October 1, 2015 ~ crookr1

Finding 19th century pieces of literature was a lot more difficult than I thought upon beginning this task. It took me a few days to find something, but then I came across Lady of the Tiger. The first seven pages involve multiple different types of marginalia ranging from underlining, to circling, to defining, and to annotating. For the purpose of the assignment I will be ignoring the marginalia written in ink because it does not date back pre-1923. On the first page there are quite a few notes in the margins and circled words with synonyms or definitions above them. The circled words with definitions beside them make me think that the reader could have been a student like me, or a non-native speaker who is simply trying to get more acquainted with the language. The reader also underlined important character traits and facts about events happening in the story rather than stylistic details. They might have been an amateur reader or perhaps knew exactly the information they needed for whatever the novel was being read for. For a collegiate level paper, a professor would be looking for more than just a summary of a novel, however. They would rather appreciate a paper geared toward how the author writes and how they portray the information underlined. So perhaps, if they were hypothetically a student, they would be at a lower level in their schooling than the college level. One note does however say “choice of language” on page 3 in regards to the first paragraph of that page. So the reader might have a higher set of critical and analytical skills than previously thought. Their thought process is really exposed though towards the middle of the same page when the reader talks of comparing and contrasting love and jealousy. The marginalia in the book I selected really gives us some insight into the mind of one individual of the Victorian Era.

Book Traces

September 30, 2015September 30, 2015 ~ dastona1

When I first entered the library, I had certain kinds of books in mind when I entered the library that I wanted to begin my search in. As soon as we got into the library I decided to enter the first stack I saw just to get a feel for what kind of books I would have the best luck with. I opened book after book that appeared to be rebound. I figured the ones with the most use were the ones that were rebound and therefore I would have luck finding marginalia. I got lost in the books, I lost track of time. I was thinking about how so many other people have touched these books for so many different reasons. I felt like I was entering another world. I must have opened over 50 books, even after I found a promising lead with marginalia that appeared to be from the 19th century. There was so much writing in this book, I could tell the person reading it had poured through the pages, looking for meaning in each word. The book I found contained plays from the 19th Century, all written in German. The author was Thomas Moody Campbell. According to the Chicago Tribune, he taught at a Florida State University for 30 years. He passed away of a heart attack at the age of 57. The book was dedicated to his Wife, Annie Pauline Von Klemmen. All of the marginalia I found is written in German, so there isn’t much I can say about the words themselves. I found marginalia on many of the pages, but the ones with the most writing were on pages in the 70’s. The marginalia is found on so many of the pages and even if there are no words on some pages, the owner often underlined and circled things.

My Submission on Book Traces

Book Traces in 18th Century British Plays

February 20, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

After failing to find any marginalia in the first few books I looked through, which were based upon my original database query, I happened upon The Plays of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The book was written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was a playwright and politician, among other things. He wrote them in the late 18th century, so I hoped for some insight from those students who had come before me, likely while studying English literature.

The book itself seems to have been repaired, and the title and authors’ name on the spine of the book was handwritten. Inside, It was heavily marked, albeit in pencil, which unfortunately indicated that the traces cannot be accurately dated. If the traces had been added with pen, it would be possible to ascertain more information about who had written them. There were many passages simply underlined, while there were also several pages where the traces consisted of comments about the text.

The student who provided the marginalia on this page sought to understand the vocabulary that Sheridan used. Enough was written after the line, “Crave what you will–there’s quantum sufficit”. “Sal volatile” was underlined and smelling salts was written by the student, while “hydra” led to snake, and positive was jotted in the margin after a line containing “poz”.

When viewing another page, the same theme is found, with slight variations. The student used the margins to define words in the text, and also bracketed certain paragraphs as well, always in pencil. “Insipid” led to weak, and “raillery” was defined as gay ridicule. Of course, the connotation of the word gay was quite different when the student had written these notes. Raillery is defined today as good-humored teasing, so I’m not sure the students’ inclusion of ridicule fits best.

Finally, I discovered that pencil was not the only marking implement found inside this book. Whether it was coffee, wine, blood, or something else entirely, there are about eight to ten pages that have some unfortunate staining. Just as I’m writing this today with the aid of a cup of coffee (at a safe distance from the book itself), a student from the past had done something similar, without as much luck.

Book traces

Standard English Poems: Spenser to Tennyson

February 20, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford ~ 1 Comment

While searching through the PR section of the library catalog for the Booktraces assignment, I stumbled upon this collection of poems selected and edited by Henry S. Pancoast. It was published in New York in 1899 by Henry Holt & Company. There wasn’t much of anything written throughout the actual pages of the book, but the both inside covers and the pages immediately following or proceeding were filled with quotes and poems from various sources.

Pasted onto the inside cover are an introduction to a poem by Miss Anna Bartlett Warner and the poem itself, which begins, “It seems so strange to think of days when I shall not be here…” Both excerpts appear to be typewritten.

On the opposite page, the name Amy L. Abel is written in ink. The small “’10” beside it was interesting – especially considering that at least one of the poems its owner inscribed in the book is from 1915. As a quick analysis of the handwriting still heavily suggests that it originates in the correct time period, it can be assumed that Ms. Abel wrote in the book on more than one occasion.

Continue reading →

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

February 19, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

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.

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.

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.

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/

Project_19th Century Books with Marginalia_DeFranco

February 19, 2015 ~ Annie Swafford

I got carried away in the library looking for books that would meet the criteria for this project. I must have spent at lease two hours total searching high and low. I want to share some of my smaller discoveries in addition to the one that I think is the most substantial.

The first marking of interest came from a book called The Life of Laurence Sterne by Percy Fitzgerald. (1896, Downey & Co. 21 York St., Covent Garden, London) This book has a script (probably male?) name, “Letteme” in the first few pages under a black and white photograph of a man. It looks authentic (pen type and writing style, dark/light, etc.) but I’m not positive that it’s written and not copied or printed.

The second book I looked at was Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Othello, The Moor Of Venice, edited, with notes, by William J. Rolfe. (1886, New York” Harper & Brothers, Publishers, Franklin Square.) This book has a name and date “Nellie F. Bates March 1887” in the light, more frilly andornate feminine looking penmanship. This book also included many markings within the body text pages but it seems to be much more modern and probably done by students using the books for projects etc. I’m including a picture of these markings anyway because I still think they’re interesting.

It is my inference that both of these old signatures are just the names of the people who owned the books wanting to mark them as their property.

The third and most interesting marginalia I found went beyond just a name within the first few pages. This book, by Mark Twain, entitled Happy Tales (1892, New York: Charles L. Webster & Co.) has a note indicating that the book was a gift from one person to another as they were leaving. The note reads, (though I’m not sure I’m transcribing the names 100 percent accurately) “For Ada B. Richardiore from her friend Annie M. Amred. ‘Bon Voyage’ — April 30. 1892.” What I’m putting together is that this was a woman giving this book of short stories to her leaving friend, that they may not see each other for a long time or even ever again, and finally that she wants her friend to have “Happy Tales” of her own.

*Here is the link to my entry on Book Traces!

Nicholas Nickleby and other Booktraces

October 5, 2014 ~ Annie Swafford

When we were given the book traces assignment, I immediately looked for one of my favorite books from the 19th century: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens.

The edition in Sojourner Truth Library was published by Macmillan in 1907. I have to say, I was disappointed not to find more markings in this incredible book, but one marking I found was some underlining and, beside it in pencil, the word “EGAD.” I am assuming this word is a a direct response to the conditions of Dotheboys Hall in the 1800s. Dotheboys is a fictional boarding school that Charles Dickens created as an example to show the public in a more persuasive way that boarding schools are terrible places to send your children. In this example on pages 35 and 36, Dickens paints a picture using the characters’ discussion of the demise of a young boy who only had a dictionary to lay upon. The reader seems to have had a very personal response to this image. This reader’s response is what Dickens was aiming for in the readers of his generation. Though Nicholas Nickleby is a long novel with many themes and subjects, bringing attention to the insufferable boarding schools of the time was very important to Dickens when writing this book. There are many more examples of the conditions in the boarding schools. Perhaps the novel was too long for the reader to continue, or maybe this statement was the first to really show what occurs in these schools and the reader became less sensitive to the images. Either way, I thought this was an amusing reaction to find out of very few other markings in the text.

In another book, (I regret to say I didn’t document which – likely because there were no other markings), Amy Louise Cooper signed the flyleaf of the book on June 28th, 1888.

The inscription is barely visible now, but it really makes me wonder how far this book has traveled, and whether it has been read entirely, and, if so, how many times it has been read. A quick Google search of Amy Louise Cooper will bring up quite a few people from the past, but, without a sense of geography, there’s no way of knowing which one this book belonged to.

Searching in the library for book traces was a lot of fun, and I will definitely be looking for more in the future. I really enjoy history when I can interact with it, and seeing the words in the handwriting of previous readers makes reading the novel itself so much more satisfying and interesting. The book traces website is fascinating, and I hope I can contribute more book traces as I find them.

-Brooke Chapman

Book Traces- Edward Bulwer Lytton’s The Caxtons

October 5, 2014 ~ Annie Swafford

When exploring Edward Bulwer Lytton’s novel The Caxtons, I found plenty of marginalia of multiple kinds spanned throughout its pages. The novel focuses on the struggle of the Caxton family to keep their prestigious ancestry and tradition alive. Some of the marginalia I have chosen relates to this, while other instances were annotations denoting influential quotes or comments on Lytton’s writing.

This excerpt from the text shows a comment on a group of dialogue that reads “This calumny will go on forever!”. For those unfamiliar with the term, a calumny is defined as a false or malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something. In this scene, we see one character attacking one of the Caxtons about the honor of their ancestor. It is clear that the calumny the reader who wrote this is referring to is the attacking of the Caxton ancestor.

This excerpt of the text is most likely marked up due to the novel’s theme of the rejection of fate and destiny. “Any weapon that conquers fate is noble in the hands of a brave man, uncle”. The fate which needs conquering would be the conformity to social norms based on one’s ancestry, such as Pisistratus Caxton must face in this novel. Eventually fate is conquered when the great Caxton name is plagued with financial instability, preventing him from becoming the scholar that his father and ancestors were. Multiple Caxtons move to Australia at the end of the novel which symbolizes redemption and the freedom from that useless fate which consumed their name for so long.

These marginalia don’t necessarily involve the plot of the novel, but they do offer insightful quotes about life and human nature.

“so that the son might have no excuse for the sins that Want whispers to the weak.”

“While there is life, there is hope of repentance”

The final piece of marginalia that I wish to discuss regards gender roles in the Victorian era. the passage in the image describes a woman who does not follow the social norms of the era but is not frowned upon either. Instead the author surprisingly puts her equal if not above any man. This passage surprised me, and surprised the other reader as well leading him to write “A man wrote this!” in the right hand margin.

Book Traces

October 3, 2014 ~ Annie Swafford

I found this marginalia in the book “Shakspere – A Critical Study of his Mind and Art” by Edward Dowden and made a submission to Book Traces. The call number at the Sojourner Truth Library is Stacks PR2976 .D6 1900. This version of the book was published in 1900, and the original was published in 1875. This was Dowden’s first book, and helped him to become widely acknowledged as a critic of Shakespearian literature.

The first image of marginalia shows that the reader underlined an entire section and wrote “IMPORTANT” in the margin, perhaps as if the reader was using this section to include in a research project or in work for a class. Perhaps the checkmarks symbolize where an important section starts off or ends. It is clear that the reader was annotating in order to keep note of certain sections of Dowden’s criticism.

The second image of marginalia shows that the reader wrote “characters are perhaps too one-dimensionally stereotypical,” presumably summing up Dowden’s criticism of Shakespearian characters. In this section, the book reads “Hence, too, the characters , while they remain individual men and women, are ideal, representative, typical” – this shows Dowden’s tendency to analyze and criticize Shakespeare’s writing and character creation. The reader is practicing the form of annotation that includes summarizing the writer’s thoughts on the margin for easy reference and understanding – something that I have personally always found helpful. His or her marginalia helped me to have an idea of what was written on the page before I even read it – and I knew nothing about this book when I first spotted the marginalia.

Overall, I felt that this was a very interesting lab and I enjoyed searching through the stacks to find interesting and unique marginalia!

Book Traces: Searching for My Past

October 2, 2014 ~ Annie Swafford

“March 3, 1963”

My Nanny’s handwriting stared up at me from the book my Poppy had placed in my hand. I had never seen anything quite like it.

“My Johnny,

Lines of verse last a long time, but sometimes even those we love best of all, can be forgotten. But, you know, love lasts a lifetime, and even a lot longer, something called forever. With the help of God, our love will last even longer than forever.

Happy Anniversary John.

As always yours, Mary”

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved finding writing in books. My mom and Nanny are both English teachers, so searching through the family library is like looking through a whole collection of personalized books, with notes in the margins, and lines under the words which give you the key to the tragedy of Hamlet, or a map to Watership Down. For me, there’s nothing like seeing a little smiley face in the corner of a page, my Nanny’s signature move, which tells you something either funny or heart-wrenchingly happy is about to happen. I mark up my own books too. So you can imagine my excitement when we were introduced to the Book Traces project in my DH class. Sitting in the library, I was ready to go and find that book I knew was waiting there for me. I looked up a couple of titles in the directory, but I just wanted to shuffle. I wanted to search aimlessly. That’s when you find the best stuff, right? I start pulling books off the shelves. Blue with brilliant gilded engravings, re-binded red with regular binding, green and brown and falling apart to the touch, I was loving it. Then, I happened upon it. An old copy of Hamlet with some sonnets in the back. I flipped through and found exactly what I had been looking for. A copy of Shakespeare With Notes, Glossary Etc. Volume X from 1900.

Someone desperately trying to make sense of Shakespeare (I know the feeling). But what really struck me were the obviously erased pages. It ripped a page out of my heart. Why would someone erase the notes that might help future readers? It didn’t make any sense to me…and the I realized why it hit home so hard for me. When I saw that, I saw all of my Nanny and Mother’s notes slip away. All of those notes left in a tree for Scout to find disappeared like Gatsby’s count of enchanted objects. I suddenly realized the importance of these marks in this book, the importance of any marks in any book: They are who we are. They are our reflections on the text. everyone brings something different into a story with them when they read, and this leads to different interpretations of the same text, and these notes, and all notes allow us to see the text through a different set of eyes. To experience things as others do. That is the true beauty of marginalia.

~Austin Carpentieri

Digital Tools for the 21st Century

Sherlock Holmes's London

marginalia

Book Traces

Book Traces in 18th Century British Plays

Standard English Poems: Spenser to Tennyson

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

Project_19th Century Books with Marginalia_DeFranco

Nicholas Nickleby and other Booktraces

Book Traces- Edward Bulwer Lytton’s The Caxtons

Book Traces

Book Traces: Searching for My Past