library

Book Traces Assignment

~ fiegeb1

In looking for Book Traces of previous readers of 19th century books in the library, I came up empty handed. Although I was unsuccessful, I did learn a lot through this assignment and have some guesses as to why I didn’t find any Book Traces in the library.

At first, I had high hopes for this assignment. I was really looking forward to finding old traces of writing in 1800’s books, it didn’t occur to me that people marked up their textbooks years ago too! Initially, I thought finding Book Traces would be an easy task, but as it turned out, it was far from it. One thing I did learn was that our own library was home to over 500,000 books! I imagined I would have no problem finding what I needed, until I learned that only 2,000 of these books were from the 19th century.

There were several reasons why I believe I didn’t find any Book Traces in our library. One of the biggest being the supply- with less than 1% of the books in the Sojourner Truth Library being from the 19th century, it seemed like finding a needle in a haystack. It was also discerning to find out that the library largely eliminates any book donations they get with writing in them. For the sake of Book Traces, I think it would be nice if in the future, our Library preserved and maintained Book Traces (so long as they didn’t infringe on the actual text of the book) and made an effort to have more 19th century books with Book Traces.

Another issue I had was finding appropriate 19th century books that would have writing in them. I searched through dozens of books, and I kept running into old Encyclopedia/ Textbooks, instead of any with literature or stories in them. Some titles included “Religious Science”, “Complete Works of Shakespeare” and so forth. To my surprise, not many old textbooks were marked in nearly as much as newer editions are today. My theory is that these old books were kept as sets, and remained untouched on shelves for much of their lives. I did try searching for keywords such as “journal” and “diary” to find some better material with a higher probability for booknotes, but still did not have any luck.

Although I was not successful this time around, I hope to have future encounters with Book Traces, and look forward to when I can find some Book Traces of my own!

Book Traces Project: Marginalia in the Book, The Spoilers by Rex E. Beach

~ Annie Swafford

The Spoilers

While searching for a piece of literature at the Sojourner Truth Library that contained marginalia was quite difficult at first, I finally discovered a quite fascinating piece for my Book Traces project.  The book is titled The Spoilers and was written by a man named Rex E. Beach and illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.  It was published by the Harper & Brothers Publishers in New York and London in the year 1905.  However, the copy that I had encountered was published in April, 1906.

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The first marginalia that I discovered was on the very first page of the book, before the title page.  The marginalia consisted of a clipping from a newspaper or magazine that was pasted on the page.  The clipping contains an advertisement to see the book’s first production as a play on stage.  Unfortunately, the year is not provided, but it does state that it began on a Monday night on November 5th and that it was shown for only two weeks.  Even though the year is not given to us, it can be deduced that it became a play in the early 20th century.  On the program, there is a list of the cast; the characters were listed in the order in which they first appeared on the stage.  Toward the bottom of the marginalia, there is also a synopsis of all scenes that would happen during the play.  Another fascinating thing I found on the clipping was a picture of a man.  I researched what Rex E. Beach looked like on Google and it seems to me that the picture in the book matches the pictures of Rex E. Beach that I researched.

WP_20150219_005[1]The second piece of marginalia that I found was on the first page of the first chapter.  The marginalia consisted of a piece of paper that was cut and pasted to the page with the words, “Very truly yours,” which was done with a typewriter and then below that, there is a signature of the author Rex E. Beach.  I have deduced that perhaps the piece of paper was part of a letter that had been written to someone from Rex E. Beach himself.

 

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Rex E. Beach was born in Michigan in the year 1877.  He was on his way to becoming a lawyer before the Alaska Gold Rush caught his attention and he headed there to make his fortune. Unfortunately, after a couple of years he was still looking for it and, realizing that he was not going to find it in gold prospecting, he turned to writing books.  The Spoilers was his second novel and was based on a true story of corrupt government officials stealing gold mines from prospectors, which he witnessed while he was prospecting in Nome, Alaska.  This novel became the best-selling novel of 1906 and later had a couple of movie adaptations.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project because there is so much history to be learned  and appreciated for many years to come.  (As long as we continue to pull out books from their shelves the right way!)

http://www.booktraces.org/book-submission-the-spoilers/

Book Traces and Notes from the Unknown

~ Annie Swafford

In my travels into the library, finding a book that had writing in it was very difficult. This may be something to be happy about, that people are respectful of books, but in my case of research, it was not preferable. Upon finding the novel English Literature From the Beginning to the Norman Conquest on the highest shelf in the stacks of Sojourner Truth Library, I had confidence that this was the book I was looking for. And I was right to feel such a way, for when I opened the book I stumbled upon many mysterious inscriptions

IMG_7645 IMG_7647 IMG_7646In the first picture, the word God, amoung two others, is underlined. It is difficult to say what the intention was for underlining this word, but it is interesting to know that there is endless possibilities for the underlining of a word such as God. The word God has different meanings for every individual on Earth, therefore this word is especially mysterious in its placement. The two words in the other two pictures that are almost illegibly scribbled onto the pages are almost equally as mysterious as they are perceived to me to say “the same” and “the norman”.

The book itself was published in the United States in 1908, first edition in 1898. The author Stopford A. Brooke was born in 1832, and died in 1916 and was an Irish churchman, royal chaplain and writer. Since the novel itself is a collection of english literature and criticisms by the author himself, it is again difficult to connect the inscribed words to a reasoning for the existence. The greatest attribute of literature is that the author may intend something for the reader to grasp inside the writings of a book, but the reader himself will always find his own meaning of the words. This in itself is why these inscriptions are so interesting, and so very, very mysterious.

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