I was on the verge of giving up while looking in the stacks of the SUNY New Paltz Sojourner Truth Library for marginalia. Then, I came across a book that appeared to be from the 18th century due to its leather spine with several cords binding it together. When I gently pulled the book out, I read that it was from 1855. The book was called, The Life and Letters of Sydney Smith. Nowell C. Smith had written the book after Sydney Smith died. This book is Volume 1, and I had seen Volume 2 on the shelf below it.
As I skimmed the delicate pages of the text, I thought this was going to be another unmarked book. However, near the end of the book, page 449 to be exact, I found two newspaper snippets. One was a full article that dated back to 1945. The article is from the Times Literary Supplement and the author writes about Sydney Smith and a new book that is called “The Smith of Smiths,” that will, apparently, better depict Sydney Smith’s life. The newspaper also had an illustration of Sydney Smith in the middle of the text.
The other snippet is what seems to be a reply from the author of The Life and Letters of Sydney Smith, N. C. Smith, to whomever wrote the newspaper article. His tone is defensive as he explains some of the reasons for his choices as a writer. N. C. Smith states that he, “regrets cutting down the index to save space.” I found this interesting because in our Digital Humanities class we are learning that it is important to have every piece of a book. References were also cut out of Nowell’s text to save space. The references from a given time period can play a key role in research and I am glad Smith had addressed his mistake.
The Times Literary Supplement still thrives today as the leading internationally forum of literary culture. This publication serves as the only literary weekly and has no competition. There are many reviews of literary works included in this journal.
After reading the page in which the article and snippet are found, it seems that the particular page have little to nothing to do with the article. The newspaper cut-outs were probably just shoved into a random area of the book.
