which we are often unaware. We have the opportunity to promote our collections to new audiences, and demonstrate our support of postgraduates from a range of disciplines, in a very visible way.

This year, we are featuring the following exhibitions:

Victorian medievalism: the fallen women of Tennyson’s Camelot
Sarah Clausen, Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture

The Victorian author: artist or businessman
Helen McKenzie, English Literature

Representing the workhouse
Laura Foster, English Literature

From Celtic languages to the Roman alphabet
John Caulfield, Welsh

Welsh architecture from the Salisbury Collection: a selection of original artworks
Mark Baker, Archaeology and Conservation

All the students produced excellent exhibits, but one in particular made a significant discovery. Mark Baker is working on a historical study of Welsh country houses, and found an image in the Salisbury prints collection, which is thought to be the earliest depiction of the Hafod estate, which has since been demolished. In the case of the earlier building to the right, it is the only image in existence. It’s a watercolour, not a print, so it’s entirely unique – it only exists here in Cardiff.

Mark has notified the Hafod Trust, who confirmed his hunch. As well as being a discovery which is very significant for his research, he has succeeded in interesting the local press. Both the Western Mail and the Cambrian News in Aberystwyth will be including a feature on his discovery, and by extension, the postgraduate curators programme. Mark may also be volunteering with us in future to research and prepare a full-scale exhibition on the prints contained in the Salisbury collection.

The exhibitions will be on display in SCOLAR until the end of February. Extracts from the exhibitions can be found on the SCOLAR website.

Science and sea monsters

This wonderful fish is from Cardiff’s exceptional copy of De Piscibus libri V, et de cetis lib. vnus by the 16th century Italian naturalist, Ulisse Aldrovandi. It is one of nearly 400 full page woodcuts of fish, sharks, whales, dolphins … and sea monsters!

Aldrovandi (1522-1605) was a student of the universities of Bologna and Padua, completing his degree in medicine  in 1553. By then, however, he had developed a strong interest in botany and zoology, and in 1561 Aldrovandi became Bologna’s first professor of natural sciences. He was a leading figure in the Renaissance movement that sought to place a renewed emphasis on the study of nature through direct observation.

Aldrovandi was one of the first great specimen hunters and regularly organized expeditions in search of exotic new items; in the course of his life he would assemble one of the most acclaimed cabinets of curiosities in Europe. These private collections of fossils, minerals and rare plants were the forerunners of modern natural history museums and Aldrovandi’s cabinet eventually comprised some 18,000 specimens, many of which he described in the thirteen volumes of his greatest work, Storia naturale.

Although he described his own observations with considerable accuracy, Aldrovandi passed along his share of misinformation, often displaying what the naturalist Buffon would later describe as “a tendency towards credulity”. If a previous writer had described an unusual creature, he considered it only polite to mention it, no matter how improbable the beast appeared. Our copy of De Piscibus, the fifth volume of Aldrovandi’s Natural history, features numerous monstrous serpents and fanciful oddities alongside the more familiar marine life.

Despite these occasional flights of fancy, Aldrovandi’s work represented a great advance towards science based on observation. He arguably did more than any other to establish zoology and botany as fields of study and came to be regarded by later scholars such as Linnaeus as the ‘father of natural history studies’. High praise indeed for the man who once observed of stingrays that they “love music, the dance and witty remarks”!

The Cardiff Rare Books Collection

Reblogged from Cardiff Book History:

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History: towards a national archive The recent acquisition by Cardiff University of the Cardiff Rare Books Collection presents a significant opportunity for research into English literature spanning the 15th to the 20th centuries. Totalling around 14,000 items, the collection was assembled by Cardiff public library from the late 19th century from donations, purchases and bequests when it had aspirations to become the home of the National Library of Wales. Accumulated as part of Cardiff’s heritage, these …

The plain man’s pathway to Heaven, or, The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy?

Among the older Welsh books in the Salisbury Collection at Cardiff we have the two seventeenth century editions of “Llwybr hyffordd yn cyfarwyddo yr anghyfarwydd i’r nefoedd” by the Puritan Arthur Dent (d. 1607), originally published in English as “The plain man’s pathway to heaven” in 1601.  When I first came across this title I was struck at once by the author’s name being the same as that of the hapless main character of Douglas Adams’ “The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy”, and indeed, the similarity of the title. I filed the information away in the recesses of my memory, used the catalogue record whenever I wanted an example to explain the display of a uniform title for a translated work, and thought that one day I would look into it further. As is the way with such things, others got there before me, as you can read here on the h2g2 online guide (“The guide to Life, the Universe, and Everything”).

The site’s article mentions Douglas Adams’ interview of March 1987, in which he said that he had been contacted by someone with a research interest in the period. The (unnamed) researcher had jumped to the same conclusion, pushing it further by finding many parallels in the respective texts. Adams stated that he had never heard of the book or of its author Arthur Dent, so the similarity really is a pure coincidence.  Both works, as article and interview point out, are a version of the “Everyman” story, the innocent in a strange world which may or may not be a version of our own world which must be explained to him. (Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progess is probably the best-known later example of this popular genre).

“The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” has not, as far as I am aware, been translated into Welsh, but “The plain man’s pathway to heaven” was, first appearing in 1630 and again in 1682. It is one of several translations of religious works made by Robert Llwyd, Vicar of Chirk (1565-1655), intended to improve Welsh devotional life by making suitable books available in the Welsh language. While there are a number of locations  for the 2nd edition of 1682, the 1st Welsh edition of 1630 is rarer (it is also held at the National Library of Wales, the British Library, and Bangor University Library). As was usual with Welsh books before the lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695, it was printed in London. The printer, Nicholas Okes (d. 1645), is better known for his editions of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, including his1st Quarto of Shakespeare’s King Lear and Othello.

The copy at Cardiff formerly belonged to Victorian Bible collector James Dix of Bristol (and is inscribed many times over with the name of an earlier owner, Ellis Powell, 1740). While the title-page is worn, the book is otherwise in good condition.

Edward Thomas biography wins literary award

Matthew Hollis, author of Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas, has won the Costa (formerly Whitbread) prize for best biography. The judges called it “dramatic and engrossing. A brilliant biography that moved us all.”

The biography gives an account of the last five years of Thomas’ life, in particular his friendship with poet Robert Frost, his struggles with depression, the late discovery and rapid blossoming of his talent for poetry, cut short by his decision to voluntarily fight in WWI, which culminated in his death at Arras on Easter Monday, 1917.

It was a surprise win for the debut biographer, as Claire Tomalin’s biography of Dickens had been a strong favourite. Matthew Hollis is now 2-1 favourite to win the overall award, Costa’s Book of the Year, announced on 24 January.

During his research for the biography, Hollis drew heavily on Edward Thomas’ letters, photographs and poetry manuscripts, held at Special Collections and Archives, Cardiff University. We hope this award will raise the profile of Edward Thomas’ poetry, and his substantial archives at Cardiff.

The Edward Thomas collection is fully catalogued and will shortly be available to search online. It contains around 4000 letters to and from friends and family, 2000 reviews, 500 photographs and 300 poetry manuscripts, as well as notebooks, diaries and other personal effects. It is available for consultation on appointment. Please contact the Archivist, Alison Harvey, for more information: HarveyAE@cardiff.ac.uk.

The duties and qualifications of a librarian (in the 17th & 18th centuries)

Reblogged from dark-side-of-the-catalogue:

During my stint last week in SCOLAR cataloguing some of the Rare Books Collection, I catalogued a couple of books from the “Literature of libraries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries series”, published by A. C. McClurg, and printed by the Merrymount Press in 1906.  Just thought I would share some of the pearls of wisdom and advice that shone out from these texts. From, The duties & qualifications of a librarian: a discourse pronounced in the general assembly of the Sorbonne, December 23, 1780 …

Highlighting an excellent post from one of our cataloguers, featuring advice on customer care, cataloguing and collection management… from a 17th century librarian!

A Cardiff Christmas Carol

Our beautiful and unusual copy of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas tale was published by J. M. Dent & Co. in 1907 and is a superb example of a ‘vellucent’ binding by Chivers of Bath. Cedric Chivers (1853-1929) perfected the technique of using hand-coloured illustrations with transparent vellum and patented his method in 1903 under the name ‘vellucent’, or ‘vellum made translucent’, binding. Vellucent binding was promoted as a method for preserving old leather bindings and also as a new style of cover decoration. In this type of binding the painting is on paper, rather than on the underside of the vellum itself; the paper is attached to the boards of the binding, then covered and protected by a very thin layer of vellum.

On A Christmas Carol the vellucent technique has been combined with the more traditional discipline of gilt tooling and an inlaid mother-of-pearl border, which is also protected by the vellum. Cedric Chivers exhibited vellucent binding in London and Paris and at the 1904 St Louis World Fair, where his invention took the gold medal.

The first 1,000 books of the Cardiff Rare Books Collection have now been catalogued to full rare books standard and can be found on Cardiff University Library’s Voyager catalogue.

Merry Christmas from the SCOLAR team!

Doves Press: the case of the drowned font

During the week of 5-9th December 2011 Radio 4′s Book of the Week was “Just my type” a book about fonts by Simon Garfield (Profile Books, 2011).  During the second episode they related the case of the “Drowned font”. 

Doves Press was set up by T.  J. Cobden Sanderson in 1900 in partnership with Emery Walker.  The press had its own type face cut by Edward Prince who had worked previously for the Kelmscott Press  and cut type for William Morris, including the Golden Type.   Cobden Sanderson and Walker acromoniously split  in 1908, with a legal agreement that stated Cobden Sanderson would own the Doves type until his death, when it would then revert to Walker.

As time passed Cobden Sanderson came to fear that the type would be used for items he would not approve of, and that would bring shame to the previous good name of the press.  And so, between 1913 and 1916 he disposed of the type in the river Thames, throwing it off Hammersmith Bridge, in ‘pages’ (blocks of type), wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.  He did this at night so as not to be seen, and it was only at his death that his deeds were discovered by the reading of his will which bequeathed the Doves’ type to the river: “…to and from the great sea, forever and ever.” 

Emery Walker subsequently brought legal proceedings against Cobden-Sanderson’s wife Anne, and won an out of court settlement of £700.

Here at Cardiff University in the Rare Books Collection we have 44 items from the Doves Press, so you have plenty of chance to come and have a look at this special font for yourself.

[The  example below is from 'The tragicall historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke' by William Shakespeare, Doves Press, 1909]

High House Press

The latest set of private press books to be catalogued in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection come from the High House Press.  This was a small press that was set up by a school master, James Edwin Masters, in 1924 and was located in the High Street in Shaftesbury, Dorset; taking its name from the building it was located in.  All the work at the press was done by Masters, and his wife Beatrice who is credited with the type-setting in many of the books.  In 1937 the press moved to Westbury-on Trym near Bristol, and work continued until Masters died in 1943.  At Cardiff we have 30 publications from the High House Press, out of (an approximate) 43 that were produced, the majority dating to the Shaftesbury era.  Many of these contain the High House printer’s device located under the colophon; and several items are signed by James Masters, these include: “The poem of Amriolkais : one of the seven Arabian poems or Moallaka which were suspended on the temple at Mecca” which contains 4 wood engravings by Eileen Mayo who has also signed this copy; “Three hundred & sixty-five short quotations from Horace : with modern titles and varied metrical versions in English by H. Darnley Naylor” ; and “Twenty-six sonnets of the divine poet M. Francesco Petrarca : made on Laura dead and now done into English by William J. Ibbett” these two were both also signed by their respective translators.

The output of the press seems to be a mix of contemporary poetry and reprints of much older material, such as 16th century songs and ballads.  In 1932 Masters brought out a book on Shaftesbury itself which included nine engravings by John R. Biggs, and five by Masters; this was entitled “Shaftesbury: The Shaston of Thomas Hardy”; and recorded ‘picturesque spots and corners’ in an attempt to capture the flavour of the town at that period in time.  Both Biggs and Masters signed this book too.  An article in Dorset Life (2008) discusses the production of “Shaftesbury” and looks at High House Press in general.  One of the illustrations from this book, a vignette of High House itself was subsequently used in other publications including “How a merchant did his wife betray” published in 1933.  Within the town of Shaftesbury the building still remains, but sadly no longer houses a press.