Incunabula: cataloguing the earliest printed texts in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection

Work has now started on the cataloguing of our important collection of nearly 200 incunabula, the earliest printed books held in Cardiff University Library’s Special Collections and Archives. Incunabula, from the Latin for ‘cradle’ or ‘swaddling clothes’, are defined as books printed before 1501, in the infancy of Western printing. Our collection includes books from the first major centres of printing in Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland and our earliest volumes date from around 1472, just 20 years after Johann Gutenberg printed his famous Bible, the first book printed in Europe with movable type.

Salvator Mundi from Rolevinck’s “Fasciculus temporum” (1474), with manuscript annotations.

The cataloguing project will create an individual record for each incunabulum in the library’s online catalogue with special emphasis on copy-specific information such as rubrication, hand-coloured decoration and illumination, binding, annotation and other provenance. Many of our incunabula show extensive evidence of former ownership in the form of bookplates, signatures, stamps and marginalia and these will be recorded in each record as an aid to research.

Our copy of Johannes de Bromyard’s “Opus trivium” (Lyon, 1500) is bound in a leaf of early music on vellum

The first printed books were typeset copies of manuscripts, often lacking title pages and even basic bibliographic information such as the author’s name or the date of publication. Sometimes details about the creation of an early work may be found in a colophon at the very end of the text, but as many as one-third of the surviving editions contain no information as to when, where or by whom they were printed. All of this makes the cataloguing of incunabula a highly complex and time-consuming process, but one which could potentially reveal new and fascinating information about the items we hold.

“Facsiculus temporum” by Werner Rolevinck, printed in Germany in 1474 with hand-colouring and illuminated initial letters.

I have already identified several books in our collection that are unique to the UK and some of these may even be the only extant copies in the world. For example, our copy of a 1500 Venetian edition of Guarino’s Regulae Grammaticales is the only complete copy listed in the British Library’s database of 15th century printing, the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC). As the oldest and often most valuable books held in libraries around the world, most major collections of incunabula have already been fully catalogued and documented. To be the first cataloguer to properly examine and describe some of these earliest printed books is a very rare and welcome opportunity and it will be very exciting to see what the project uncovers as it progresses.

Fore-edge paintings by John T. Beer in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection

I was delighted to discover this week that the Cardiff Rare Books Collection includes two books with fore-edge paintings by the artist John T. Beer. Fore-edge paintings are watercolour illustrations applied to the outside edges of a book’s pages; the technique dates back to before the invention of printing, possibly as early as the 10th century.

A painting of George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, arriving in Wales to a hostile reception appears on Cardiff’s copy of the third edition of Fox’s journals, published in 1765.

John T. Beer was a successful Merseyside clothier and an avid book collector, who turned to fore-edge painting after his retirement and produced hundreds of works between 1884 and 1900. As he was not a professional painter working on commission, Beer was able to select books from his own collection, including several incunabula, and decorate them to his own taste. As our examples show, he often took inspiration from the contents of the book.

“John preaching in the Wilderness”: Beer’s illustration on an early 16th century Latin Bible, printed at Lyon by Jacob Mareschal in 1514.

In the 1600s, some bookbinders even discovered they could paint just inside the fore-edges of a book then cover the outer edges with gilt to create a hidden illustration that was undetectable when the book was closed and visible only when the pages were fanned. Beer did not gild the fore-edges, but he did fan the pages before adding his illustration. Thus, the closed book shows a slightly squashed version of the scene, with the correct proportions only appearing with the pages are fanned open.

The “open” scene on Fox’s journal. The artist would have fanned the pages and gripped them in a vice before applying the watercolour.

Beer did not sell any of his works in his lifetime and left more than 200 fore-edge paintings and painted bindings when he died. His entire collection was sold by Sotheby’s auction house in November, 1903, when these two volumes were apparently purchased for Cardiff Library.

Fanning the pages of the Biblia Sacra to show the more “open” illustration.

Henry B. Wheatley: Pepys, indexing and bookplates

One of the joys of cataloguing rare books is coming across bookplates and signatures of people now deceased, and tracking down who they were.  While working on the Restoration Drama collection I came across the following bookplate in three items; with the words Bibliotheca Pepysiana secunda H B W 1904 underneath the picture of Samuel Pepys.  The image of Pepys comes from the J. Hayls oil painting completed in 1666.

H. B. W. turned out to be Henry Benjamin Wheatley (1838-1917), a prolific writer, editor and indexer.  To some he is known as “The father of British indexing” writing seminal texts on the art of indexing, and today his memory lives on with the annual awarding of the Wheatley medal – given for an outstanding index.

Henry B. Wheatley

Along with his brother, Benjamin Robert Wheatley, he was one of the founders of the Library Association (now known as CILIP – the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) in 1877 and remained on its Council for many years.  He was interested in bibliographies and cataloguing, and wrote an article on cataloguing, published in the Transactions of the Bibliographical Society (1911-13; 12:25-37).

He was involved in numerious other societies over the years including the Early English Text Society, the New Shakespeare Society and the Samuel Pepys Club, which he was president of from 1903-1916.  He had a particular interest in Pepys, and was involved in editing and producing two editions of Pepys’ diary, as well as writing a life of Pepys, plus a host of articles and lectures on him.

Wheatley collected books, especially those with interesting or fine book bindings; thus, unsurprisingly, when he died in 1917  his library was sold off the following year by Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge.  Of the three  items we have containing Wheatley’s Pepys bookplate, one is an armorial binding in calf with a central gilt stamped coat of arms of an anchor with the initials “S P” [i.e. Samuel Pepys] and “H. B. W.” [i.e. Henry Benjamin Wheatley],the other two also have a crest on the upper cover of their bindings that incorporates the dolphin and anchor of Manutius.

 According to Lee (2002, 86) Wheatley’s bookplate, designed by John Philipps Emslie in 1899, showed the man himself sitting in his library in Bedford Square.  Fifteen years later it appears he had a new bookplate, depicting Pepys.  Was he attempting to replicate or rival Pepys’ library? Or just to pay homage to the man he had so much respect and admiration for?

Lee, J. D. (2002) The father of British indexing: Henry Benjamin Wheatley.  The Indexer 23.2: 86-91.

Discovery of a long-lost book from the library of Sir Isaac Newton in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection

When I set out to learn more about the provenance of one of our rare books, I could not have predicted the twists and turns that would lead directly to the library of one of the world’s greatest scientists. Our copy of John Browne’s Myographia nova, or A graphical description of all the muscles in humane body was published in London in 1698. When it appeared on my desk for cataloguing I expected to find some interesting (and gory) anatomical engravings and not much else. I opened the book to reveal an unusual bookplate bearing only a Latin motto, “Philosophemur”, with no indication of the previous owner’s name. On closer examination it was apparent that this bookplate had been pasted directly over an earlier, smaller bookplate, obscuring it completely. There were two handwritten shelfmarks, one at the top left of the page, “732_24”, and one at the foot of the bookplate which reads “Case V. E.7. Barnsley.”

The “Philosophemur” bookplate with the Barnsley Park shelfmark

Intrigued by this mysterious provenance, I set out to do some detective work in the hope of identifying some of these previous owners. After a little searching I was able to determine that the “Philosophemur” bookplate originally belonged to a Dr. James Musgrave, Rector of Chinnor, near Thame in Oxfordshire. On his death, he left his library to his son, the eighth baronet Musgrave and owner of Barnsley Park, Gloucestershire, and the books were removed to the library there in 1778. Baronet Musgrave evidently did not feel the need to affix his own bookplates, but the books were recatalogued on arrival and the Barnsley shelfmark added to each volume.

The text of the Huggins bookplate is just visible through the Musgrave plate

More detective work revealed that James Musgrave originally purchased his library from his predecessor at Chinnor, a man called Charles Huggins, and it is his bookplate which is just visible beneath Musgrave’s. Although the plate is covered, the words “… in Com. Oxon” can be made out and Charles Huggins is known to have used a bookplate displaying the Huggins coat of arms with “Revd. Carols. Huggins, Rector Chinner in Com. Oxon” beneath. Huggins received his books from his father, John Huggins, Warden of the Fleet Prison, who in turn purchased the library from the estate of his neighbour, Sir Isaac Newton.

Godfrey Kneller’s portrait of Isaac Newton in 1689

Apparently when Sir Isaac Newton died in 1727, he neglected to leave a will behind and his house and all his possessions, including his extensive library, were put up for auction. John Huggins purchased the books for £300 and a list was made referring to 969 books by name, with others grouped together under miscellaneous headings (an inventory of Newton’s house recorded a total of 1,896 volumes in the library). The Musgrave library was catalogued in 1760 and our book makes an appearance as “Browne’s On the Muscles, with Cutts, 1698”. Presence on the Huggins list is commonly taken as proof that a book belonged to Newton. The Musgrave catalogue is considered less reliable as it also includes later books added by the family, however the existence of both the Huggins and Musgrave bookplates and the two shelfmarks can, according to John Harrison’s (1976) advice on identification, be taken as strong evidence that our book once stood on Newton’s shelves.

Front pastedown of the book with the bookplates and shelfmarks

The later history of Newton’s library is an extraordinary one.  As late as 1775 it was known that Musgrave owned Newton’s books, as visitors wrote about travelling to view the library, but after 1778, when Musgrave died and the books were transferred to Barnsley Park, the connection to the scientist appears to have been lost. Until 1920 it was thought that Newton’s library had simply vanished. In that year the Musgrave family decided to sell their house at Thame Park, and the “Philosophemur” books were sent over from Barnsley Park to be included in the sale. Newton’s books were sold in bundles with no indication of their importance and for a fraction of their true worth. It has long been believed that many of these books ended up in the United States, though it was feared that many more were sent to the mills for pulping, and many are still unaccounted for.

Newton in later life, by James Thornhill

Happily, not all of Newton’s books were scattered and lost in 1920. After the auction a further 858 volumes from the great scientist’s library were discovered at Barnsley Park, secreted throughout the house in cupboards and closets. This time the provenance was firmly established by Richard de Villamil and in 1943 the remaining books were purchased for the Wren Library at Trinity College, Cambridge, where Newton did so much of his remarkable work.

References:
De Villamil, R. “The tragedy of Sir Isaac Newton’s library,” The Bookman, March, 1927, 303-304
Harrison, John. ”Newton’s library: Identifying the books,” Harvard Library Bulletin, Volume XXIV, October, 1976. No. 4, 395-406

Marginalia and provenance in the Cardiff Rare Books

Reblogged from Cardiff Book History:

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Last year the Cardiff Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (CUROP), an initiative which provides summer placements for undergraduates in the university research environment, helped fund a research project on Marginalia and Provenance in the Restoration Drama texts of the Cardiff Rare Books Collection. This year, another CUROP award helped fund two more undergraduates to undertake research for Dr Melanie Bigold’s on-going project on Marginalia and Provenance in the Cardiff Rare Books.

Read more… 1,935 more words

“For those who read by the book”: a visit to the Circulating Library

Opening up a copy of La Bruyere’s Characters for cataloguing, I discovered this fascinating label on the front pastedown listing the “Conditions to be observed and consented to by every subscriber, &c. to William & George North’s Circulating Library, Brecknock, (to which this book belongs.)”

The circulating library first appeared  during the 1700s when booksellers began to rent out extra copies of the books they held. Books were still very expensive to buy and few people could afford them, however subscribers to a circulating library could, for a small annual fee, gain access to a wealth of novels, plays, and other popular reading material. The great success of the circulating library was closely linked to the increasing popularity of novels, which proved to be the perfect items for libraries to lend – they were read for enjoyment, rather than as a scholarly pursuit, so they could be read quickly and returned to the library, ensuring a rapid turnover of stock. 

Some libraries also lent books to non-subscribers on a pay-per-book basis; William & George North apparently charged according to format, from four-pence for a pocket-sized duodecimo up to three shillings for a large folio. Subscribers to the library were permitted to borrow one new book for up to three days or any other book for a week, and the Conditions… suggest that heavy fines were imposed on those who kept books too long.

The Scarborough Circulating Library from R. Ackermann’s Poetical Sketches, 1818

While circulating libraries helped to make books accessible to more people at an affordable price, there were still those who frowned upon them. As early as 1728, Robert Woodrow wrote in disgust that “all the villanous, profane, and obscene books and playes printed at London [are] lent out … for an easy price”, and opposition to the circulating library was still so widespread in the 19th century that Mudie’s Select Library  was driven to reassure patrons of its sound moral values by refusing to stock “novels of objectionable character or inferior quality”!

A true collector of the Kelmscott Press

As I was happily working away on some of our Kelmscott Press books, I discovered this wonderfully detailed bookplate in a copy of William Morris’s The roots of the mountains. Although we have yet to learn the identity of Robert Hall, the plate certainly suggests that he was an enthusiastic collector of Kelmscott publications.

On the library table are copies of several well-known Kelmscott works, including  William Morris’s The glittering plain and his 1895 translation of Beowulf. All the books are clearly bound in the distinctive Kelmscott full limp vellum tied with silk ribbons; The wood beyond the world is open to show a Morris-designed woodcut border and frontispiece.

Leaning against the bookcase is a copy of the 1896 edition of Chaucer, the most important publication from the Kelmscott Press and arguably the greatest of all the private press books. If this delightful bookplate provides us with an accurate glimpse into Robert Hall’s private library, then he was indeed a true collector of Kelmscott.

“A sure guide to hell” – advice to university students from the Devil himself!

Published in 1751 and purportedly written by Belzebub, A sure guide to hell is a satirical attack on the prevalent follies and vices of the day which form the surest path, in the opinion of the author, to an eternity in the bottomless pit. A response to Joseph Alleine’s A sure guide to heaven, the book is ostensibly an advice manual for sinners, including directions to parents in the education of their children, to youth, to the clergy, and “to those whose minds are possessed with envy, malice, &c.”

Parents are provided with assistance in choosing a suitable school for their spoiled offspring: “If you send him to school, give the master a particular charge … not to correct him, though he should neglect to learn his lesson; thus will he acquire a habit of idleness and carelessness.” Youths are invited to ease their tempers by defacing public building and parks, and are advised to frequent “taverns, playhouses … and masquerades, all of which are nurseries of vice and folly.”

Belzebub also offers helpful advice for students entering the debauchery of higher education: “Perhaps thou may’st come to the university a sober, virtuous youth … I doubt not but thou wilt be surpriz’d and shock’d to see such a dissoluteness of manners reign throughout a place.” Innocents should not worry too much about keeping up with their studies while being led astray: “Thou needst not be concerned about making progress in thy learning … it is beneath a gentleman to trouble himself about the languages, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, &c. … Do thou spend thy evenings jovially … crack some bottles of wine, and a bowl or two of punch; toast the healths of some noted beauties; get drunk … and about three or four o’clock in the morning stagger to bed.”

Cardiff’s copy of A sure guide to hell even boasts a celebrity provenance: a Latin inscription in ink on the front endpaper reads “Donum Luciferi” - a gift from the Devil himself!

A well-used book: marginalia and manuscript notes in an early 16th century herbal

This early herbal forms part of our Continental collection and was published in Paris around  1520. Our copy of Herbarum varias qui vis cognoscere vires (‘Various types of herbs that you want to know the powers of’) has been extremely useful to its previous owners and virtually every page is covered with detailed manuscript notes, observations, lists of ingredients, recipes and other marginalia.

Herbals, from the medieval Latin liber herbalis (‘book of herbs’), contain the names and descriptions of plants with details of their medicinal or culinary properties, often with illustrations to assist with proper identification. These books were among the first literature to be produced in both the East and the West and continued to flourish long after the invention of moveable type in the mid 15th century. We have several other early printed herbals in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection but none have been quite as well used as this one!

Library history: not just old book stamps

I’m currently cataloguing SCOLAR’s collection of archives relating to the history of Cardiff University Library. It contains the usual types of records you’d expect to find in an organisation’s archives – annual reports, correspondence, minutes, accounts, building plans and personnel records, as well as records specific to the library’s function, such as catalogues, user statistics, readers’ surveys, staff newsletters, and registers for requisitions, accessions, donations, and binding.

The archives do not just consist of paper records – there are slides and audio cassettes used for 1970s library inductions; a gold key used to open the Draper’s Library in 1909, library bookplate printing blocks, a framed Concrete Society prize, awarded in 1976 for the Arts and Social Studies Library (right), and yes, old book stamps.

I have been asked – why keep such archives? Would anyone want to consult ‘201/1/3/1/1 – Inter-Library loan receipts, 1936-37’? Many would be surprised to hear that library history is in fact a thriving academic field, connected to related social history disciplines such as information history, the history of the book, computing history, provenance studies and the history of reading. The archive has recently been consulted by a postgraduate student at Université de Caen, Basse-Normandie, who has written his dissertation on the history of Cardiff University Library, and kindly deposited a copy with us to aid future research.

My favourite item in the collection is a 1980 manual for one of the first personal computers, with enclosed original ‘punch-cards’. These computers processed very basic data stored on stiff card, which had with holes punched in pre-defined positions. Every position represents a single binary digit or ‘bit’ of information: no hole=0, hole=1. It serves to remind me just how far technology has advanced in the last 30 years.

The forthcoming British Librarianship and Information Work 2006-2010 will feature a chapter on Library History authored by Katie Birkwood. If you know of conferences whose proceedings have not (yet) been published, online projects, resources and databases that might not be mentioned in the traditional literature, or any particular trends that you have noticed in recent years and think are worthy of note (ideally with supporting evidence!), Katie needs you!