History and Future of the Book 2018

English 204 Class blog

James Joyce and Ulysses: The Man, the Controversy, the Printing

Jan 25

Posted by pmr906 in Uncategorized | Comments off

Aran Kocur

The Man

(Portrait of James Joyce c. 1918, courtesy of Wikipedia)

One of the best places to start with the novel Ulysses is a brief study of the author himself. James Joyce was an Irish novelist, poet, and short story writer born in 1882 in the city of Dublin, a home that features centrally in many of Joyce’s works, including Ulysses. To this day Joyce’s work inspires scholarly debate within classrooms and casual settings such as pubs, with Ireland generally embracing Joyce’s legacy after years of cold shoulder treatment while the man was alive. Joyce’s work also reflects his own place in a middle-class family that faced financial turmoil, as well as his eventual self-imposed exile from Ireland with his wife. Furthermore, Joyce appeared to experience a turbulent relationship with Christianity. A common aspect of Ulysses specifically, as noted by multiple scholars, is the distinct Jewish elements of both the story and particularly the character Leopold Bloom. Altogether, as is the case for endless authors today, all these aspects of real life seemed to shape Joyce’s writing in varying degrees.

The Controversy

(Image of Ulysses 1922 First Edition, selling for $75,000 USD on raptisrarebooks.com)

Arguably the most well-known of Joyce’s works, Ulysses is a modernist novel originally serialized in the 19th century American literary magazine The Little Review. This particular magazine was an effort to collectively publish and showcase various modernist works, including both written works and visual art pieces. Modernism as a literary movement rising in the late 19th and early 20th centuries generally involved conscious decisions to subvert tradition and illustrate new social norms. Authors such as Joyce were transgressive and “sought to disturb social, sexual, and aesthetic complacencies” (Spoo 634) with their writing. Thus, plenty of controversy surrounded Joyce’s Ulysses before it was even printed in a single volume, making publication difficult to achieve, with publishers baulking at the work’s “obscene” content and reputation. In Thomas Staley’s words, “No novel written in this century has evoked more critical controversy or sparked such elaborate exegesis” (70).

The Printing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7NtY2ax_V8

(The video above shows the owner of Peter Harrington books handling a first edition copy of Ulysses. Peter Harrington Books is another rare and antique bookstore specializing in first editions, signed and inscribed copies, maps, and more.)

Ulysses first official collected edition in what we of the 21st century would recognize as a cohesive, modern book format was printed in Paris in 1922. Publishers such as American B.W. Huebsch were eager to exploit Joyce’s text as a lucrative financial opportunity, so long as Joyce made certain editorial changes to his work. Joyce refused. After struggling and receiving multiple refusals from different companies on different continents, Ulysses was finally published under Sylvia Beach’s Shakespeare and Company imprint. A quarto volume roughly as large as a modern phonebook, the physical copy of Ulysses is almost as impressive as its literary influence as a modern novel. One thousand numbered copies were produced featuring Joyce’s name and the work’s title on the front cover. Of these, the majority were printed on white, handmade Dutch paper. A handful of these original books are available for sale even now, with a few copies ranging from $75,000 to $150,000 USD currently offered on the website of Raptis Rare Books, a store which specializes in rare and antique books. According to a newspaper article published in The Guardian in 2009, a well-preserved copy from the original print run reportedly sold for £275,000—roughly $440,000 at the time of sale! As for the rest of 1922, after the initial print release Joyce continued making grammatical revisions, culminating in another printing in October of the same year. This version is in some ways considered the “true” first edition, as it is Joyce’s own revision and additional writing which resulted in not only a grammatically and structurally improved product, but one that grew by roughly a third of its original size when finally published collectively. Thus, Joyce did not simply change the odd word and add a handful of sentences. Since Ulysses was originally released in a serial format, it makes sense that finally gathering all the separately released parts together into a single novel might inspire an author to edit and expand their work.

The Conclusion

Ultimately, Ulysses demonstrates a historical shift in both the printing industry and the literary content of Europe. Whether one approved of or saw value in its content or not, Joyce’s work helped transform Western literature in the 20th century and was an impactful component of literary modernism. The remaining copies of that 1922 first edition are reminders of how one text may play a key role in the continuing development of the book.

 

Works Cited

Brown, Mark. “First edition of Ulysses sells for record £275,000.” The Guardian, 4 June 2009, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/04/ulysses-sells-record-price. Accessed 13 Jan. 2019.

Mason, David. “CREATING A LITERARY HERO: JAMES JOYCE.” The Sewanee  Review, vol. 121, no. 3, 2013, pp. 467–473. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43662714.

Raptis Rare Books. www.raptisrarebooks.com. Accessed 15 Jan. 2019.

Spoo, Robert. “Copyright Protectionism and Its Discontents: The Case of James Joyce’s

‘Ulysses’ in America.” The Yale Law Journal, vol. 108, no. 3, 1998, pp. 633–667. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/797499.

Staley, Thomas. “‘ULYSSES’: Fifty Years in the Joycean Conundrum.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, vol. 6, no. 1, 1972, pp. 69–76. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24777092.

“Ulysses James Joyce First Edition.” Youtube, uploaded by PeterHarringtonBooks, 3 January 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7NtY2ax_V8.

The Theory and Publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species

Jan 22

Posted by pmr906 in Noteworthy Books | Comments off

Lane Newsted

The Idea of Evolution

I’m sure all of us have heard of the term “evolution” at one time or another, and a good reason behind that word’s meaning originates from Charles Darwin’s research on the Galápagos Islands. I personally had only heard of Charles Darwin due to his Galápagos tortoise Harriet who lived 175 years! On these islands, Darwin would provide proof of natural selection, as the finches found on the separate islands in the Galápagos would differ from one another, Darwin realizing it was due to the birds evolving to fit their different environments (O’Neil).

(Retrieved from: https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/evolve/evolve_2.htm)

The finches found on the separate islands of the Galápagos showed the perfect proof for Darwin’s theory of evolution, as the birds differed among islands were proven to have been selected by nature to suitably live there (O’Neil). The finches that had beaks suitable to thrive in the environment (for example beaks suited to eat cacti on some islands, some suited to eat nuts, others evolved to receive nectar from flowers) were able to survive on that certain island and reproduce, passing down their traits for their offspring to survive and therefore continue on (O’Neil).

(Retrieved from: https://www2.palomar.edu/anthro/evolve/evolve_2.htm)

Darwin’s research gathered on the Beagle Expedition in the five years at sea, twenty years prior to the publication of his book, ultimately would prove that populations of life evolve over the course of generations, due to natural selection or according to “survival of the fittest” environment (term not coined until the 5th edition of his book) (Darwin Online).

Printing of Origin of Species

On November 24, 1859, what would later become the groundwork of evolutionary biology was published in book form. Priced at fifteen shillings a piece, with 1250 copies being printed in the first run, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life would sell out faster than it was made (Darwin Online). You’re probably thinking that is an insane number of books! Well, the first print run of the book would give us a real example of how important and impactful this book was. Evolutionary biology would stem from Darwin’s publication, with his theory and research still being viable today!

In 1860, 3000 copies of the second edition were printed, with this and all subsequent editions making revisions to counter new arguments towards the viability of the text (Darwin Online). By 1872, the book had run through six editions, and it became one of the most influential books of modern times (Darwin Online). Only a year later, the third edition would release adding an introductory appendix, and the fourth edition in 1866 having sentences rewritten and revised (Darwin Online). As mentioned above, the fifth edition added the well-known phrase “survival of the fittest” in 1869. While the 1-5th editions sold well, and as such more were improved upon and made, the sixth edition of Darwin’s book released in 1872 would bring sales from 60 to 250 a month (Darwin Online). By printing in a smaller font, Darwin’s publisher was able to sell copies for half of its initial price, even including a glossary (Darwin Online)! On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life would become one of the most important publications in history, Charles Darwin’s theory and push for his own original voice to be heard becoming a groundwork of evolutionary biology.

 

Works Cited

“1859: Darwin Published On the Origin of Species, Proposing Continual Evolution of Species.” National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), www.genome.gov/25520157/online-education-kit-1859-darwin-published-on-the-origin-of-species-proposing-continual-evolution-of-species/.

O’Neil, Dennis. Evolution of Modern Humans:  Early Modern Human Culture, www2.palomar.edu/anthro/evolve/evolve_2.htm.

“On the Origin of Species.” Darwin Online, darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Freeman_OntheOriginofSpecies.html.

Reading HP Lovecraft

Jan 20

Posted by pmr906 in Noteworthy Books | Comments off

Nicholas Cooper

It all started one snowy afternoon, I woke up from a deep slumber to see that the once beautiful world was now encapsulated with ice and snow. Treating it as if it was a museum exhibit of old man winter himself I resigned to my comfy nook to stay warm and take advantage of this forced solitude.

Figure 1. Judge a book by its cover.

 

Figure 2. Night Gaunts

I could have any book within my library but I chose the unassuming Necronomicon and with it comes an experience that no other medium can bring forth. A thick, almost textbook size collection, with unassuming text styling and pictures that without context would seem benign.

Although paper itself has a smell, taste and texture to it that can’t be replicated using any other style of medium, this book with its deep dark wrapping, and leather like texture is abrasive to the things we are used to experiencing. It being thicker than normal but still considered a paperback when comparing to other books creates a sense of uneasy curiosity, if it was something we already knew it would be much less effective at doing its job. Scrawled across it stands the titular title “Necronomicon” with a depiction of a large winged tentacle beast that only those familiar with the content will recognize as the great beast Cthulhu. The back only contains the words,

“Lovecraft opened the way for me, as he had done for others before me” – Stephen King

Knowing that the king of horror and psychological thrillers grew from the seed planted by this writer only furthers the idea that the things within are not for the faint of heart.

The book is separated into sections, each containing one of Lovecraft’s short stories, not being a chapter based or linear story allows the reader to jump around to different parts reading what strikes one’s interest. This helps slowly build an increasing interest on the contents, starting on one of the shorter stories like Dagon gives a small taste at what a much bigger tale would be like.

Even the first small poem at the beginning named Night Gaunts gives a taste of dread that lays deeper within the book, with an accompanying picture the text reads

“Out of what crypt they crawl, I cannot tell,

But every night I see the rubbery things,

Black, horned, and slender, with membranous wings,

They come in legions on the north wind’s swell

With obscene clutch that titulates and stings,

Snatching me off on monstrous voyagings

To grey worlds hidden deep in nightmare’s well.

Over the jagged peaks of Thok they sweep,

Heedless of all the cries I try to make,

And down the nether pits to that foul lake

Where the puffed shoggoths splash in doubtful sleep.

But ho! If only they would make some sound,

Or wear a face where faces should be found!”

Although only the first literature among many within the collection, this little poem drives home the feelings that is felt by many other characters throughout. It is the curiosity about what could happen and gaining answers to the strange and bizarre questions that grip at the reader and keep them interested. These themes are not only played out within the writing itself but with the packaging the writing comes in.

Playing on the curiosity and wonder that has plagued much of human history, the creators of this book knew how to take full advantage of this. If a reader had only passing knowledge of Lovecraft and what he was capable of, the unassuming texture and design would draw one in to what lay beneath the surface of this soft cover collection.

Now I could go on at length to what HP Lovecraft is able to do with his words and how no one has been able to properly morph or sculpt his children into something new and modern, but I just want to bring to light how something so unassuming could bring about a very meta horror story staring the reader. This book being a collection of his works, compliments what his works stood for and what they were all about.

The design of the cover plays very much into the very themes of the contents, the idea that human curiosity will always be the down fall for those who reach to far into that unknown void. Very unassuming but a little off putting with its texture and cryptic wording and imagery, it is ambiguous enough to draw a newcomer into its hold, while those who are well versed in its themes can pick it out of a crowd with one eye closed.

To do something like this with a different medium would be rather complicated, you would almost need a spy movie to come within a secret compartment within a nickel plated suitcase, or a world war two video game to come in a ammo crate of that era.This Lovecraftian collection is rather cheap and pulls this off with very little effort, it puts little work in for great gain. Higher end collector’s editions of books or games go to great lengths to create this kind of experience but have to reach so much further with much more flash and interactivity. If the Necronomicon was to go to such lengths as other medium have gone, you would have to be given a map from an old fisherman who would take you to an island and find a dusty old manuscript written in blood. If the creators were to create something flashy and highly decorated, it would pull from the wonder and imagination that fills the gaps created from something very unassuming.

If the initial presentation is pushed too far toward being overly interactive and in your face or the other way toward being quite minimalistic can draw the audience away and get in the way for experiencing the substance that lays within. It is very much a thin line to walk and with the right marketing team can enhance the experiences or fill in the missing senses that a artistic package cannot bring forth.

Although we have been taught since our eyes could recognize language and begin building worlds within ourselves, we have been taught not to judge a book by its cover. Sometimes though its what is wanted from us, and to bring to life a part of a story with the bindings itself is very impressive. HP Lovecraft’s Necronomicon does this very well and while keeping with the general theme and idea of what resides within, slowly drawing a reader toward its pages and closing in around them to digest them into being part of itself.

Broadsheets and Chapbooks: Stalwarts of Affordable Literature, Cursory Gossip Media or Both?

Jan 18

Posted by yil707 in Early Print | Comments off

Nial Willems

Whether one was a precocious child, a naughty grown-up with a taste for the scandalous, or some other wretched creature trapped in between, one’s experience with literature during the 16th through 19th centuries in Britain was likely to be well informed by the popular formats known as broadsides and chapbooks. Thought by some to be derived from the word “cheap”, “chap”-books and the similar single-sided, single-page publications known as broadsides, from which chapbooks developed, were widely distributed and immensely popular forms of literary ephemera during the pre-industrialized printing era (“Broadsides and Chapbooks”). Largely comparable to modern-day newspapers, tabloids and billboards in function, the formats assumed by chapbooks and broadsides are similarly indicative of the time and cultural context in which they arose, being highly adaptable for the conveyance of both the informational and the entertaining.

As a collective format, broadsides and chapbooks are significant for the historical context they help to illuminate about their time of prominence (Morrison). Between detailing crime convictions, announcing public executions, soapboxing on the daftness of vaccination, and making accessible to lower-class citizenry renowned works of song and literature, this kind of cheap literature proved critical to the encoding and dissemination of then-contemporary British culture (Archer).

In one broadside titled “Are You Vaccinated” and originally published by H. Disley, smallpox vaccination—a relatively new medical practice for the day (“Jenner, Edward”)—is given the satirical treatment by a lengthy tongue-in-cheek ballad. Of the 76 lines in this work, 48 are dedicated to providing the reader a comprehensive insight about just who—and what—was at risk of vaccination; citing Napoleon, “the monument on Fish Street Hill”, and even “the devil himself”, the composer frames the fad as all-consuming and utterly inescapable. Furthermore, he comments that vaccination has “turned his wife’s brain” so that she behaves like a monkey and “brays just like a donkey”, playing on the common fear of vaccines as unproven and dangerous. Following this charitable characterization, the writer offers in jest a final challenge for the reader to seek vaccination. While it certainly makes for a fun read today, the flippant sense of humour present in this broadside is also emblematic of a popular style used in early print ephemera which made broadsheets and chapbooks suitable as commercial formats for both packaging cheap laughs and promulgating ideas.

Scale of a typical chapbook compared to a human hand. Image source: http://news.library.mcgill.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/history-of-birds.jpg

Key to the success of this cheap literature was—no doubt—its cheapness, which made it accessible to a far broader cross-section of the British population than the standard full-size book (dschapman). Cost-effectiveness was achieved through the use of low-quality paper, simple but enticing (though not always relevant) woodcut images, a general absence of extraneous decoration, and cheap labour—provided primarily by women and children, or subcontracted to lower class-families for domestic production (Richardson). The simplicity afforded by only imposing onto a single page further economized mass-production. Moreover, early chapbooks were often sold directly to consumers as single, folded sheets, with the trimming and sewing tasks left to the purchaser, should it have been desired (dschapman). Once folded thrice, the typical octavo chapbook contained 16 pages and featured dimensions of approximately 6” x 4” (Richardson), while broadsides “ranged from approximately 13″ x 16″ (‘foolscap’size) to over 5 feet in length” (Gartrell). The minimal use of material and the resulting compact scale of both formats lent them well to the task of economically mass-publicizing individual events, decrees, short-form literature, and, especially, tales of scandal—whether invented, true or a combination of both (dschapman).

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Fanfiction: Internet Garbage or Innovative Storytelling?

Jan 18

Posted by yil707 in Digital Genres | Comments off

Delane Just

Image: Pixabay. Used under CC0 Creative Commons

Though the terminology is fairly new, “fanfiction,” also known as “fanfic,” is not necessarily a new concept. It is commonly believed that fanfiction started during the age of the internet, but this is not exactly true. For instance, Star Trek fanfiction was previously distributed through “fanzines” such as “Spockanalia” (Verba 1). However, the internet definitely contributed to the increase popularity of Fanfiction as popular sites such as Fanfiction.net (FFN) and Archiveofourown (AO3) are growing exponentially. I will explore how the internet plays into the success and growth of fanfiction as well as in what ways fanfiction allows for new storytelling possibilities.

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Frankenstein: The Story Behind its Printing

Jan 16

Posted by pmr906 in Noteworthy Books | Comments off

Brianna Kaminecki

I read Frankenstein, also known as The Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley for the first time in my second year of high school. I learned quickly that Frankenstein was actually the doctor who had created the big, green monster kids associate with Halloween rather than the monster himself. While I did not initially enjoy its length at the time, I did come to appreciate its story because it genuinely scared me to think that some scientist could take corpse’s body parts and create new life from the combination of them by sewing them together like a mix-and-match ragdoll and bringing this new body back to life. He was not a cute, green, animated Halloween figure, but the unfortunate experiment of a scientist. I had a lot of questions after finishing the novel, most of which stemmed from paranoia. What if the story was real? Can scientists do such things? What if I had walked by such a specimen in the street and just had not noticed? All are unlikely, but the story produced this kind of thinking in my mind. While the plot of Frankenstein is purely fiction, I was missing out on a true story just beneath the novel’s surface: the story of its printing.

Its writing began in 1816 in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Mary Wollstonecraft, a teenager, was staying with her future husband Percy Shelley, who was married at the time, Claire Clairmont, John Polidori and Lord Byron who suggested they each write a ghost story to pass some time (British Library). Doing so, she wrote hers about a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, and the monster he created, Adam. Initially, it was a short story that she wrote because of Lord Byron’s spontaneous scary story idea, but Percy Shelley urged her to expand it (Queralt). She did so and drew inspiration from his support, as well as the scientific advances that occurred during the Enlightenment. A significant experiment was done by Luigi Galvani in 1786, where he electrically stimulated frog nerves causing the frog’s body to twitch (Dibner). While it may not have been a direct influence, it demonstrated the progress science was making in the eighteenth century and Mary Shelley’s view of the dangers of science going too far in an age where science and religion were conflicted (Queralt).

Frankenstein was first published on January 1st, 1818 in three volumes. By this time, Mary Wollstonecraft had married Percy Shelley and had been married to him for almost two years. This first edition was not published under her name but anonymously with a preface by her now husband. Shelley was in collaboration with her husband, and he edited her work but was not the author. The manuscripts Bodleian MS Abinger c.56, Bodleian MS Abinger c.57, and Bodleian MS Abinger c.58, are her drafts for the novel and the first edition of the novel respectively, all of which survive and feature her handwriting as well as her husband’s editing. Each manuscript can be found in the Shelley-Godwin Archive (linked below). There is disagreement as to who really wrote the novel, but these manuscripts show that Mary Shelley’s hand is more present than her husbands and argue for her authorship (The Shelley-Godwin Archive).

The first edition of Frankenstein given to Lord Byron from the author, Mary Shelly.

(Image courtesy of Peter Harrington)

An 1821 French translation of the novel was the first time Mary Shelley was given credit as the author of Frankenstein. It was published by Corréard in Paris and listed the author to be “M.me Shelly” while the title remained the same, but was translated by Jules Saladin to Frankenstein, ou le Prométhée modern (Wikipedia).

The 1821 translation of Frankenstein crediting Mary Shelley as the author.

(Image courtesy of Gérard Oberlé)

A second English edition was published in 1823, about a year after her husband’s death, in two volumes and was the first English edition in which she was known as the author and is featured on its title page. This featuring of her on the title page was surely something she was proud of despite her husband not living to see it.

Finally, in 1831 it was published again in one volume with thorough revisions. This third edition is the most well-known version of the novel in the twenty-first century (Queralt). It features an engraving which depicts the “monster” of Shelley’s novel for the first time. He looks very different from how we have seen him presented in our childhood Halloween movies.

The third edition’s engraving of the creature, Adam.

(Image courtesy of D.J. Tice of the Star Tribune)

It is extraordinary to see how this novel has survived not only physically but also within the minds of people two hundred years later. It poses serious questions about science, religion and the human race. It is a novel to be appreciated because it is more than just a daily reading assignment but a real experience which readers can enjoy for both its story and meaning. It is interesting to me personally to see how it progressed being published and printed three different times because it seems as though it only improved. I fear that prior to this blogpost I saw this novel as nothing more than someone writing a book and publishing it, when there was a story of a young, female author to be explored. Novels are more than just their plots; they are also the stories of how they came to be published and printed.

Works Cited and Consulted

British Library. All Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians works. n.d. 11 January 2019. <https://www.bl.uk/works/frankenstein>.

Dibner, Bern. Luigi Galvani. 30 November 2018. 13 January 2019. <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Luigi-Galvani>.

Harrington, Peter. The novel – Frankenstein in pictures. n.d. 13 January 2019. <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/10273161/Frankenstein-in-pictures.html?frame=2353491&page=-5>.

Oberlé, Gérard. n.d. 15 January 2019. <http://www.bibliorare.com/products/shelley-mary-frankenstein-ou-le-promethee-moderne-paris-correard-1821/>.

Queralt, Maria Pilar. How A Teenage Girl Became the Mother of Horror. 26 October 2017. 12 January 2019. <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/07-08/birth_of_Frankenstein_Mary_Shelley/>.

The Shelley-Godwin Archive. Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. n.d. 11 January 2019. <http://shelleygodwinarchive.org/contents/frankenstein/>.

Tice, D.J. Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”: a creation for the ages. 10 June 2016. http://www.startribune.com/mary-shelley-s-frankenstein-an-creation-for-the-ages/382541661/. 13 January 2019.

Wikipedia. Frankenstein authorship question. 13 January 2019. 15 January 2019. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_authorship_question>.

Meeting the Undead, Sort of: Adventures in the British Library

Nov 30

Posted by pmr906 in Libraries | Comments off

Ava M.

The main entrance to the British Library, located on Euston Road, London (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

We all know what it’s like spending time in a library, right?

Or do we?

What about another, perhaps more mysterious creature – the research library?

Research libraries are like their public cousins in that they both house books and other items, and that both types of library require a library card. There, though, the similarities abruptly vanish.

You see, at a research library like the British Library in London, you don’t simply browse the shelves, sign out your tome of choice, and go on your merry way. Really, the experience feels less like being in a library, and more like visiting a highly unusual museum.  The British Library contains everything from rare sound recordings to handwritten drafts from artists like JK Rowling (Google Arts & Culture), John Lennon (“New Beatles acquisition at the British Library”), and Samuel Beckett (“Notebook drafts of Waiting for Godot,”). But while many impressive treasures are there for your perusal, it can be quite the journey to reach them.

I was lucky enough to spend several days last year poring over personal letters by Nobel prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, and I’d like to recount some observations about what navigating this confusing, magical place is like, from getting a library card all the way to interacting with your prized requests. Enjoy this guide to the British Library.

Once you are inside the building, as you gear up to receive your shiny new library card, you’ll encounter your first hurdle. To claim your card, you must first get through an interview of sorts, explaining what you are hoping to research and why.

The interview process at the library became something of a talking point a few years ago. According to The Guardian, the British Library has only allowed adults under 21 to claim cards since 2004, a decision that sparked a heated multi-installment debate in the London Review of Books in 2013, with one disgruntled writer complaining bitterly about the annoying undergraduates in his midst, and the “adolescent antics” they performed. Such antics, it should be pointed out, did not seem to include much more than the simple act of, well, reading (Bury).

Regardless of whether you are one of these exasperating youngsters or not, once you are deemed responsible enough by the interviewers, your picture is taken and your government ID is verified, and you are sent on your way, far down into to the belly of the beast: the lockers.

Here, where you must stow anything not required for your research, the surprisingly energetic atmosphere of the British Library first begins to set in. As people emerge from the locker area, there’s a buzz of excitement in the air. After all, everyone is there to delve more deeply into their interests, to engage with material that they’ve come to this particular place to enjoy. Remember all the excited people down here, as you anxiously double- and triple-check that there are no forbidden pens, highlighters, cough candies, post-it notes or lip balm on your person. You will be one of these enthusiastic people soon.

A view inside of the British Library (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Once the lockers have been conquered, things get more personalized. Depending on what you’d like to view, you’ll make your way to one of the 11 available reading rooms in the library (“Using our Reading Rooms,” ). I spent much of my time in the Manuscripts Reading Room, which includes everything from illuminated manuscripts to unfinished drafts of famed literature (“Using our Reading Rooms”).

The unique atmosphere of the library increases as you get closer and closer to viewing your long-anticipated documents. In the Manuscripts reading room in particular, a distinct hush settles over the entire space. Everything from requesting new items to making notes is done as quietly as possible. Even the security guards, there to check that you have not smuggled out a leaf of literature history in your bag, practically whisper.   The fact that a library has such an experienced thievery-detection team might unnerve you slightly, but you soldier on, clutching the huge see-through bag that holds your few remaining possessions, mere steps away from your goal.

With all this waiting, whispering and outlawing of pens, you might be wondering if this is all worth it. But let me tell you, the moment you finally receive your chosen items, set them in their protective tray, and begin to leaf through them is where the fun really begins.  For all your efforts, you will be rewarded with the chance to peruse priceless physical evidence of literary history right up close, with no traditional podiums or protective glass to stand in your way.  With no one to shape your perceptions beforehand, you can experience the silently thrilling detective work of sifting through the opinions, lives and work of long-dead and still-living literary greats, all in tangible paper form.

And despite the fairly stern, intimidating initial appearance of the library, the content you can find there is anything but stuffy. You never know what colourful item might help you to see an author you love in an entirely different light.  When I perused through Harold Pinter’s many letters to his old friend Henry Woolf, I was delighted to see a passage that challenged the idea of Pinter being a somewhat cool, remote figure, a playwright who says cryptic things like, “I tend to regard the audience as my enemies” (Gussow). In a letter to Woolf from 1957, Pinter bemoans his position as an actor in travelling reparatory theatre, and practically bursts with frustration: “Nine plays out of ten are crap. Managements are crap. And the audiences are the worst crap of all.” Clearly, Pinter’s dislike of audiences wasn’t just a post-fame phenomenon, it seems.

But perhaps the best feeling of all comes when, settled at your table, silent as a mouse, you come upon some scrap of paper, some cluster of sentences, that deepens your understanding of a beloved work. For example, Pinter famously declined to speak in much detail about his plays, but the British Library’s collection of letters from Pinter to his friends and loved ones often offers rare glimpses into his creative process. In a series of letters to his friend Mick Goldstein, the young Pinter mentions his second play, The Birthday Party, a work that would be panned by critics on arrival, only to leap back into the public eye years later. In a letter from April 1957, the sense of Pinter’s excitement about his new work is palpable, as he hints at the plot of the play and joyfully exclaims to Mick, “Playwriting just now has got me by the balls.” In a second letter, dated three months later, Pinter again enthuses about the play to Mick, specifically about the final scene in which protagonist Stanley Webber is hauled helplessly from his home. Here, Pinter’s enthusiasm for his new play is palpable, as when he says, “They come for him, you see, and they take him. In his pyjama jacket.”

One tiny scrap of writing like that, and a long-dead writer is vaulted back to life again. No wonder people seem so eager to cast aside their highlighters and venture inside the British Library.

 

Works Cited and Consulted

Abrams, Luke. “12 Awesome Things You Probably Didn’t Know About the British Library.” Time Out, 11 October 2016.  https://www.timeout.com/london/blog/12-awesome-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-british-library-101116 Accessed November 14 2018.

Bury, Liz. “British Library hush is broken by a row over reading room rules.” The Guardian, 19 July 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/19/british-library-hush-row-reading-room Accessed November 16 2018.

Gussow, Mel. “A Conversation [Pause] With Harold Pinter.” New York Times, December 5 1971.  https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/05/archives/a-conversation-pause-with-harold-pinter-a-conversation-with-pinter.html Accessed November 16 2018.

“Harry Potter: A History of Magic.” Google Arts and Culture, date unknown. https://artsandculture.google.com/project/harry-potter-a-history-of-magic Accessed November 16 2018.

“New Beatles acquisition at the British Library.” British Library, 24 May 2013.  https://blogs.bl.uk/english-and-drama/2013/05/new-beatles-acquisition-at-the-british-library.html Accessed November 20 2018.

“Notebook Drafts of Waiting for Godot.” British Library, date unknown. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/notebook-drafts-of-waiting-for-godot-by-samuel-beckett Accessed November 17 2018.

Laing, Olivia. “Quiet, please… In praise of the British Library.” The Guardian, 22 November 2015.  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/22/quiet-please-in-praise-of-the-british-library-celebration-users-love-it-olivia-laing Accessed November 14 2018.

“Using our Reading Rooms.” British Library, date unknown. https://www.bl.uk/visit/reading-rooms Accessed November 17 2018.

Pinter, Harold. Letter to Henry Woolf. April 1957, Palace Theatre. Harold Pinter Archive, British Library, London, England, Add MS 89094/2. Manuscript.

Pinter, Harold. Letter to Michael Goldstein. April 1957, Playhouse Theatre. Harold Pinter Archive, British Library, London, England, Add MS 89083/1/1/3. Manuscript.

Pinter, Harold. Letter to Michael Goldstein. July 1957, Playhouse Theatre. Harold Pinter Archive, British Library, London, England, Add MS 89083/1/1/3. Manuscript.

Woolf, Henry. “A guest blog by Henry Woolf.” British Library, 3 October 2017.

https://blogs.bl.uk/english-and-drama/2017/10/a-guest-blog-by-henry-woolf.html Accessed November 17 2018.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inside_The_British_Library.png

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:British_Library_-_Building#/media/File:The_main_entrance_of_the_British_library1_3_3_2010.JPG

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Industrial Perspective on the Wonderfulness of Paper

Nov 26

Posted by yil707 in Writing Materials | Comments off

Ashley Lekach

Letter Paper Besides A4. Image: A. Lekach.

The year is 2018 and you (the person who is reading this blog post) are in dire need of paper to print off your essay that’s due within the hour. You may ask, what type of paper do I need? As an uninformed Canadian civilian, you are not sure; you simply rush to the market and grab the nearest pack of paper you can find. Unfortunately, you have grabbed a pack of A4 (8.3” x 11.7”) paper rather than the Letter paper size (8.5” x 11”) that is standard in North America. You fail your essay for not following the guidelines. Besides that, you also purchased paper that was not environmentally conscious; therefore, you feel even guiltier for your choices of the morning. Life is sad. You could, however, have avoided this tragedy if you had prior knowledge of the modern paper industry…

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Lost in the Library: Melvil Dewey and His Cataloguing System

Nov 7

Posted by pmr906 in Libraries | Comments off

 Marie C.

Who Needs Catalogues?

To me, libraries are the stuff of dreams. Room after room filled with shelf upon shelf upon shelf of books, journals, newspapers, and other publications on every topic imaginable. All of them there at my fingertips, completely accessible and just waiting to be read. A library like the British Library has a collection of over 150 million items, which cover over 625 km of shelves (About Us). This is a staggering wealth of information, and I’m almost drooling just thinking about it! But such amazing, massive collections of books and other materials can also become the stuff of nightmares… What if you can’t find a book? Or worse, what if you have so many books that you no longer have any concept of what you have and where you’ve stored it?

This is why library catalogues are crucial. Cataloguing systems in their various iterations have been around for as long as libraries, in forms that were often “strictly inventories of property” (Rouse & Rouse 236) rather than their more modern form, which “had a principal function to enable one to locate a book” (236), and which now also contain other useful bibliographic information which allows readers to identify and locate books and other resources based on the subjects that they contain. For this post, I am going to limit my discussion to what OCLC cites as “the most widely used classification system in the world”: the Dewey Decimal system.

Melvil Dewey

Public domain – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The Life and Legacy of Melvil Dewey

Born Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey, the man we now know as Melvil Dewey was a man obsessed with the metric system, captivated by the decimal, and an ardent supporter of a simplified spelling reform, having changed his own name from Melville to Melvil and briefly going by Dui rather than Dewey (How One Library Pioneer). He helped found the first permanent organization of librarians in 1876: the American Library Association (Lerner 173). At this point in time, multiple different classification systems were in use in libraries around the world, but classification and the role of the librarian had not yet developed the scientific approach with which we are now familiar. At the same time as the American Library Association was founded, Melvil also founded two other organizations: the American Metric Bureau and the Spelling Reform Association (Lerner 173). Evidently, his Metric Bureau did not have the desired effect on the American measurement system, however he did manage to impose his spelling simplification system on the Lake Placid Club, a “cooperative resort in the Adirondacks that he established in 1895” (Kendall 52). Dewey’s Wikipedia page provides some amusing results of his “simplr spelin”, citing the menu at the “Adirondak Loj”, which offers entrées featuring “Hadok … Masht potato, Butr, Steamd rys, Letis”, with “Ys cream” for dessert.

Dewey developed his classification system while attending Amherst College, and it was part of the discussion at the first meeting of the Library Association in 1876 (Lerner 174). He subsequently was appointed chief librarian of New York City’s Columbia College and began teaching classes on librarianship in 1887, part of a rising trend in providing specific education for librarians (Lerner 175). He was a prominent member of the library community throughout his career, acting as director of New York State Library from 1889 to 1906, founding a company called Library Bureau which stocked supplies for libraries, and also co-founding and editing Library Journal (How One library Pioneer).

Melvil Dewey is now considered the “Father of Modern Librarianship” (How One Library Pioneer), however, he was also a controversial figure. Assumed to have had Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, he struggled to get  along with others and “was a master at launching and beefing up organizations, but … often had difficulty running them” (Kendall 53). Although Dewey “came up with numerous innovations… he also managed to alienate many colleagues with his unpredictable and demanding behavior” (54). In 1905, he was forced to resign as New York State Librarian after a petition signed by a number of prominent individuals was circulated, a petition criticizing the explicit anti-Semitism evident in circulars issued by Dewey’s Lake Placid Club and its exclusion of Jewish people from its membership (Wiegand 361). He was also known to be a womanizer and worse. Although few women made formal complaints over the years, finally “four prominent librarians” (Kendall 54) made his unwelcome attention known to Association officials. This resulted in his exclusion from the Association and his withdrawal from the library world.

How Does Dewey’s System Work?

The Dewey Decimal Classification system, abbreviated hereafter as the ‘DDC’, uses arabic decimal numerals and organizes materials based on “ten main classes” which represent fields of study and disciplines intended to “cover the entire world of knowledge” (DDC Summaries). Each of these classes is subdivided into ten divisions, each of which contain ten sections. In this classification, each item in a collection is assigned a three-digit number in which the first digit represents the main class, the second represents the subdivision, and the third represents the section within the division. The three-digit number is followed by a decimal point, after which there are continued degrees of classification, still organized in divisions by ten. Specific subjects may fall under more than one division category, depending on contexts and uses. Thus far, the DDC has been edited 23 times as more topics are assigned numbers and added to the system, and it now also exists as an online resource (DDC Summaries).

Courtesy of Maggie Appleton

Currently, Melvil Dewey’s classification system is used primarily for many smaller collections and public libraries throughout the world, while larger and more academic collections often make use of Herbert Putnam’s Library of Congress classification, which was influenced by Dewey’s work. Despite the definite dark side to the man credited with such innovation, there is no doubt that the library we know and love would not be the same without his contributions.

 

Works Cited

“About Us.” The British Library.  n.d. British Library. Web. 30 Oct. 2018.

“Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) Summaries.” Dewey Services. OCLC. 2018. Web. 2 Nov. 2018.

“History.” American Library Association. ALA. June 9, 2008. Web. 4 Nov. 2018.

“How One Library Pioneer Profoundly Influenced Modern Librarianship.” Dewey Services. OCLC. 2018. Web. 2 Nov. 2018.

Kendall, Joshua. “Melvil Dewey, Compulsive Innovator: The Decimal Obsessions of an   Information Organizer.” American Libraries 45.3-4 (2014): 52-54. JSTOR. Web. 1 Nov.  2018.

Lerner, Frederick Andrew. The Story of Libraries: From the Invention of Writing to the    Computer Age. 2nd ed. New York: Continuum, 2009. Print.

“Melvil Dewey.” Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation. 28 Oct. 2018. Web. 1 Nov. 2018.

Rouse, Mary A. and Richard H. Rouse. “The Development of Research Tools in the Thirteenth   Century.” Authentic Witnesses. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991,          221-255. Print.

Wiegand, Wayne A. “‘Jew Attack’: The Story behind Melvil Dewey’s Resignation as New York State Librarian in 1905.” American Jewish History, vol. 83, no. 3. (1995): 359    379. JSTOR. 1 Nov. 2018.

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Fun with Hieroglyphs

Nov 5

Posted by pmr906 in Early Writing | Comments off

Cooper N.

One way or another, we have all seen or heard of Egyptian hieroglyphics and at least vaguely know what they are. If you mention the word “hieroglyph” to a person on the street, one basic definition will immediately come to mind: pictures. Hieroglyphs are basically a written language made up of pictures that ancient Egyptians used as one of the earliest forms of literacy. Each picture or symbol represents a very specific person, place, thing, action or even sound. These pictures can be found carved or painted on walls and stone tablets from ancient Egyptian ruins, and seem to depict some sort of message or story. But are these symbols as straightforward as they seem? Some of them are, such as a man, a cat, or a bull could be easily distinguished just by looking at their respective glyphs, but there are lots of variations of these that look mighty similar to one another and might not actually make sense until put into context. In this blog post, my aim is to enlighten my readers on the sheer vastness that the world of hieroglyphs holds, and that a simple picture may not be so simple at all.

Sir Alan H. Gardiner is an English Egyptologist and scholar who in the early 20th century organized and translated a series of what he found to be the most commonly found hieroglyphs. For the main premise of this post, I will be solely referring to Gardiner’s sign list as it adequately demonstrates just how many different meanings can be depicted from hieroglyphs that, to the modern human eye, may look very much the same. The list consists of 26 main categories, each one covering a specific subject and consisting of many different symbols that go even further in depth. For example, category A is titled “man and his occupations” and within this category there are 55 different symbols that depict certain actions or roles that men were commonly known for. As you may have guessed, many of these symbols look terribly similar to one another, to the point where it feels like you may be looking at one of those “spot the difference” brain-teasers. For example, take a look at these two hieroglyphs:

      

(Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hieroglyphs/A )

            They look extremely similar, and one could make the inference that they both possibly refer to an elderly man. If that’s the case, then these two symbols should be able to be used interchangeably, right? I’m afraid not, since the glyph on the left with the cane (A19) refers to an elderly man being weak and fragile, whereas the other one with the pronged staff (A20) refers to a wise elder. Even though they look the same at first glance, they definitely have separate definitions that would change the meaning of whatever message they are a part of.

There is such a wide variety of symbols that it is no wonder why it has taken thousands of years to decipher them. Under section A alone we can see many examples of hieroglyphs that I couldn’t even guess the meaning of. Like this sequence of hieroglyphs A27 – A33 just look like a group of people dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller:

(Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hieroglyphs/A )

But upon some research, one would learn that these men are not dancing to an 80’s pop hit, but instead these glyphs (in the respective order) refer to things such as “to transition,” “in high spirits,” “head over heels,” “to praise,” “to turn away,” “to dance,” and “to travel.” At least one of these symbols is about dancing, so maybe my judgement isn’t completely off after all.

Once we get down to section D, which is “parts of the human body,” we are delighted with 63 symbols, 75% of which certainly do not look like any human body parts I am aware of. Some can be distinguishable however, like D4 is definitely an eye:

(Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hieroglyphs/D )

…But then D5 – D7 also look like eyes?

(Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hieroglyphs/D )

            It is true that all of these symbols are referring to eyes, the only difference being that D5 is wearing makeup, D6 has a painted upper eyelid, and D7 has a painted lower eyelid. And then we have D8:

(Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hieroglyphs/D )

Which doesn’t even look that much like an eye to me, but it is referring to a “closing eye.” I had no idea that there would be so many different kinds of eyeballs, but hey, the Egyptians must have had their reasons for all of these specific variations.

            All in all, the topic concerning Egyptian hieroglyphs has been a rather fun and interesting one to explore. As someone that has never properly done any research on this subject before, I had no idea just how vast the categories of symbols could go, and I’ve only just scratched the surface. A symbol of a man is not just any man, and an eye might not just be any eye. A dozen different variations exist with very slight differences, each one carrying with it a completely different meaning that would change the overall message. These ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs truly give a whole new meaning to the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.”