[Posted by Francis Russo (’13), for Jonathan Elukin’s History of the Book course]

When we first went down into the Watkinson stacks I came up with a gigantic, vellum bound volume filled with pages printed side by side in both Greek and Latin. The massive book was Plutarch’s Life of Alexander—at least, that’s what I could decipher at first glance before I ended up abandoning the monstrosity.  In connection with another project, my attention was drawn to another volume quite the opposite of the Alexander text.  This new book was small and plain. The spine was no thicker than an index finger and the cover lacked any elaborate design.  The simply stamped title, however, was intriguing:  Memoirs of Musick. Is this a story of a musical experience, or an autobiography of a musician?  Perhaps it’s a history of music or tract on music theory…

I hoped to find an answer in the title page, but that only added a whole new dimension to the mystery with each line: Memoirs of Musick … by the … Hon. Roger North … Attorney-General to James II … Now first printed from the original MS. and edited, with copious notes … by Edward F. Rimbault, LL.D. F.S.A. … Member of the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm; Secretary to the Musical Antiquarian Society of London, Etc. Etc. … London … 1846.

Why did a former Attorney-General to James II (the one gently booted off the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688) write a piece on Music?  And what did a Member of the Royal Academy of Music find in it over a hundred years later that warranted the trouble of editing and printing it?

Before things get too confusing the book explains itself and tells its own history in a short preface.  This three-page introduction is a wonderfully detailed tale of the life of North’s original manuscript.  It claims that the Memoires of Musick was “first made known to the world” when selections of it appeared in a certain Dr. Burney’s General History of Music.  Charles Burney, who received honorary degrees in Music from Oxford in 1769, was an early music historian intent on writing a general history of music and drew on many sources to complete it.  After this initial appearance with Burney in the 1770’s, North’s manuscript was bought, sold, inherited and passed down through the hands of more than five people and over a hundred years, having a “very narrow escape from destruction” before finally reaching the “present editor.”  The preface also tells us about the book’s contents.  The volume is formed from half of North’s original manuscript, a 1728 “sketch of the progress of the art [of music].”  It leaves out its counterpart, a “treatise on the Science of Musick.”

After putting the book into some kind of context, two general strands of thought emerge.  One is North and his writings about Music and the other is Rimbault’s heavy editorial hand.  North is first described in a biographical note as an amateur lover of music, noteworthy for his knowledge on a subject not usually associated with his background of law and politics.  North’s writing covers all sorts of musical topics from performance, theory, philosophy and more, reaching back as far back as Ancient Greece.  He organizes the work without chapters or any subject headings and seems to ramble on whatever subject amuses him.  However, North is aware of his scattered nature and admits at the beginning that he is “not pretending to a full History, a work for Herculean shoulders, but only to collect and modify some Historico-critical scraps.”

Interestingly, Rimbault is also aware of his own work: “The notes which have been added are the result of much reading, and the peculiar facilities which the editor enjoys of consulting rare works.  If their minuteness be sometimes uncalled for in explanation of the text, the new and curious information they convey will, it is hoped, be some excuse for the insertion. [signed] E.F.R.”  The reason for this apology in advance becomes abundantly clear once you page through the text.  Rimbault formats each page as a grid with separated spaces for North’s text, annotative commentary, decorations, a title heading, pagination, and subject markers in the margins.  The commentary is truly overwhelming at many points, to the extent that some pages contain only four or five lines of North’s text and the rest filled with Rimbault’s annotations.  It seems Rimbault takes up the “Herculean” task North sought to avoid.

North’s original reference to Hercules brings us to another characteristic of the work.  Both North’s text and Rimbault’s commentary are filled with references to the Classical world.  What is most interesting is that the book goes to great length describing the music of Ancient Greece and considers Classical myth as well as scholarship as explanations for musical concepts.  Discussing the origin of scales, North mentions an “Orphean Harp,” which Rimbault picks up on: “according to several traditions preserved by Greek historians, it was Orpheus who completed the second tetrachord, which extended the scale to a heptachord, or seven sounds.  The assertion of many writers that Orpheus added two new strings to the lyre, which before had seven, clashes with the claims of Pythagoras to the invention of the octachord…”  Rimbault’s dense discussion goes on for much longer, in this case and throughout the entire book.  It would be fascinating to find the other half of North’s manuscript and see what he considers to be the “Science of Music.”  Do the physics-based principles of harmony and sound we know today come out in North’s explanation?

Rimbault’s extensive and thick commentary also brings out another color of the book.  It seems that Rimbault’s printing of such a fragmentary and unknown work is more of a scholarly project than anything else.  His interest is to explain and organize the work in a way suggesting that contemporary audiences would not be able to understand North’s 100+ year old original if it were not for him.  In this sense, the book also becomes an effort in historical preservation.

I will end this brief overview of this truly fascinating and multi-faceted book with an anecdote North provides.  Although much of his discussion is technical, sometimes confusing, and I suspect in many cases inaccurate, he does sometimes speak to a certain universally.  When posing the question of why perfectly good contemporary music was forgotten, “laid aside” and even “contemned,” North says that “This would be harder to answer, if it were not a great truth, and notorious, that every age since Apollo did not say the same thing of the musick of their owne time. For nothing is more a fashion then musick.”

[Posted by Julia Falkowski (’13), for Jonathan Elukin’s History of the Book course]

While exploring the Watkinson for a book to examine for the course, a small, elaborately decorated leather spine caught my eye.  The pattern on the spine consisted of alternating suns and moons, giving the book a gypsy-like feel.  In size, the book was 5”x2 ¾”or about the size of a deck of cards.  Something about the romantic decorations combined with the petit size gave the book an air of mystery and magic.

I picked it up not knowing what to expect.  Examining the cover, I was somewhat shocked to learn that this mystical looking book was actually an 1898 edition of Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack.  The leather cover was decorated with a mix of horoscope signs and pastoral American scenes.  Upon inspecting the inside, I found that it was a sort of “Best of” Poor Richard’s, with selections from editions of the Almanack ranging in year from 1733 to 1758.  In the back was a facsimile re-print of Franklin’s very first 1733 Almanack.

I discussed my find with Watkinson curator Rick Ring.  He mentioned that the Watkinson possesses an original copy of Franklin’s 1756 almanac, and suggested I take a look at that as well.  Rick brought the original almanac out and I realized that, despite the fine quality of the 1898 edition, the 1756 edition was the more exciting find.  The 1756 edition has an actual connection to a living Franklin.  One can imagine the industrious Franklin working diligently at his press into the late hours of the night to produce the pages I held in my hand.  Of course, this fantasy neglects the likelihood that Franklin had hired drones to do the bulk of the printing work by that time of his life.  Regardless, the fact remains that Franklin lived at the time this almanac was produced, and was intimately involved in overseeing its production.

Comparing the two almanacs proved an interesting exercise.  The original looked older (of course) but it also looked much more used.  The 1898 version, though over a hundred years old, looked almost as if it came straight from the bookstore.  The more recent version also appears nicer; the pages are gilded and cut exactly to be exactly the same size, the paper is thick and sturdy.  Comparatively, the pages in the original are thin and not all cut to the same size.  No effort to achieve luxury seems to have been made with the original edition; it is quite utilitarian.  Interestingly enough, though the original seems more suited to everyday use, it is substantially larger than the reprint, with dimensions of 7”x4”.  The reprint seems more pocket-sized, and therefore, more convenient for everyday use.  But then again, the work that has to go into making something small often indicates luxury.  Take for example the ever-smaller cell phones and ipods of today.

One question that came to mind about the re-print was a simple: Why?  What about the culture of 1898 America created a market for this product?  Unlike many modern reprints of books, there is no long-winded introduction explaining the cultural situation that accommodates publishing.  One hint at why the almanac was put out can be found in the publisher.  This re-printed almanac was produced by the Century Company, a New York publishing enterprise that began in 1881 and was particularly successful around the turn of the century.  In 1930, the company was absorbed by another, and disappeared for a while.  The company was revived in 2007 as a branch of Grand National Media.  All the information I learned about the Century Company, I found on the modern Century Company’s website.

In its heyday, Century Publishing was famous for its periodical, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine.  The company showed a particular interest in producing historical works.  Their most successful endeavor was an 1880s series of articles on the history of the Civil War.  In 1898, the company was at the pinnacle of its success. They had the resources to put out luxury facsimiles of any books they wanted to.  And what better for a company concerned with the preservation of American history than a re-print of one of the most famous publications by one of the most prominent men of early America?

As I looked at the two almanacs side-by-side, I was reminded of Franklin’s efforts to create a cohesive American nation.  I felt like the success of his endeavour could be seen in the two books in front of me. The luxury Century edition, printed over one hundred years after Franklin’s death in 1790 combined my reverential interest in both of the almanacs seemed a testament to the continued existence of the patriotism that Franklin worked to foster.

[Posted by Beck Prigot (’14), for Jonathan Elukin’s History of the Book course]

When I first discovered Skillman’s New-York Police Reports while wandering around the law section of the Watkinson’s stacks, I was a little unimpressed. The book was rather plain looking, and looked like something practical, not entertaining. Little did I know how misbegotten my assumption was.

The title page is simple–“SKILLMAN’S NEW-YORK POLICE REPORTS. ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS. WRITTEN IN 1828–1829.”–quotes Shakespeare (“the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the door.”), and gives the publisher and year (“New-York: PRINTED BY LUDWIG & TOLEFREE, CORNER OF GREENWICH & VESEY-STS. 1830.) However, its dry, terse title belies what ended up being an amusing read, which I soon realized after I read the preface, which explains that Skillman included a preface because he had to; that “Custom, all-prevailing custom, hath decreed, that a Preface shall accompany, (as a sort of pioneer,) every original work or compilation, which issues from the press. Whether it imparts wisdom, wit, or folly, still, a preface is requisite” (i).

Unlike traditional police reports, the book takes a viewpoint more akin to the Hartford Advocate’s “News of the Weird” by devoting a paragraph or less to each report (save for the more interesting and involved stories, like the saga of the dandy) and summarizes the reports with a more humorous bent; Skillman especially likes making puns or small jabs at the perpetrators’ names. On August 7, for example, we find out that “A. Vampire was brought in. It is a curious Vampire — sucks no blood — and is considered a harmless Vampire. — Let go” (39). Skillman also occasionally imitates the offenders’ speech, as when he writes about two cases of people selling “yarbs”. Usually, the offenders are sent to Bridewell; after a while, Skillman stops referring to it by name, as when he writes that a Mr. W.W. “is now sent where he will probably learn better manners” (68). Occasionally, a report is accompanied with a small illustration, such as that of John Devoe (“long beard, no clothes, no money, no friends, no bail. We leave our readers to guess his fate”(22).)

Sometimes, I found that not much has changed since the 1820s. For example, a Mr. Jasper Smith, age 17, was brought in for creating a mob on Hudson Street. Skillman describes Smith as “something of a roving sprig (after night fall,) and plays ten-pins, and possesses considerable forensic eloquence” (21). Other times, I found that the 1820s were not as “proper” as most might have thought them to be, as when I read the report of four young women, “neither beautiful nor otherwise,” brought in for what was most likely indecent exposure; as Skillman phrases it, they “exposed themselves in such a manner as rendered them amenable to the laws, and are now in a situation by no means to be coveted” (68).

Skillman’s Reports were a little unusual, even as a contemporary work. A 1907 legal bibliography published by the Boston Book Company describes it as “certainly a curious volume”, and finds the preface “so out of the ordinary” that the publishers of the bibliography opted to reproduce it in full. Although it was notable enough to be published in the Boston Book Company’s bibliography, however, demand must not have been high enough to warrant annual editions, as there is no evidence that an 1829-1830 edition (or later) was published.

An interesting historical puzzle arose when I reread the book from cover-to-cover: that of a previous owner, a Mary A. Stedman, whose name is neatly pasted on the inside cover. My informal online research led me to two possible conclusions: either she was Mary ApOwen (Shields) Stedman (1815-1877), mother of Hartford’s Civil War hero (and Trinity College alum) Gen. Griffin Alexander Stedman, or she was the Mary A. Stedman who married Elias Gates in 1833 and was mentioned in Albany’s 1887 American ancestry register.

Though Skillman’s Reports look unassuming on the outside, their contents prove to be a humorous glance at everyday New York life in 1828 and 1829, as well as proof that not much has changed since then. People still argue over insignificant things, stay out late at night, and drink heavily. In a way, it’s comforting to read such a humorous take on the petty crimes of the time: it shows that not everyone took the law seriously, or lived boring lives. Perhaps in 180 years, people will read our “News of the Weird”s with a similar viewpoint.

[Posted by Katie Joachim (’12), for Jonathan Elukin’s History of the Book course]

The book I found at the Watkinson was not marked by an ‘X’, but nonetheless I found it to be a buried treasure.  Trinity’s copy of The History of the Lives and Actions of the Most Famous Highwaymen, Street Robbers to which is added, a Genuine Account of the Voyages and Plunders of the Most Noted Pirates is attributed to Captain Charles Johnson and was printed in 1814.  However, after doing some research I have discovered several interesting facts about the book’s origins.  The Boston Public Library has a copy of the book printed in 1742, which lists several different authors: Daniel Defoe, Charles Johnson and Alexander Smith.  In the description of the book, the Boston Public Library notes that earlier editions were attributed to Daniel Defoe, while others were ascribed to Charles Johnson.  Yale too attributes a 1742 edition to Defoe, but also lists three other editions by Charles Johnson from the years 1734, 1814, and 1839.  Much debate has ensued about whether or not Captain Charles Johnson was a real person or if Defoe was the actual author.  Some historians believe the book was written by Defoe, who wrote “Robinson Crusoe,” based on the style of writing, and the fact that he had been a merchant and “would have heard of the accounts of pirates.  His novels also featured the low life of pirates, prostitutes, thieves and murderers.” [1] Perhaps Defoe penned the earliest editions, and later on a ‘Captain Charles Johnson’ either ‘pirated’ the book, or became a nom de plume.

Although its author may remain uncertain, we cannot deny the book’s popularity.  It was reprinted at least four times, which tells us that at this time, there was a market for tales about the high seas and miscreants within the literate English community.  The Watkinson’s 1814 edition is 539 pages long, which makes it over 90 pages longer than the 1742 version.  This is because more stories were added to the book as it was reprinted over the years.  These additions were made as new highwaymen, thieves and pirates emerged over time, and could possibly have been used as a marketing tactic to encourage individuals to purchase the ‘new and improved’ edition.  In the preface, the author goes on to say that the book is “long esteemed the only authentic history of men…who, spurning the restraints necessary to uphold the fabric of civilized life…carried on their depredations for a time until the law doomed them…” There is clearly a moral message embedded in these tales, although many of the readers were likely drawn in by the mystery, intrigue and possibility of reading about real life criminals.  Amidst the tales of lesser known thieves and miscreants lie the stories of some more famous plunderers.  As I paged through the almost two-hundred-year-old book, I was pleasantly surprised to see the tale of Robin Hood.  This story stuck out from the rest for several reasons.  First, I had heard of Robin Hood before, and seeing his name was like seeing a familiar face out of context.  Was Robin Hood as widely known back then, and written into the book as a way to up readership?  I think that by including such ‘high profile’ characters, we can discern that this book was penned primarily to entertain readers.  Learning about people who break the social norms was then, and remains today, a popular pastime.  Even today millions of people are enthralled by T.V. shows such as Law and Order or Dateline NBC.

The book’s 120 stories are all listed in the table of contents, which has different symbols for the different types of criminals (P denotes pirate, and an H highwayman).  Some of the stories are about captains, while other stories are about pickpockets, murderers, thieves, and pirates.  There is a note at the bottom of the table of contents, which states “many of these denoted highwaymen began their career by picking pockets, petty thefts, and house breaking.  Those names that have a dagger after them committed murder in the course of their depredations: those distinguished by two daggers, were guilty of numerous or atrocious murders.”  By reading the table of contents the reader immediately encounters a pictorial representation of the danger that lies within the stories.  Physically, the book remains in good condition, printed on paper and encased in what appears to be its original binding with ink typeset.  There is one solitary picture at the very beginning of the book, and the formatting and word choice suggests that the book was directed towards an adult audience.

[“Sir John Falstaff: with his companions at Gad’s Hill”]

Upon first glance, The History of the Lives and Actions of the Most Famous Highwaymen appears to be commonplace, yet after further research I have learned that this book has an interesting history.  From the debate about authorship to the societal inferences that can be drawn from its popularity, this two hundred year old book has proven to be worthy of recognition at the Watkinson.