A Joseph Bosworth book.

Joseph Bosworth's edition
of the Old English Orosius
(1859)

When I set out to write stories about some of the books that cross my desk, I didn't realize that some of these books would pretty much tell their own stories.

I always have a soft spot for older editions of Anglo-Saxon texts, so I was pleased recently to find this mid-nineteenth-century edition of King Alfred's Old English translation of Orosius. Although modern scholarship has begun to doubt just how much of Alfred's own work may appear in the surviving translation, the book remains a key exemplification of Alfred's educational program, in which rather than merely lamenting the decline in Latin learning, he set out to bring Latin learning to a broader audience by translating key books into English. 

This copy of Bosworth's edition, though, has another story to tell.

Two inscriptions

At the top of the front flyleaf, Bosworth has inscribed the book to its recipient: "The Reverend R. Martindale, with Jos. Bosworth's very kind regards." Below that, Martindale has recounted the occasion of the gift: "This Book was presented to me by the very learned author, the Rev~ Dr. Bosworth, D. D., F. R. S. +c. +c. and one of the Professors at the University at Oxford as he stood by the side of his own carriage which he had lent to me to convey me to Buckingham at my departure for Scotland. At his extreme age we are not likely to meet again. It was his final gift and presented March 9, 1863." Then follows the Latin quotation, "Eheu! quam multo minus cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse." (Roughly, "How much less it is to study relics, than to remember you.")

In reading booksellers' descriptions, one often reads of an author's "warm" inscription in a book that has been given to someone. Here, it is the recipient's warm memories of the author that give this book its charm.

A Case of Un-Crossing Out

I always love it when I run across something in the world of books that I've never encountered before. Often enough, I've seen a book that has something crossed out; in fact, I'm sure that I've even crossed things out in books before. 

Crossing out is one of the things owners do when a book they have is being used: it's a kind of modification or revision, changing the contents of a book to more closely reflect the owner's interest or understanding or practice. And yet, interests and understandings and practices can change over time, and sometimes book owners are faced with the challenge of excising their own marks of eradication.

That's what clearly happened in this book.

A close look at the picture above will show that thin paper strips have been glued over this paragraph in the form of an X; these strips have letters written on them corresponding to the printed letters they cover up. Though it can't be seen in the image, one of the strips is a bit loose, and I can easily see beneath it that the strips cover over a large ink X that had previously crossed out the paragraph, excising everything above "Item Romae sanctarum", where the underline that accompanied the original crossing out has been left to stand.

Though the illusion is not perfect, the added strips effectively restore the original text, un-crossing it out.

That this book was a well used one is clear from other signs. There are marginal notes (as also shown on the page above) in Dutch, and other text is sometimes crossed out. At two points, manuscript pages are bound in (and one page at the beginning has had a half-page of manuscript deleted by the expedient of pasting in blank paper over it). The latter set of pages, bound in immediately before the printed Index, is thirty-two leaves, some of which have also later been modified or revised. 

The beginning of this lengthy addition, one might note, is accompanied by a vellum tab affixed to the top of the printed leaf that precedes it; this tab was surely useful for a reader who needed to flip back to this section often.

Even when the book was first bound, then, it was modified for usefulness, and it underwent further modifications even after that: this was a working book, and it is grubby and stained and damaged. 

Because it was a working book, its condition is far from perfect. But as is sometimes the case, I think its flaws make it more interesting, rather than less.

Carnegie International 2018

Over the weekend, Rosemary and I went to the members' opening of the 2018 Carnegie International show at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. It was especially interesting, because many of the works on display were accompanied by a bare minimum of description and accompanying text: to a great degree, one could encounter the exhibits and respond as one would.

In that spirit, I will offer up here just two photographs, from the photographs exhibited there by Dayanita Singh, pillars of pictures of archives. 

Neither of my photos is perfect, of course, but hopefully a bit of the flavor of this one piece of the Carnegie International will come through. And readers interested in book history, I hope, will find these of particular interest.