Links

I’ve been bad about doing link posts the last few weeks.  Things have been a bit hectic around here lately, but they’re starting to calm down, at least until I leave the country on the 18th of September!

— Via Lifehacker: ebook software called GutenMark which formats Project Gutenberg downloads for easier reading.  It’s free and works in Windows, Mac and Linux, but I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t say how well it works.

— Jeremy offers his thoughts on a newly discovered early facsimile copy of the Declaration of Independence.

— Audra shares information and links regarding important Chinese conservation work.

— This week at Bookride, Bastards with Bookshops!  Need I say more?

— On that note, The danger of laughing at your customers, from Signal vs. Noise.

— Ministry of Type discusses the Faber Finds imprint, which publishes out of print works on-demand with completely unique cover designs.  It’s an interesting concept, but I can’t say that I like the design; it’s a bit busy for me.

— BibliOdyssey shares the Codex Manesse, a lovely 14th century illuminated work which he describes as perhaps “the quintessential Medieval manuscript.”

Techie Update

Couple of quick items:

I’ve been getting a lot of comment spam attempts lately, but I’ve been too lazy to do anything about it.  Then the reCAPTCHA thing hit the news and I thought that was pretty perfect for a book history blog.  So, my apologies for taking up your time with the typing of blurry letters, but at least we’re helping other book people out there (and stemming the tide of comment alerts I get in my email every day).

Second, I’ve been playing around with Twitter a bit over the last few months, sort of going back and forth about whether to keep it up.  Guess I’ll give it a serious shot now, and you can follow me if you want; I’m bookn3rd there, too.  It won’t be all book stuff, probably a lot of random observations and quirky things from my daily life.  (I’d also like to point out that I chose this site theme before I’d ever seen the Twitter page and I’m not changing just because they use the same bird!  *Grumble*)

Oh, and Ubiquity.  Awesome.

A Gigantick Historie

A few days ago I wrote about the miniature books exhibit online at the University of Indiana, and included an image of a volume that I liked, Curiosities in the Tower of London, vol. 1.  First of all, I really just liked the Tower of London print.  It’s neat.  But what really caught my eye was the line “Printed for Tho. Boreman, Bookseller, near the two giants in Guildhall, London.  1741.”

The two what?

Yes, giants.  Further research led me to understand that this is an interesting London tidbit I was unacquainted with.  Supposedly, as the legend goes, a Trojan hero named Brutus ended up in England and vanquished some giants (themselves the descendants of the evil daughters of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.  I know, this chronology makes no sense.)  The survivors were then chained up at a palace at the site of the current Guildhall.  There seem to be several variations of this tale and the origin of the names Gog and Magog, but apparently the giants ended up becoming symbols of London and the first statues were placed at the Guildhall around the time of Henry V.  Over the years various versions were destroyed by fire, mold, rats and Nazis, and the current statues were erected in the 1950s.

What’s really cool, though, is that the same publisher, Thomas Boreman, produced a book about the giants.  (I found it at, of all places, the University of Melbourne Special Collections library.)

The gigantick history of the two famous giants : and other curiosities in Guildhall, London. Boreman, Thomas (fl. 1730-1743)

Coming back to book history, it turns out that Boreman was one of the first publisher/booksellers to market specifically to children.  From the British Library page on the history of children’s literature:

Thomas Boreman, a bookseller who had a stall near the Guildhall, was the first publisher and bookseller to specialize in books for children. His first book was A Description of three hundred animals, 1730, which he wrote himself (976.c.14). A Description of a great variety of animals and vegetables followed in 1736 (957.f.3) and A Description of some curious and uncommon creatures in 1739 (1486.dd.25). He wrote a very small book in two volumes measuring only 2.25 x1.75 inches entitled The Gigantick history of the two famous giants and other curiosities in Guildhall, London, of which we have the second edition, published in 1741 at Cup.550.g.472.

According to Children’s Literature: An Illustrated History,

Apart from the chapbook producers there had been publishers before Newberry who published books that were bought for and read by children, such as Thomas Boreman, who put out his set of ten miniature books, the Gigantick Histories, between 1740 and 1743.  The illustrations, particularly those of animals, his use of Dutch floral binding, and the amusing tone adopted—down to the tongue-in-cheek subscription lists—mark them out as early examples of a child-centered literature which married teaching and entertainment… Publishing recreational reading for children was, however, still something of a gamble, as Boreman obviously considered when he begged the would-be purchasers of his Histories ‘bring or send their names to Thomas Boreman Bookseller in Guildhall and…pay down six-pence a set in part at subscribing, it being a large and expensive undertaking.’

There doesn’t appear to be much else known about Boreman, and copies of his miniature books are now very rare.  But you can read a 1769 edition of his A Description of Three Hundred Animals at Google Books, including some amusing, not very high quality engravings.

I Will Shrink You!

Sweatshop Books

Audra of The Vespiary has turned up a very interesting old book manufacturing exposé called Women in the Bookbinding Trade.  You can peruse the whole thing, with lots of neat photos, at Google Books.  I’ll definitely have to spend some time on this over the weekend.  Nice find!

Books of Hours

The following two images are from MS Type 443, an illuminated, late 15th century book of hours in the digital collection of Harvard’s Houghton Library.*

The book of hours originated in the 13th century.  One of the most common forms of late Medieval illuminated manuscript, it was a religious text for laypeople, often women.  Many of these volumes were important works of art and indicators of social status, though less elaborate versions were available for those of moderate means, especially following the development of mass book production in the 1400s.  These books provided a framework for Christian devotion throughout the year by organizing psalms and prayers, the choice of which could be adapted to different tastes.  Most books of hours include calendars and seasonal or zodiacal themes like those below.  And like MS Type 443, most books of hours were written in Latin.

October, carrying grain:

November, gathering acorns:

From the catalog description of MS Typ 443:

The text is written in a gothic rotunda book-hand in one column.
Each page has an outer border panel in tempera and gold in trompe-l’oeil style. Many pages have full borders in this style. There are also 7 miniatures, 14 historiated borders, 28 historiated initials, and 24 calendar illustrations in tempera and gold. (At least 23 further miniatures originally in the ms. are now missing.) The illuminators include the Master of the Houghton Miniatures (named for this ms.), the Ghent Associates of the Master of Mary of Burgundy, the Louthe Master or Simon Marmion, and the Master of the Dresden Prayerbook.

Trompe-l’oeil, meaning “to deceive the eye,” is a style of painting which utilizes perspective and shading to create the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface.  I’ve seen it in other online books of hours, but used here it is especially lovely and delicate (it’s what drew me to the volume in the first place). Do check out the links to the illuminators above, it’s really fascinating stuff.

Looking at these pages I also became curious about the structure of the book and the text itself.  Unfortunately, my Latin and palaeography skills aren’t quite up to the task, but I found two websites with more information:

— The Frick Fine Arts Library at the University of Pittsburgh has a very nice page detailing the structure of a typical book of hours, featuring examples and images from one of their holdings, the Frick Book of Hours.

— Medievalist.net, run by Glenn Gunnhouse of Georgia State University, is fantastic.  It includes an introduction to books of hours and an entire book of hours in Latin and English, side by side, plus a calendar of saint’s days, an entire YouTube channel, and list of online resources for Medieval art.

For general information on Medieval illumination check out these sites:

— Highlights of Digital Scriptorium.  This database provides access to manuscripts from a number of institutions, and has made available many wonderful images.

— Continuing their tradition of excellent web tutorials, the British Library has a great site on illuminated manuscripts.  It’s split into an into an introduction and five time periods, from pre-800 AD up to 1400-1600. Lots of nice images here, too.

— The National Library of the Netherlands features images and information related to several types of manuscripts, including highlights like “fabulous animals,” “death by unnatural causes,” and “devils and demons.”  (The images on this site are supposed to enlarge when you click them, but maybe there’s something wrong with my browser, becuase it’s not working.)

*Special thanks to the Houghton Library for allowing me to use these images and adding the attributions.

Progression of Blame

New Adult Swim bump.  Love it.

Movable Type at the Olympics

Fellow SHARPist and blogger Von Totanes has found a YouTube video of the movable type section of the Olympic opening ceremony.  It’s just a film of a television, so the quality isn’t stellar, but you can get an idea of the show.  No guarantees on how long this will be up, though; they’re removing Olympic videos right and left.

Links

Tons of links this week!

— So, the Olympic opening ceremony!  The very beautiful first half of the show featured ancient Chinese paper and printing technology, including a giant LED scroll, human calligraphy, a troop of dancers dressed as Confucian disciples carrying bamboo scrolls, and a truly amazing homage to movable type.   (I certainly never thought that I would hear an NBC announcer talking about “movable printing.”)  Unfortunately I, and it seems no one else, can find any video online.  So check out this BBC page for photos (they captured more of the book history stuff than NBC or CNN).  If you want to take a shot with video here’s the Wired guide to watching the Olympics online.

— Hoefler & Frere-Jones point out the intensely beautiful work of typographer and graphic designer Janno Hahn.  Do check out the gallery on Hahn’s website.  I will probably make some desktops for my computer from these images.

— Acephalous discusses the 1934 obscenity case that was decided in favour of Ulysses.

— PhiloBiblos and Upward Departure report on the sentencing of Richard Delaney, an electrician who stole £89,000 worth of rare materials from the Birmingham University Library.  Apparently the guy claimed he was going to read and then return them?!  Terrible.

— Morbid Anatomy shares some wonderfully creepy images from The Dances of Death Through the Various Stages by Hans Holbein the Younger reproduced as copperplate engravings by Dabid Deuchar in 1803.

— Satirical maps of World War I at BibliOdyssey.

Bookride continues a great series called “Where Do You Get These Books?”  This week’s installment is on the perils and pleasures of Book Towns.

— Book Patrol farewells skilled marbler Ann Muir.

— The Exile Bibliophile gets the prize for discovering the best toy ever.  If only I had several hundred extra dollars lying around.

— Hoefler & Frere-Jones also point us to an awesome pencil collection website.  I have to stop looking before I drool on the keyboard.

— The New York Times presents a sideshow titled “Book Ads: The Golden Age, 1962-1973.  Via Quillblog.

Hurrah!

Great news today: my UK visa application was officially approved.  And I’m relieved to report that the entire process was quick and painless (especially compared with the major hassles of my student loans).

Now everything for school is sorted, save for the housing paperwork that hasn’t been mailed to me yet.  The other odd bits, like getting a bank account, can wait until I arrive in Britain.  By the way, if you have any recommendations regarding banking please let me know!  I’ve heard that setting up an account can be a nightmare, especially with online banking, which is all I ever use here at home.