This, being the first time I’d ever attempted to search for marginalia, let alone marginalia from the Victorian era, proved to be a pretty difficult task. I must have looked through nearly twenty books before finally finding something noteworthy, and even still, I could barely read the handwriting. After searching through the stacks for what felt like hours, I finally stumbled upon a book titled Best Plays of the Old Dramatists: William Wycherley. A collection of William Wycherley’s plays, edited by W.C. Ward, this book was published in London in 1900 by T. Fisher Unwin. This particular copy’s call number is PR3772.W3.

Given the nature of the book and what I was able to decipher of the scribblings in the margins, it seems like this book was most likely used for scholastic purposes, though it isn’t a definite. Notes have been made throughout the book regarding themes and overall interpretation, though the language used by the reader is somewhat colloquial in nature, which tells me that either a) they were really enjoying this book, b) they were so bored reading and studying they had to compensate by having a little fun writing their notes, or c) this wasn’t for a class at all and this person just really liked trying to interpret library books in the margins (this is, of course, a long shot, but hey, who am I to judge?).

Also, I unfortunately had to rely on my shoddy flip phone camera, so the pics are a little fuzzy. Forgive me for that. It’s tough being stuck in the stone ages.

 

 

The first bit of marginalia I found, which made me initially think the reader was reading the book for a class, is a bracket encasing a set of lines, with a note beside it reading, “Jealousy theme.” As aforementioned, thematic sidenotes like this were made throughout the book, highlighting little interpretive bits and pieces of Wycherley’s writing.

 

 

Another such note was made at another point in the book, this time noting, “Purpose of these ladies,” referring to some of the characters. Once again, this points to scholastic use by the reader, identifying another crucial piece of info, most likely so he or she could study it later on.

 

 

 

Another note, this time of a more colloquial nature (as far as I could tell), seems to talk about the characters. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read most of it, but I noticed the reader created a bit of a sentimental/funny nickname for one of the characters in Wycherley’s The Country Wife, Sparkish, who the reader proudly dubbed “Sparky!” I wish I could’ve deciphered the rest of the handwriting, because I have no idea what the reader was even making a note of, but at least it showed their attitude toward the characters somewhat. Other colloquial/less formal notes were made throughout the book as well.

http://www.booktraces.org/book-submission-the-best-plays-of-the-old-dramatists-william-wycherley/

As a student majoring in history, I’ve heard of the term marginalia a lot. However, I’ve really only heard about marginalia in terms of medieval history, which features elaborate doodles and drawings of strange figures – something that is clearly not present within Victorian culture. So this was a really interesting project for me. However, this was extremely difficult for me. I searched every term listed on the handout, looking at over twenty books, and found little to nothing. This taught me two things: 1. Old book dust really flares up my allergies and 2. 19th century marginalia might not be as prevalent in our own library as I hoped it to be.

Fortunately I managed to find a collection of books all marked with the same inscription from the desired time period. In Novels and Tales Volume I by Maria Edgeworth, published in 1846, the inside cover was marked by fountain pen with a name and date: M.R. Fisher, Christmas 1849. This peaked my interest, but several google searches led to no information found on the individual. The book itself was also really interesting to me. The images that adorned the first few pages of the different volumes had me fascinated and intrigued. Another note about the book was just how old and fragile the text was. When I checked this book out it set off the library detectors, and the binding itself seems very fragile.

Overall, what the inscription tells me about how the 19th century used books is that they were a large part of the gift-giving culture. Furthermore, it also gives an understanding about Christmas, and at what age Christmas was being celebrated, as well as how Christmas was celebrated. If I had to make a claim, I’d say it would appear that M.R. Fisher would be a member of the upper to middle class due to the extensive nature of the books given at one time period (the entire collection being ten), as well as the content of the book would be for educated individuals. Furthermore, I would further guess that perhaps M.R. Fisher would be female, considering they were gifted a collection of novels, and during this time period I believe women were the primary audience for novelists. Also, this is a female author, which would further make me believe the inscriber is a woman. However, this is all merely speculation on my end since there is little to no information surrounding the individual.

A few days ago we were told to go nuts on the PR, PS or any call section that could contain books that have marginalia in them.  I must say I had a blast looking through these books since you have no idea what you can find.  No, I did not find unicorns or pixie dust, but I did find a cool story behind this collection.  This book, as well as the whole collection, was signed to an “M.R Fisher” for Christmas 1849.  I feel as this person was a big fan of Maria Edgeworth, as she passed away several months earlier and has received the collection in memory of her.  This was most likely written in fountain pen due its appearance.

Now, I cannot find the whole story behind the collection as M.R. Fisher lived two centuries ago, and a google search leaves me empty handed.  There are also several signs that this book has seen better days long ago.  First off look at it, I’m scared to put it in a backpack because it looks like it it will tear apart! This has caused confusion within the library as it kept setting the alarms off when I tried to exit.

 

Also, there are many stains of all sorts throughout the book; I’ve found stains from coffee, water, tea and even makeup? I was shocked when I saw whatever it might be smeared across the worn out pages.  Speaking of this stain does anyone know what this could be?

 

Fragile pages and odd odors aside I thoroughly enjoyed looking for marginalia as it’s almost like a treasure hunt, I swear I may go to the library just to look for more.  I will say that I was lucky that I was able to stumble across this collection since I knew it contained something from the moment I first laid eyes on it.  These books seem to have character oozing from their bindings, with all that they’ve been through.  I’m glad that the Sojourner Truth Library still contains a healthy amount of books that contain marginalia.  So maybe the next time you finish all your work and have nothing better to do, why not look for some marginalia?

 

 

Searching through a library of six hundred thousand books to find the two thousand books that may or may not have marginalia might sound like an awfully time consuming and fruitless task. However- as it turns out- I had a great deal of fun and learned many things that were previously unbeknownst to me. Initially I had made a list of books that I had found on the libraries data base. After realizing that it was a real pain in the ass to run from one shelf to another to find nothing in the margins of my books I decided to just randomly choose books that looked decrepit enough to have come from the 19th century. After being deceived by many books I finally found two that met all the correct specification and contained marginalia. I slid a rugged, re-bound green book from the shelf who’s spine read “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” written by Thoreau. I was pleasantly surprised to read that the book dated all the way back to 1849 and even more to my surprise the first page of the book contained a message written in pencil. As a member of the undereducated generation I was born into, I had a difficult time reading the script but I am pretty sure the text said “Phil. Islands– Sutey. Arh(???)– Panama Canal (that one I could read)– monroe Doctrine”. I assume this was not written in the 19th century and was just some notes a kid wrote, the book is about Thoreau and his brothers travels through different rivers and canals perhaps the person reading the book was planning his own river travels– who knows, I’m no detective. Next I picked up a book that was falling apart so, of course, it had to be old. The book was titled “REDPATH’S HISTORY of the UNITED STATES”. I didn’t read any of the book itself but on the first page was another pencil written note in script that seems to be some sort of list, probably someone planning out an essay or just organizing their thoughts and ideas. I could make out some of the words but not many. The book is a part of a volume serious on history so I think it is safe to assume that the writing is of some poor suffering kid trying to organize monotonous historic information into a coherent essay. The final thing that I learned is that I am allergic to old books for after about the 6th book I flipped through my eyes were red, my beard itched and I had a cough. This was most likely due to the dust that lined the cover and pages, but who knows maybe old books are coated in poison, the world may never know. 

http://www.booktraces.org/book-submission-a-week-on-the-concord-and-merrimack-rivers/

http://www.booktraces.org/book-submission-redpaths-history-of-the-united-states/