Rare Books Newsletter
Issue 95
August 2013
The John Rylands Library, University of Manchester (compliments of Lucy Evans)
1
Contents
Reports
CILIP Rare Books and Special
Collections Group seminar: ‘Show off
your special collections with a treasures
volume!’, 22 January 2013
Page 3
Historical Bookbindings Workshop –
Lambeth Palace Library, 16th May 2013
Page 6
A visit to Cecil Court, 20th June 2013
Page 8
Article
Transforming Hidden Collections: Work
in Progress at the Jerwood Library,
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and
Dance
Page 9
Book Reviews
Page 13
Editors Note
Welcome to the summer issue of the Rare Books Newsletter. This issue celebrates
the development and training events offered by the Group, which are seen as core to
our mission to provide training opportunities related to the maintenance, display and
use of collections. In addition, Emma Greenwood writes about the project that has
engaged her for the last five years to transform the hidden collections at the Jerwood
Library, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. A healthy supply of
professional book reviews follows, with many thanks from the editorial team to the
publishers and reviewers for their generous contributions to our professional
development.
I hope you enjoy this packed issue of the Rare Books Newsletter.
2
3
Reports
CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group seminar: ‘Show off your
special collections with a treasures volume!’, 22 January 2013
This seminar examined the process, practicalities and pitfalls of creating a treasures
volume for a library. Karen Attar, Head of Special Collections at Senate House
Library, drew on her experience editing Senate House Library, University of London
(London: Scala, 2012) and gave many useful hints and tips.
Why have a treasures book?
Put bluntly, as increasingly many libraries have created such books, any large
institution that hasn’t published one yet starts to give the impression that it doesn’t
have any treasures. On the flip side, treasures books can help to level the playing
field: there is a limit to how many items can be included in one book, so they present
an opportunity for smaller institutions to punch above their weight. Senate House
Library decided to produce a treasures book as part of its efforts to demonstrate its
intellectual value at a time of stringent funding cuts and uncertainty about the future.
Finance and resources
You will need financial backing to produce a treasures book: you may ultimately
break even or even make a profit, but this will not happen immediately. In addition to
financial resources, you will need to invest a significant amount of staff time into
researching and editing the book. You will need to allocate time for managing visits
from a photographer or for sending material off site to be photographed, for
undertaking research on behalf of contributors, and sometimes you’ll have to drop
everything to check proofs and layouts. Work doesn’t end at the publication of the
book: you still to contribute time and effort to promote and sell it.
Content
It is important to consider what sort of book you want to produce and what its
audience and/or intended effect will be. Some books use the treasured items to tell
a wider story. The audience for this sort of volume doesn’t have to be interested in
books and/or libraries, so long as they’re interested in the wider story. The other
format is more like an exhibition catalogue (without necessarily having the exhibition
to go with it). This will have a more limited audience, primarily of people interested in
books and libraries, people interested in your institution, and members, alumni,
friends and relatives of your institution and the contributors to the book.
Senate House Library aimed to produce a book that couldn’t be duplicated by other
libraries. To this end, it eschewed the classic famous rare books and based its
choice on copy-specific details and items unique to this library. It wanted to
represent all major donors to the library, especially living donors. It chose individual
4
items to include as treasures, not whole collections because it was felt that this
would make the book more cohesive.
The Senate House Library book starts with a 5,000-word history of the library,
focussing on the history of the collections, and not on the history of library processes
or policies. The intention was that individual entries could then focus on the item in
question, and not the history of the collection from which it hails.
The final selection of 60 chronologically-arranged items included many incunables,
manuscripts and archival holdings. There was also a focus on printed books that are
translations, on books that were cheap at the time they were produced and have
subsequently become treasures, and on items that have a special value to the
University of London.
Senate House Library chose items on intellectual basis, and only thought later about
visual appeal. Karen strongly advised other libraries to consider visual appeal as well
as intellectual value right from the start of the process, as the ultimate appearance of
the book is very important. If you do have uninspiring-looking items that are included
on intellectual grounds, enliven the appearance with other relevant images from your
collection. It’s also important to assess whether potential inclusions will need
conservation work before they could be photographed.
Choosing your content
Some items from your collections will obviously choose themselves because of fame
or beauty or importance. There are various means you can use to choose the others:

Use library committee minutes for ideas – they will record donations and other
useful titbits. They will also preserve some stories useful for the history
section.

Build on the work that has already been done elsewhere, for example items
highlighted on your website.

Seek advice from your readers and from reading room staff.

Use your catalogue to uncover items of note, for example by looking for the
books that have been catalogued from scratch rather than by copycataloguing because there are likely quite rare.
Contributors
Senate House library invited internal and external contributors to write accompanying
text for each of the items. It was decided that contributors would keep copyright in
their contributions. Karen advised that it’s useful to have some big name
contributors, but that you don’t need to have someone famous writing about every
item. It’s also important to remember that there will be some people who have
5
connections with, or power within, your institution whom it will be politic to ask to
contribute. Senate House library approached library colleagues, members of the
Bibliographical Society, regular readers at the library, people who had made
enquiries about holdings, people known to have written about the items in the past,
people who have given talks, and contributors recommended by all of the above.
Contributors were asked for 400 words and were explicitly told that they could write
more if they wished but that longer submissions would be cut by the editors.
Editing: key practical advice

Be flexible. If you have your heart set on an item that for some reason is not
suitable, do not despair. Consider why you liked it and investigate other items
with similar features.

Build the availability of the material into the financial planning of the project.
You may need to digitise items for overseas contributors to work from. Staff
will be required to have to do archival research to support the contributors.

It is probably wise might be wise to over-commission in the first instance to
allow for around 5% of contributors to drop out.

Allow for the fact that you will have to totally re-write some people’s
contributions, as well as editing all of the others.

Because of the importance of the visual appearance of the book, be prepared
to edit the text for reasons of layout.

Send a model entry to all contributors so that they can see what is expected
of them and so that they are not writing in a vacuum.

The publisher will want a selection of images for each item. Make it clear
which images are vital because they show features mentioned in the text, and
which are optional.
Senate House Library is promoting its book by blogging a treasure a fortnight at
http://senatehouselibraryhistoriccollections.wordpress.com/category/university-oflondon-treasures-volume/ and by holding an exhibition of treasures.
Katherine Birkwood
Royal College of Physicians, London
6
Historical Bookbindings Workshop – Lambeth Palace Library, 16th May 2013
On the 16th May 2013, the CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections group met
under the arches of Lambeth Palace in anticipation of a day filled with rare books. As
a relative newcomer to the world of bookbinding, I was looking forward to meeting
other rare book enthusiasts, as well as learning more about how to describe bindings
to potential researchers and for catalogue records. The day was led by Professor
Nicholas Pickwoad, director of the Ligatus research centre for the history of
bookbinding.
Professor Pickwoad’s presentation, ‘Identifying and Interpreting Bookbindings’,
argued that researchers give most attention to rare books with fine, decorated
bindings – but these constitute a small proportion of rare books held in libraries,
around 5% or less of the total. Therefore, the day was dedicated to examining the
major part of libraries’ rare book collections, those with less ‘beautiful’ – although no
less important – bindings.
Professor Pickwoad noted that careful examination and knowledge of bindings is
crucial, as it is possible to identify where a book was bound by the characteristics of
the binding. Identifying geographical characteristics of bindings provides vital
information for those interested in the history of the book and the dissemination of
knowledge; bindings were often attached to the textblock of the book later, so
learning about bindings enables researchers to see where the book was read.
Binding books was very much a two stage process – you often bought the textblock
unfinished and then paid a binder to finish the book to your style.
The rest of the day was spent examining a wide variety of books to learn more
about different types of binding styles. Most of the books examined came from Sion
College Library; the pre-1850 books and pamphlets are now held at Lambeth Palace
Library since Sion College’s closure in 1996. The books examined dated as far back
as 1483 and were as recent as 1823. The books came from a variety of areas,
including English, German, French, Flemish and Italian-speaking countries. (It was
advised not to use specific countries when describing the origin of printed books, as
geographical borders often change.) The books we examined often had unique
features that gave clear indications about the origin of the binding. For example, one
book we examined was a rare example of an unfinished binding; the book had
deckle (uncut) edges, showing the binding’s temporary status.
Professor Pickwoad spent time during the day giving practical advice about how to
describe bookbindings. He suggested that using the terminology of ‘upper and lower
boards’ is not text orientated enough to describe books effectively. It does not work
with Hebrew texts as the ‘front’ in Hebrew is the ‘back’ to us. This is also true of texts
7
written in Cyrillic and Arabic. Instead, Professor Pickwoad proposed that we place
the book to be described in front of us and use ‘left side’ and ‘right side’. He also
advised us to be cautious when using the phrase ‘original binding’ - as many books
were rebound according to their owners’ tastes; ‘contemporary binding’ is a much
more appropriate description instead.
We also spent some time discussing the different ways of describing leather
bindings. Professor Pickwoad advised that it is very easy to describe leather and
animal skin bindings inaccurately, and it is better to describe the binding as ‘animal
skin’ if you are unsure. With leather bindings in particular, there are two common
problems: firstly, leather is always named after the last place it has been: French
Turkey leather and English Nigerian leather are the same thing. Secondly, some
animal skins look very similar; it is very difficult to tell the difference between sheep
leather and goat leather, until the leather starts to degrade.
The variety of books examined made for a worthwhile and thoroughly interesting
day. For those of us who are relatively new to the world of rare books and
description, the day provided an essential awareness of key features to look out for
when examining rare books and bindings. For those who are experienced in the
profession, the day offered a chance to see many bindings in another light and
discuss different ways of describing binding structures. For all of us, Professor
Pickwoad’s extensive experience showed us that when it comes to describing rare
book bindings, no flayhole or stitching is worth ignoring - for even the smallest detail
can reveal volumes about the history of bookbinding.
Jo Baines
University of Sussex
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A visit to Cecil Court, 20th June 2013
On 20 June, eight special collections librarians from libraries around London and the
South East gathered in Cecil Court, just off Charing Cross Road in London. Cecil
Court, occasionally known as Booksellers Row, is filled with antiquarian and other
booksellers who have held out against the tides of Amazon and London rent prices.
We were met by ABA Council Member Laurence Worms and promised a glimpse
into the world of buying and selling rare books.
The trip was organised in part at concern that many librarians haven’t had a chance
to build relationships with booksellers, and Laurence introduced us to no fewer than
seven different booksellers’ shops. Each told us a bit about their speciality, from the
children’s classics of Marchpane to the modern first editions of Goldsboro Books –
both of which had a few of us reaching into our pockets or even library funds. We
saw the first atlas printed in English and discussed satirical maps at Tim Bryars,
climbed down into a Dickensian basement full of sheet music at Travis & Emery and
discussed catalogues of vice books – gambling, gay literature and westerns – at
Natalie Galustian Rare Books.
We had been promised the opportunity to ask any question about the bookselling
trade, and those we met answered our questions with as much honesty as possible.
Frank discussions of pricing and the problems/opportunities of the internet took place
alongside fascinating conversation on the history of mapping in Antwerp and the
market for children’s books in China and Japan.
A trip to Cecil Court – and the opportunity to learn about and from the booksellers
located there – should be a must for any rare book or special collections staff. Many
thanks are due to the CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group and the ABA
for organising this one!
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Liz McCarthy, Bodleian Library and University of Reading
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Article
Transforming Hidden Collections: Work in Progress at the Jerwood Library,
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Over the past five years I have been working hard alongside colleagues to transform
the care and management of the special collections at the Jerwood Library. This
article describes our journey so far, highlighting some of the problems we have
faced, as well as some of the successes. It certainly does not pretend to be a
blueprint for transforming other collections – far from it – but I hope it will illustrate
some of what can be achieved by small institutions with limited resources, and even
better inspire hope for other ‘hidden collections’. This article follows on from a blog
post I wrote recently and I am grateful to everyone who expressed an interest in that
post.1
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance is a specialist higher education
institution. Formed in 2005 following the merger of Trinity College of Music (TCM)
and the Laban Centre, the college offers leading training in music and contemporary
dance to around 1,000 students. The Jerwood Library meets the resource needs of
the music faculty and is located in the historic buildings of the Old Royal Naval
College at Greenwich. The special collections we hold consist of the archives of
TCM (dating back to its foundation in 1872), archives and music collections of TCM
alumni, various collections of music manuscripts, and the historic library of the
college, the Bridge Memorial Library (named after Sir Frederick Bridge (1844-1924)).
Although we don’t have much headline-grabbing material, the collections are
substantially rare or unique.
Until recently responsibility for the special collections was not specifically listed in
any job description; only by default they fell under the overall care of the Head
Librarian. Some members of staff had taken more interest in the collections than
others resulting in a rather fragmented picture of care with varying levels of
preservation and description in evidence. When I joined the team in May 2008 the
collections were not in fact entirely ‘hidden’ in the very basic sense of the word:
several had handlists kept at the issue desk, most were named on the library’s
website, and on the database Cecilia,2 and the historic library of the college had
been catalogued to recognised standards on the library management system, at
least about three quarters of it had been.3 Most of this work was achieved through
1
Emma Greenwood, ‘Fighting for Recognition: Championing the Cause of Special Collections’,
theoystercatchers [blog] <http://wp.me/p2pDxS-e> accessed 28 June 2013.
2
Cecilia is an on-line guide to music collections in archives, libraries and museums in the UK and Ireland,
administered by the United Kingdom and Ireland branch of the International Association of Music Libraries.
See http://www.cecilia-uk.org/.
3
The Mander and Mitchenson Theatre Collection was also catalogued on the library management system as
part of a joint project between Trinity Laban and the University of Roehampton. The collection has since
moved to the University of Bristol.
11
the extraordinary efforts of Dr Rosemary Firman, a previous Head Librarian who has
since forged a career in special collections and is now Librarian at Hereford
Cathedral Library. But in spite of these efforts the collection as a whole remained, to
all intents and purposes, ‘hidden’. Cataloguing was not always adequate, handlists
were not available online, and other collections were completely un-described.4
Furthermore, the collections suffered from all the additional problems of hidden
collections:5 long-standing shortages in staffing capacity and funding had resulted in
significant preservation issues, thefts had occurred with the full extent of losses
impossible to know, and past reliance on the knowledge of individual staff members
left gaps not only in knowledge of the collections but also in paperwork relating to
legal ownership.
One of my first tasks when I started work in the library was to undertake a collection
assessment survey of the oldest and most vulnerable collection, the Bridge Memorial
Library. As has been stressed elsewhere, knowing your collections really is the first
step towards effective management.6 The experience enabled me to identify the
oldest items, and the rarest, pinpoint thematic strengths, and piece together
provenance histories for the various constituent elements of the collection. It also
enabled me to make recommendations concerning the preservation and
conservation needs of the collection. I identified that stabilizing the entire collection
was of the utmost importance and we therefore embarked upon a five-year
preservation project to clean and rehouse the material which is now nearing
completion. When further deterioration has been prevented as much as possible
more active conservation measures may be considered in the future.
Alongside preservation of the Bridge Memorial Library and the rehousing of other
smaller collections, improving description, and therefore access, was necessary. We
made collection-level descriptions on the library catalogue and website for all the
collections and included the important ones on the National Register of Archives.
Meanwhile, library assistants continued to draw up useful handlists of many of the
smaller collections. Although this practice is not ideal in terms of cataloguing
standards it can be functional in the short-term and we have since been able to link
to the handlists from the catalogue and website descriptions, even enabling full-text
searching via search engines in many cases. The more important collections will be
catalogued at item level, a process which is already well under way. In this we have
been fortunate to have the benefit of an experienced cataloguer who came to
volunteer with us for a few months, wishing to build up her experience of cataloguing
4
The 2012 RLUK Hidden Collections Report suggested that such a pattern is replicated in libraries across the
country, but that collections requiring specialist expertise such as music are most at risk of being hidden.
Hidden Collections: Report of the findings of the RLUK Retrospective Cataloguing Survey in association with The
London Library (Research Libraries UK, 2012), <http://www.rluk.ac.uk/content/rluk-hidden-collections-report>
accessed 28 June 2013.
5
See Alison Cullingford, The Special Collections Handbook (London: Facet Publishing), 2011, pp. 83-84.
6
Katie Birkwood, ‘#libcampldn: finding practical solutions’, Girl in the Moon [blog]
<http://maedchenimmond.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/libcampldn-finding-practical-solutions.html> accessed 28
June 2013.
12
music materials. Other volunteers, and a UCL placement student, have helped to
sort, catalogue and rehouse other material.
Whilst preservation and access must be the basic building blocks for any collection,
they cannot in themselves maximise the potential of special collections. Just
because a collection is described and cared for does not mean anyone will take an
interest in it. In order to increase publicity of the collections we therefore decided to
put on small exhibitions, the first highlighting a collection of miscellaneous
manuscripts which we had recently catalogued. This was noticeably effective in
drawing the interest of our existing library users, particularly of staff. But whilst
internal publicity is important, I was aware that a large potential audience remained
out of reach. We have room for just two display cases in the lobby to the library
which is on the top floor of a building accessible only to staff and students of the
institution. We are never going to be able to use exhibitions to engage with the public
or generate revenue as some of the more successful library exhibition spaces have
done,7 but I felt that we could do more to connect with researchers beyond the
institution. With this in mind we created a page for exhibitions on the website and
started producing online versions of some of the exhibitions. These we plan to leave
up as an additional means of signposting potential researchers to our collections. An
exhibition in 2011 highlighting the library of the rather eccentric nineteenth-century
conductor Louis Jullien (1812-1860), for instance, continues to generate interest in
the collection.
Following on from the potential we saw in the online exhibitions, I was keen to start a
blog, again to highlight interesting material and reach a wider audience. Since the
collections are relatively small we decided to include other items of library interest,
with the aim of publicising the work of the library within the institution as well as
beyond. The posts automatically feed into Twitter and Facebook accounts,
maximizing the potential of our already established social media channels. Although
this is a relatively recent venture, and we have a lot to learn, I feel excited about the
potential of the blog. In particular, I sense the opportunity to foster links with alumni,
copyright holders (many of our collections are relatively modern), and researchers.
Social capital is very important to us as an institution. Music is a relatively small
world and personal recommendations can do much to enhance the reputation of the
college.
Perhaps the most important indication of the change in attitude towards special
collections within the college came in August 2012 when my job title was changed
from Librarian (Cataloguing and Enquiries) to Librarian (Special Collections and
Cataloguing). I am now responsible for the day-to-day management of the
collections and although this is no guarantee of the position in the future it at the very
7
Katie Sambrook, ‘‘This is what education is all about’: building and sustaining an exhibition
programme at King’s College, London’, Rare Books Newsletter, 92, July 2012, pp. 3-15.
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least creates a precedent and suggests the importance of continued care of the
collection. It is my belief that the most important asset a special collection can have
is a dedicated member of staff to care for it. As witness to this, everything we have
done to protect and promote the collections has been done on a virtually nonexistent budget. Money for preservation materials was squeezed out of existing
budgets with purchases spread over several financial years. The biggest cost of
course was staff time but the impact of this was minimized by sharing the workload,
taking a long-term approach, involving all levels of the team (including student
shelvers) and benefitting from volunteers. And, ironically, the reduction in overall
budget that, along with all other HE institutions, we have faced in recent years freed
up a certain amount of staff time for cataloguing projects as the number of new
acquisitions fell. My own much-needed professional development has involved
extensive online research and reading, engaging via social media with other special
collections librarians, and the odd library visit, rather than participating in expensive
conferences or training days.
I am very aware that there is much more we could achieve with the special
collections here at the Jerwood Library. For instance, at present we are developing a
digitization practice which will contribute to our goal of widening access to the
collections whilst also being feasible within existing budgets. I am also conscious of
the limitations of what we have done. Our methods have been far from ideal at times.
Nevertheless, I am sure that the gulf between ideal practice and the realistically
practical must be great for many institutions. The recent report by OCLC and RLUK
identified numerous and significant challenges to maximizing the potential of special
collections.8 But whilst these challenges can easily appear insurmountable, with
more pragmatic advice available I believe there are many simple, cheap and
effective ways of transforming our nation’s ‘hidden’ collections.
Emma Greenwood
Librarian (Special Collections and Cataloguing)
Part-time (Thursdays and Fridays)
TRINITY LABAN CONSERVATOIRE OF MUSIC AND DANCE
Trinity
King Charles Court
Old Royal Naval College
Greenwich
London SE10 9JF
UK
Tel +44 (0)20 8305 4428
E.Greenwood@TRINITYLABAN.AC.UK
8
Jackie M. Dooley et al., Survey of Special Collections and Archives in the United Kingdom and Ireland (Dublin,
Ohio: OCLC Research) <http://www.oclc.org/resources/research/publications/library/2013/2013-01.pdf>
accessed 28 June 2013.
14
Book Reviews
A Critical Edition of the Private Diaries of Robert Proctor: The Life of a
Librarian at the British Museum, ed. by J.H. Bowman. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin
Mellen Press, c2010. xxvii, 373 p., illus. ISBN 9780773436343. £99.95.
Robert Proctor (1868–1903) had a short though important career in the British
Museum Library (1893–). His major achievement was to establish what is now called
‘Proctor’ order, arranging the BM’s incunables in country, city, printer and date order,
and he gained an international reputation with his An Index to the Early Printed
Books in the British Museum: from the Invention of Printing to the Year MD. With
Notes of those in the Bodleian Library (1898). This publication of vols. 1–2 and 4 of
his private diaries, covering the periods 1 January 1899–16 July 1901 and 29 August
1902–28 August 1903 (vol. 3 is missing), has probably come about because of the
combination of his bibliographical achievements and mysterious early death in the
Alps (his body was never found) and also perhaps the enthusiasm of J.H. Bowman
for editing them. A transcript would certainly not make sense without a large number
of explanatory notes. As a lecturer in librarianship and the author of several works
on Greek printing types (Proctor, who had studied classics at Oxford, designed his
own Greek fount cast for him by Miller & Richard in Edinburgh – a topic covered in
the diaries), Bowman was well qualified for this task, which he has carried out to a
very high standard.
Readers of this newsletter are likely to be most interested in the descriptions of his
bibliographical work: for example, shelving the BM incunables in three sizes in the
Arch Room (previously they had been scattered through the collections); working on
the next part of the Index, books printed in Germany 1501–1520; arranging the
Liturgies section of the BM catalogue; and contributing descriptions of incunables to
the Catalogue of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books ... now forming Portion of the
Library of J. Pierpont Morgan (1907). There are few insights here into the workings
of his mind: rather his diary is a brief record of how his time was occupied day by
day. Nonetheless, it is interesting to read, for example, that the Morgan books were
sent in batches from Quaritch and that he worked on them both at home and at the
BM. On 31 December 1902, when a new batch arrived: ‘I took 8 home (mine being
all 40) & did 3 for AWP [i.e. A.W. Pollard] in evg.’ so he carried precious books
home, but he did act responsibly: on 18 July 1903 he worked on Theokritos in the
evening ‘having been unable to bring morgana home in the rain’. Theokritos was a
private interest (11 June 1903, ‘Began reading Theokritos for editing’) but he worked
on it at the BM too: 16 June 1903, ‘I finished putting away the books in A.R. [i.e. Arch
Room], and did some Theokritos (Id. 2 done).’ What comes across the whole time is
the very blurred boundary between his BM work and his private bibliographical work.
But there is plenty in these diaries (though holidays were described in separate
diaries) about non-bibliographical matters – for example, about gardening, going for
long walks, making curtains, and working for the Society for the Protection of Ancient
15
Buildings – and there are also glimpses into some strong opinions: Queen Victoria is
‘loathsome Fatguts’ (8 March 1900) and he was upset by ‘the news that a flagstaff
has been fixed on the Museum to fly the Union Jack, the symbol of injustice and
oppression’ (27 March 1900). All in all a very interesting read.
Brian Hillyard
Rare Books and Music Collections Manager, National Library of Scotland
Chris Fletcher, 1000 Years of English Literature. With Roger Evans, Sally
Brown, and Jaime Andrews. London: British Library, 2012. 221 p., illus. ISBN
9780712358736. £12.95. pbk.
The credentials of the authors and contributors to this work gave me great hope as
to the quality of the content, and they did not disappoint. Dr. Chris Fletcher is the
Keeper of Special Collections at the Bodleian Library and a fellow of Exeter College,
Oxford. He formerly held the position of Curator of Literary Manuscripts at the British
Library. Contributors Roger Evans and Sally Brown were Curators of Literary
Manuscripts at the British Library and Jaime Andrews is Head of English and Drama
at the British Library.
A revised edition, the back cover explains that this book contains 'a panorama of
more than 1000 years of literature in English through original manuscripts from the
British Library's unparalleled collection' [emphasis my own]. This is not a
comprehensive list of the one hundred most influential authors or works in English
literature; it is limited to manuscripts held by the British Library. This poses quite a
challenge, but Fletcher, I feel, excels with his choices.
This book begins with a four-page general introduction and includes anecdotes
relating to manuscript discoveries and a discussion of the collections in the British
Library, including a brief account of their provenance and a bit of history about the
British Library. This leads to an admittance of how difficult it was to narrow this list
down to one hundred and the challenges of limiting the list solely to manuscripts held
by the British Library. The problem of authorship regarding the earlier manuscripts is
also addressed, as are the problems of current authors with changes in technology
and the challenges these changes present.
The book is broken up into five sections: Early and Medieval, Renaissance and
Restoration, The Eighteenth Century, The Nineteenth Century, and The Twentieth
Century. Each section contains its own two-page introduction offering a description
of the society in which these manuscripts were produced and any historical events
which impacted the literary tradition of the time.
The individual selections include a brief outlining of the history of each manuscript,
an explanation of why it is important, high-resolution images of the manuscript, and
16
information about the specific manuscript shown. Almost all of these selections
encompass two pages, but a few (such as the entry on Shakespeare) span four
pages. The list does not include letters or diaries, though draft and fair copies are
represented. Some non-literary manuscripts are included, but these few instances
are explained and relate closely to literary tradition.
Fletcher obviously knows what he’s talking about, so much so that he’s able to distill
the entirety of English literature and all related history (note: that’s an astounding
amount) down to essential elements to paint a concise picture. Everything is
explained simply and succinctly; quite the feat when much of the history of the
English literary tradition is such a complicated, intertwined jumble relating to every
area of history. You may or may not agree with the list of one hundred chosen, but
based on the parameters set I believe Fletcher did an excellent job and certainly
explains his choices convincingly.
Overall, this is an excellent book and one I would highly recommend.
Diana La Femina
Holbrook, New York
Katherine Haskins, The Art Journal and Fine Art Publishing in Victorian
England, 1850-1880. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012, xii, 213 p. ISBN 9781409418108.
£60.00.
Based upon her doctoral dissertation, Katherine Haskins’s monograph is both a
pioneering full-length study of an individual magazine and an ambitious portrait of a
complex industry, during what was arguably the period of its zenith. Originally
launched in 1839 as The Art Union Monthly Journal by Hodgson & Graves
publishers of London, The Art-Journal, as it was rechristened a decade later, had
good claim to be the leading Victorian magazine on fine arts. Drawing contributions
from the likes of John Ruskin and Frederick William Fairholt, the title, published
monthly, espoused the cause of living British artists. A crusading publication, it
conversely exposed and denigrated misattributed or fake Old Masters, exorbitant
custom house profits and, later, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Haskins’s
approach to her project is interdisciplinary, drawing on critical perspectives from art,
literary and journalistic history as well as from sociology. The French sociologist
Pierre Bordieu, for example, is invoked in a discussion of the link between ‘high’ and
‘popular’ culture. In analysing the appeal and fortunes of The Art-Journal, Haskins
argues that fine art practices, audiences and markets were directly influenced by the
media culture of publishing and journalism that the magazine represented.
The body of the book is divided into four long chapters. The first presents an analysis
of the manner in which three typical paintings, from issues of The Art-Journal from
1848 and 1874, were translated into prints, to investigate the mechanics of
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publishing and its presentation in the magazine. This chapter includes a useful
summary of Ruskin’s dense “Cestus of Aglaia” essays on the power of graphic art.
Chapter Two gives a lively account of the history of The Art-Journal itself, in which
the personalities of Samuel Carter Hall, its long-serving editor, and many others are
vividly drawn. The third chapter focus on the role of publishing and patronage in
promoting the works of J M W Turner, as incarnated in the ‘Turner Gallery’, and of
his successors in the so-called ‘English School’ such as Augustus Egg. Finally,
Haskins looks at the distinctive self-marketing The Art-Journal undertook for a
burgeoning middle-class readership. It engaged with domesticity in the prominence
given to themes like domestic animals and religious images of piety, and
experimented innovatively with formats, such as ‘annuals’ designed to appeal to
women. As one would expect with a scholarly work, Haskins’s study includes
detailed chapter endnotes and a substantial, 14-page, bibliography.
Judged from the special collections perspective, the most striking aspect of The ArtJournal itself was its imagery: the 800-plus individual reproductions in steel-faced
prints, and the thousands of illustrations contained within the various monthly, annual
and special issues. Haskins’s chosen period was the golden age of handcraft
printing plates and engraving, before photographic processes came to dominate the
market. In addition to its narrative strength, her book is at its best in its judiciouslyselected illustrations: some 50 reproductions of pages from The Art-Journal and,
especially, works featured within it - from the well-known, like Turner’s “Battle of
Trafalgar”, to more obscure but indicative paintings-into-prints. It is just a shame, as
the author admits, that large areas featured in the publication, such as sculptures,
wood-engravings and the new science of photography itself, have had to be omitted.
The Art-Journal finally ceased publication in 1912, superseded by European
movements like Impressionism and by rivals at home, pre-eminently The Burlington
Magazine. Haskins’s book presents a cogent study of both a publication and a period
marked by attempts on the part of critics to integrate the concerns of ‘high culture’
with the tastes of a growing middle-class audience.
Keith M C O’Sullivan
University of Aberdeen
In the Prayse of Writing: Early Modern Manuscript Studies, ed. By S.P.
Cerasano and Steven W. May. London: British Library, 2012. xxi, 328 p., illus.
ISBN 978712358576. £50.00.
This festschrift in honour of Dr Peter Beal, founding editor of the journal English
Manuscript Studies 1100-1700 and editor of the Catalogue of English Literary
Manuscripts 1450-1700 (CELM) has been compiled to commemorate the publication
of CELM online (currently available in interim form at http://www.celm-ms.org.uk/).
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Fourteen essays, taking the form of informative and detailed case studies, form a
significant assessment of issues of early modern literary manuscript and print
culture, and the important of library and archive holdings in our understanding
thereof.
In the realm of ‘pure’ literary history fall Julia Boffey’s essay on ‘The English Verse of
Robert Fabyan’ and Katherine Duncan-Jones’ discussion of John Lane’s extended
poem ‘The corrected Historie of Gwy Earle of Warwick’. Arthur F. Marotti provides a
detailed analysis of some of the ‘Rare or Unique Poems in British Library Sloane MS
1446’ and early modern historical writing is considered by Paul E.J. Hammer’s ‘Lord
Henry Howard’s note on the fall of the Earl of Essex’. The transmission of texts and
the difficulties of textual editing are dealt with deftly in A.S.G. Edwards’ essay on
‘The Text and Canon of Surrey’s Lyric Verse’. John Pitcher investigates the
transmission of manuscripts of the prose treatise ‘The Prayse of Private Life’ and
considers how an understanding of transmission can help to untangle the question of
its authorship.
Individual reading and collecting habits are addressed by H.R. Woudhuysen in his
examination of Rowland Woodward’s transcriptions of portions of Sir Philip Sidney’s
Astrophil and Stella. He also includes an appendix of books owned by Woodward.
Steven W. May’s description and analysis of a personal compilation of literary texts
created by an unidentified Samuel Watts and now held in Somerset Heritage Centre
provides another insight into individual reading habits. Women’s piety and methods
of communication are considered by Margaret J.M. Ezell in ‘The Exemplary Wife:
Anna Cromwell Williams’s Book of Secrets’. Heather Wolfe’s engaging article on the
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century practice of sealing some letters with silk floss
would benefit from colour images, if only for the interest of those without such
remarkable specimens in their collections. (It’s worth noting, however, that the
interested reader can see one such example in a recent blog post from the Folger
Shakespeare Library: http://collation.folger.edu/2013/01/a-letter-from-queen-anne-tobuckingham-locked-with-silk-embroidery-floss/.)
The history of publishing and of piracy is the focus of Hilton Kelliher’s ‘Foreign
Piracies of the First Defence: A New Letter to Milton’. Grace Ioppolo looks at the
individual and institutional vagaries of the history of the Alleyn archive of early
English theatre papers, now held at Dulwich College and S.P. Cerasano uncovers
more dubious practices in the history of John Payne Collier’s collection of theatrical
papers. With less intrigue, but no less utility, Alan H. Nelson has compiled a list of
‘Manuscripts From the 1682 Sale of Richard Smith’s Library’, transcribed from the
1682 published catalogue of the library.
This is a useful compendium of some of the current work being undertaken on the
literary manuscripts held in UK collections, and it illustrates way in which
collaborative cataloguing and indexing projects can facilitate such work. Valuable
research is presented for the future use of students and scholars, in fitting tribute to
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Beal’s work. Overall all, this book is highly recommended for addition to reading
room and research collections.
Katherine Birkwood
Royal College of Physicians, London
David Scott Kastan and Kathryn James, Remembering Shakespeare. New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2012. 78 p., illus. ISBN 9780300180398.
£18.99. pbk.
This richly illustrated book accompanies a 2012 exhibition in Beinecke Rare Book &
Manuscript Library that drew upon the University of Yale’s extraordinary resources to
tell the story of how Shakespeare came to be regarded as one of the most important
authors of the modern world. It traces references to the bard over the centuries, from
the contemporary publications of his works through Garrick’s celebration of the
playwright and Shakespearean Victoriana, to crosswords and course syllabi from the
1950s.
Aimed at visitors of the exhibition and the general public at large, this book cannot be
expected to provide an in-depth study of the subject matter. Nevertheless, Kastan
and James’ work succeeds in presenting an engaging and coherent narrative of the
making of one of literature’s greatest success stories, and it is underpinned by a
clear understanding of Shakespeare studies, textual criticism and readership studies.
The ample illustrations allow the reader to experience the exhibition through this
book, as image and text seamlessly complement one another. The eclectic mix of
material that is dealt with, which ranges from the ephemeral nature of Victorian
postcards to the weightiness of a First Folio, and encompasses a variety of materials
such as manuscript, print, photographs and even fans, make this book a remarkable
achievement.
As such, it will appeal to anyone with an interest in the cultural reception of
Shakespeare, and it is an outstanding example of how special collections materials
can be used to tell a captivating story that can reach far beyond the walls of the
institution.
Erika Delbecque
University of Reading
Michael Leapman, The Book of the British Library. London: British Library,
2012. 256 p., illus. ISBN 9780712358378. £25.
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The Book of the British Library is, at its heart, a treasures book. It highlights the best
and most awe-inspiring items in the British Library’s collections. It also goes beyond
individual objects, however, and examines their place in and their relationship with
the Library’s history, from its early existence as a precarious national collection to the
world-renowned resource that we know today.
The book is divided into twelve chapters, each of which covers either a period in the
Library’s history or a thematic section of the British Library’s holdings. The opening
chapter explores the Library’s acquisition of manuscript collections – particularly
literary – over the 20th century, using the process to highlight the growing
understanding of these types of papers’ importance to our study of not only authors
but also the periods in which they lived. It then moves on the origins of the British
Library in the work of Cotton, Harley and their contemporaries, from Cotton’s plea to
‘preserve divers old books concerning matters of history of this realm’ to the public
lottery that funded the first British Museum site at Montagu House in Bloomsbury.
Subsequent chapters follow the history of the Museum up to and including the
construction of the current British Library building by Colin St. John Wilson.
Thematic chapters cover the many strengths of the Library, from early texts and
printing to modern digital material. These include: early texts and their spread,
particularly via religious study; the advent and early days of printing and the book
itself as an object; the record of the creative process through drafts, correspondence
and other manuscript items; collections that illuminate the UK’s political and social
history; collections that represent global culture and the UK’s place in it; musical
holdings, from early scores to the British Library of Recorded Sound; scientific
holdings with their roots in the early days of the Museum; and finally, the
‘unexpected’ material that has found its way into the Library, from photographs and
ephemera to stamps and other oddities.
With over 150 full colour images, the book is visually rich in items that would make
most library and archival professionals salivate. Although more of a popular rather
than a scholarly work, the research that it represents is evident, and the text should
be meaty enough for those interested in the history of the British Library and UK
collections in general.
Liz McCarthy
Bodleian Libraries
Tomas Lidman, Libraries and Archives: A Comparative Study. Oxford:
Chandos, 2012. xvi, 123 p., illus. (Chandos Information Professional Series).
ISBN 9781843346425. £40.00. pbk.
Born from the author’s disagreements with the Swedish government on the issue of
the potential merger of the country’s national library and national archives, this book
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intends to “compare the two heritage institutions, and to look at similarities and
differences in their issues and duties” in order to address a perceived ignorance on
the part of “people around me – specialists, students, bureaucrats and friends” who
“do not know the differences between the two, or have just a basic knowledge of
what an archivist is” (p. 1). Lidman is only concerned with those institutions that have
an explicitly national role in preserving published and governmental documentary
material as prescribed in in law: national (legal deposit) libraries and national
archives. Academic and research libraries are occasionally discussed, public
libraries are only mentioned in order to confirm their exclusion, and other forms of
library and archive are passed over in silence. Most, therefore, of the nuances of
managing combined library special collections and archival collections that will be
familiar to many RBSCG members or about which they may be seeking advice and
further information are not covered.
The first half of the book is devoted to the history of libraries and archives, beginning
with clay tablets from the ancient city-state of Ebla and proceeding to the middle of
the twentieth century. This historical introduction is followed by a consideration of
the two types of institution today. The differences between them are considered
from a primarily historical and legal position, and not from a theoretical standpoint.
They are boiled down into their simplest parts—a (legal deposit) library holds the
published output of the nation, whilst an archive holds governmental and official
documents—with the discussion of ramifications of this confined to a handful of
somewhat haphazardly presented topics. Themes discussed include confidentiality
and data protection, appraisal, digital records, and some aspects of cataloguing,
classification and arrangement, but these are not addressed logically or in the depth
necessary to clearly set out the important theoretical and practical differences
between the types of institution and their work. The book ends with a coda on the
future of both types of institution, arguing that they should cooperate more closely
whilst retaining their independence.
The conversational tone adopted by Lidman results in a number of sweeping
generalisations—for example, “the digital challenge looks much the same for
libraries and archives” (p. 106)—which might be appropriate in a textbook, but which
on this occasion merely confirm the suspicion that this is more an opinion piece than
a serious study. This shortcoming is compounded by the poor quality of the
references throughout the volume: none of the quotations used by Lidman are cited
with their page numbers in the original sources; references to journal articles and
book chapters also do not include page numbers; at least one reference in the text
(McKeon 1976, 2003) is not included in the bibliography at all; and John Comaromi’s
name is misspelled two different ways in the main text and in the bibliography. This
complaint is not mere pedantry; the poor quality of the references makes it difficult to
follow up the sources that have informed Lidman’s conjectures and assertions.
I had hoped to be able to recommend this book as a useful introduction for students
of librarianship and archives studies. However, the historical background can be
22
certainly be found better elsewhere, as can descriptions of the theory and practice of
modern librarianship and archival work. As an opinion piece this presents little that
is original or thought-provoking, and certainly nothing that has not been stated more
concisely by other commentators.
Katherine Birkwood
Royal College of Physicians, London
James Mussell, The Nineteenth Century Press in the Digital Age. London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 256 p., illus. (Palgrave Studies in the History of the
Media) ISBN: 9780230235533. £55.
In this book James Mussell argues persuasively that newspapers and periodicals are
fundamental to a proper understanding of the nineteenth century. In the past
periodicals and newspapers have not had the place in nineteenth century studies
that they deserve, partly, it is argued, because of the difficulties in accessing the
archive and partly because of an undue emphasis in the scholarly community on
canonical authors. However, never have nineteenth-century periodicals been more
accessible, with the availability of commercially produced digital resources, such as
ProQuest’s British Periodicals and Gale Cengage’s 19th Century UK Periodicals, as
well as freely available resources, such as Google Books and the Internet Archive.
Mussell argues that electronic resources often privilege the verbal, assuming that
what users are interested in are articles. Mussell contends that it is impossible to
evaluate the significance of such material without engaging with its formal properties.
Print genres were based upon “miscellaneity and seriallity”. In other words, each
issue of a journal contained a range of content, including articles, advertisements
and images, and while this content changed from issue to issue its general
configuration did not. Formal features differentiated one periodical from another,
helping to give each its identity and situating it within a particular genre, locating it
within the marketplace and thus indicating what its readers might expect from it.
In a chapter co-written with Suzanne Paylor who worked with Mussell as one of the
editors of the The Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (NCSE) , an online edition of
six nineteenth-century periodicals and newspapers, the particular editorial problems
of producing digital resources based on periodicals and newspapers are addressed.
The authors also discuss the design of digital resources at length. However, for me,
it was where the authors discuss the practicalities of editing the NCSE, the difficulties
they experienced and the decisions that they made that was most interesting part of
the chapter. It put the theoretical discussion of the earlier part of the chapter into
context.
Digital resources provide greater accessibility to content but to engage effectively
with them students need a set of skills that they are unlikely to acquire as casual
23
participants in modern digital culture, argues Mussell. For Mussell “digital resources
are not simply gateways to content but provide the conditions in which content is
presented, contextualised and interpreted.” To make best use of such resources
students need a deeper appreciation of how digital resources mediate their content.
He therefore places great emphasis on the need for digital literacy and spends much
of his final chapter discussing what he means by this and how it might be taught in
universities. He argues convincingly that just as the design and creation of digital
resources is a way that scholars can become digitally literate, so they must
encourage their students to produce digital work in the classroom, in the process
giving them a deeper appreciation of how cultural artefacts are modelled in digital
form.
This is a thought provoking book and many of the arguments made by the author,
particularly about the design of digital resources and the importance of teaching
digital literacy in the classroom are equally applicable to the digital humanities in
general.
Hugh Cahill
Lambeth Palace Library
Ned Potter, The Library Marketing Toolkit. London: Facet Publishing, 2012. 218
p. ISBN 9781856048064. £49.95. pbk.
The Library Marketing Toolkit combines a solid theoretical and practical foundation
with concrete examples and case studies that should allow library marketers – from
marketing teams who work full time to solo librarians who have do it all on their own
– to market effectively and to measure their results. One of the book’s biggest
strengths is its focus on marketing as a holistic approach; it emphasises marketing
as more than just one project or another; it is an on-going process that should
involve everything the library offers, from buildings to websites to services.
Before jumping into specifics, the book’s first chapters addresses basic marketing
strategy, underscoring the importance of planning, measurement and evaluation,
from understanding the market and audience to setting objectives. The following nine
chapters explore various areas of library work and library presence in which
marketing can be used. Ned Potter’s experience with online campaigns means that
the three chapters on digital marketing (online marketing, marketing with social
media and marketing with new technologies) are particularly strong, but the book
explores areas from branding to advocacy and, of particular interest to this audience,
special collections.
Each chapter provides thoughtful advice and examples, and the core text is
augmented by the twenty-seven case studies dotted throughout. These case studies
come from experienced professionals across sectors and around the world, including
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David Lee King on websites, the New York Public Library on Twitter, Fran Taylor of
the British Library on social media and Alison Circle of Columbus Metropolitan
Library on marketing measurement. Although nearly all should be of interest to those
working with special collections, highlights may be case studies on digitisation from
Caroline Kimbell of The National Archives, crowdsourcing from Ben Showers of JISC
and the 100 Objects Project from Alison Cullingford of the University of Bradford
Library.
For added value, a website (www.librarymarketingtoolkit.com ) offers supplementary
resources, including essential tools and links, further reading and additional case
studies. Although the book cannot possibly cover every aspect of marketing in
libraries, it points to key areas and should provide both the tools and inspiration for
those looking to begin or refine their marketing programmes; its emphasis on
planning and measurement is applicable to any marketing effort.
Liz McCarthy
Bodleian Libraries
Reading Victorian Illustration, 1855-1875: Spoils of the Lumber Room, ed. by
Paul Goldman and Simon Cooke. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. xiii, 224 p., illus.
ISBN 9781409411659. £55.00.
Edited by two eminent scholars in the field, this volume brings together nine essays
by contributors from Canada, England and Wales in an interdisciplinary evaluation of
the great age of British illustration known as ‘The Sixties’. This period saw a radical
shift from earlier Victorian art to works ranging from neo-medievalism to domestic
realism executed by accomplished artists, rendered on the printed page through
wood engraving, and delivered through magazines and monographs to a new middle
class audience. The essays collected here examine Sixties illustration from the
overlapping perspectives of art historian, cultural historian and literary critic.
In the engaging opening essay Goldman regrets both the absence of illustration
studies at university level and that ‘librarians and curators do not, as a rule, place a
lofty intellectual, academic or aesthetic worth on such groups of material’. He notes
several challenges facing the student of Sixties illustration: the rarity of complete
runs of periodicals from the period, the problem of adequately describing images,
and the challenge of understanding the technology of illustration. But for the
undaunted much work remains to be done within the field.
The essays that follow are a fascinating and diverse mix, covering the technique and
art of wood engraving of the period, the status of the engraver, and the influence of
German engravers such as Menzel and Rethel on their English counterparts; the
social realism of G.J. Pinwell’s images so at odds with the concept and pretty covers
of the gift books they illustrated; fictional deathbed illustrations reflecting
25
contemporary Victorian practice; Ford Madox Brown’s studies of corpses, historical
costume and furniture to bring greater scientific and historical accuracy to his
images; Millais’s illustrations for Harriet Martineau’s historiettes working with the text
to emphasise women as agents of history; and Dickens’s illustrators from Phiz to
John Leech to Fred Barnard.
The volume ends with an essay by Robert Meyrick on early collectors of Sixties
illustration, including Harold Hartley and Forrest Reid, both of whom began by cutting
images from periodicals and pasting them into scrapbooks. Meyrick makes
interesting points about the meaning and artistic value – past and present – of
illustrations when removed from their texts. He notes, for example, that individual
engravings will often fetch higher prices on eBay than complete copies of the serials
from which they were cut, reflecting a longstanding attitude that fine art is less likely
to be found within the pages of a periodical.
In his opening essay Goldman looks forward to the establishment of an MA in
Illustration Studies. This rich and scholarly collection, complete with over forty
illustrations, would certainly be recommended reading for all students thereof.
Jonathan Harrison
Senate House Library
Kathryn A. Smith, The Taymouth Hours: Stories and the Construction of Self in
Late Medieval England. London: British Library, 2012. xxii, 369 p., illus. ISBN
9780712358699. £50.
The Taymouth Hours was the subject of a detailed description by M.R. James in
1902 and since 1941 has been available to students at the British Library as Yates
Thompson MS. 13. In brief, it is a Book of Hours probably made in London in the
1320s or 1330s, especially notable for its decoration which includes a bas-de-page
scene on almost every page, depicting a wide variety of subjects, many of them
unique. The original owner of the book was presumably a royal woman – there are
four images of a crowned woman (or women) – who has defied certain identification.
For more detail see the manuscript’s Wikipedia entry and the British Library’s online
Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, which provides images of the entire
manuscript and a very extensive bibliography.
The first of four chapters presents dual hypotheses which underpins the rest of
Kathryn Smith’s recent book. In October 1331 Philippa of Hainault, consort of
Edward III, is recorded as having paid the illuminator Richard of Oxford 40 shillings
for two Books of Hours. Smith proposes firstly that one of those books is the
Taymouth Hours, and secondly that it was commissioned as a gift for Edward III’s
sister, Eleanor of Woodstock. But no really persuasive evidence is presented for
either of these propositions. The main argument in favour of its having been made
26
for Eleanor is that in one of the images a crowned woman kneels with an uncrowned
man: this makes it appropriate for a royal woman who married a non-royal man, as
did Eleanor. While this identification is certainly plausible and appealing, it remains
possible rather than probable: it is by no means proven, and although it has been put
forward before, most scholars have preferred other interpretations of the evidence.
If presented as tentative hypotheses upon which nothing significant relied, all would
be well, but instead Chapter 1 ends with the contention that “... if the evidence for
Eleanor as the recipient of the Taymouth Hours is inconclusive, the manuscript
nevertheless repays a reading through the lens of her putative ownership”. The next
250 pages treat the hypotheses as facts, referring repeatedly to “Eleanor of
Woodstock’s manuscript” “painted by Richard of Oxford” and, in my view, overinterpreting various features of the book as especially appropriate to Eleanor’s
ownership. This is doubly unfortunate, because it both means that Smith is
potentially viewing the manuscript through a distorting lens, and because features of
the manuscript that do not support the hypotheses are passed over in silence.
Well-made and superficially attractive, this is not an easy book to read: illustrations
are rarely synchronised with their relevant text, forcing one to interrupt one’s reading
with constant page-turnings back and forward. Though there are very few typos as
such, the text contains a large number of rubrics quoted from the manuscript, the
majority of which contain transcription errors. The volume includes a DVD of images
of the entire manuscript, but they are not visibly higher in quality than those on the
BL website mentioned above.
Peter Kidd
London
Keri Yousif, Balzac, Grandville and the rise of book illustration. Farnham:
Ashgate, 2012. xii, 200 p., illus. ISBN 9781409418085. £60.
This book is a detailed account of the artistic partnership between the novelist
Honoré de Balzac and the illustrator J. J. Grandville. It explores the intense
relationship, both collaborative and competitive, between these two men. They both
sought to exploit their position in the marketplace, while at the same time decrying
their apparent subordination to it. It is the impact of this marketplace on both Balzac
and Grandville, and the flood of illustrated productions which it brought forth in early
nineteenth century France, which Yousif brilliantly explores. Through a detailed
examination of the relationship between text and image in Balzac’s novels, both
men’s public utterances, and Grandville’s increasingly surreal illustrations, she
demonstrates that both were engaged in a struggle for supremacy: would either artist
or writer dominate in the fiction which the French public so voraciously consumed?
This is the question on which this monograph primarily concentrates.
27
Although the subject matter is of great interest to Balzac specialists, experts in
French art of the nineteenth century, and historians of French culture during this
period (and, for them, this lavishly illustrated and well-produced book is a treat), it is
only of tangential concern to bibliographers, as Yousif’s principal concern is with
Balzac’s novels as texts rather than as physical objects. The subjects which would
concern historians of the book (techniques of production, economics of publishing,
distribution of books, and the conditions in which they were read) are referred to.
Therefore, an introductory chapter examines the spread of literacy in early
nineteenth century France through the encouragement of primary education; the
popularity of reading rooms; the invention of lithography; the mechanisation of
printing; and the role of censorship during the 1830s and 1840s, which, by making
the distribution of political caricature difficult, encouraged the development of social
caricature, at which Grandville excelled. All these developments are mentioned, but
these are not the author’s principal focus (literary criticism and aesthetics), and they
quickly fade from view. Yousif’s concern throughout is exclusively with fiction: the
relationship between text and image in non-fiction books in which illustrations were
important (e.g. Cuvier’s work on natural history) is ignored.
If you are seeking an introduction to the history of book illustration in France, it would
be better to start with Gordon N. Ray’s The art of the French illustrated book 17001914. (1986).
Brandon High
King’s College London
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