“Say, can a greater wonder e’re be found / Than light conveyed by syphons under ground?”

Gas Lamp Lighters Address. Broadside with two poems, illustrated with woodcuts, 500 x 375 mms., with imprint of E. Billing and Son, Printers, 186, Bermondsey Street. [London], c. 185-. [Call number: (Ex) Broadside 408] Purchased in 2008.

Seeking a gratuity at the Christmas season, the gas lamp lighter greets his customer with verse and pictures. His work is heroic, as the verse points out, achieving far greater wonder than steam power (“hurl mankind full fifty miles per hour”) and the “electric stream” (“transmits in moments news to distant land.” (In 1849, a telegraph line was laid under the English Channel connecting Dover to Calais; it took a number of years for locomotives, first introduced in 1804, to reach speeds of 50 miles per hour. Coal gas — a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, etc — first illuminated Pall Mall in London in 1807. )

Delighting the eye are two large pictures:

At top, “The merry dance, the gay and festive throng/ Beneath the boughs of misselto’s bright green/ To jolly Christmas only can belong/ For now’s the time superior pleasures seen….” Certainly this must be Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball. (The original John Leech illustration first appeared in the first edition of Dickens’s masterpiece A Christmas Carol, London, 1843).

At bottom is “View of the Gas Works,” the centerpiece of a triptych flanked by images of dandy “Gasmen” in top hat. This large scene is derived from the 1821 print “Drawing the Retorts at the Great Gas Light Establishment, Brick Lane.”

Between the upper and lower large scenes are depicted further wonders. At middle left, above a scene of the birth of Christ is “The Gasometer.” At middle right, above the scene of the Crucifixion is “Drawing the Retorts.” (A gasometer or gas-holder is a large container for holding gas. “Drawing the Retorts” refers to clearing spent coal from the distilling apparatus.) The parallelism is most subtle — at left, images of promise and supply; at right, images of exhaustion and work done. ‘Tis a curious double message about who is the worker of wonders: God and /or man?

Year in and year out, during summer, students help prepare finding aids, inventory lists, and the like, all aimed at item level control of collections, especially for collections of ephemera. This year was no exception.

One major project was the checklisting leaf-by-leaf of the contents of the Hodder and Stoughton dustjackets, previously announced in this web log.

Elizabeth Sarah Quirk Goodman (Harvard ‘08) prepared a 100 page listing, giving thousands of details about the more than 1100 jackets in the collection.

She also wrote the following reflections on the project —

Regarding the bound volumes

“The bound volumes look as if they were a running collection, in which the publisher’s staff pasted jackets for books by the same author on adjacent pages and left room for more jackets. The estimates must have been difficult to make, however: the authors are not in any particular order, and sometimes they reappear later or there are blank spaces on the pages. Nearly all of the jackets have yellow as the background color, and those in volume 1 are listed as H&S yellow jacket books. The spines are always yellow, and usually the cover art has yellow as a background or at least a yellow frame around another picture. The cover art, for the most part, varies: complete and colorful illustrations, or illustrations of people with no scenery but the yellow background, or illustrations with only three or four different colors in them. The colors used are usually true hues that all stand out from one another and catch the eye.

Most of the books have captions or catchy slogans on them. They may be thoughts from the book (“Determined to forget”) or lines of poetry, or dialogue supplied for the cover art (such as “The river is being watched,” when the cover art features a man whispering to another man). Sometimes they are more directly about the book (such as “The most romantic couple ever shipwrecked”), or statements advertising the quality of the book. As far as advertising the quality of the book goes, the idea seems to be to inspire author loyalty, to assure new readers or remind experienced ones that the author writes books they should want to read. Therefore, many of the books include the author’s name in a slogan about the author, such as “Switch off the wireless—it’s an Oppenheim”. Some make claims about the author, such as “Everybody likes her”. I have called these slogans “author’s epithets,” and put into that column anything that is more about the author than the particular book. I find that the captions make the book seem like something I would want to read once for a cheap thrill and then discard, because they point out one piece of mystery or romantic angst and one presumes the entire book is about that. The epithets are a bit better, and they may come from the authors themselves: one author, Seldon Truss, wrote a book titled Escort to Danger, and a lot of his books feature the slogan “Let Seldon Truss be your escort to danger”. Perhaps the problem is not the abundance of advertisement so much as its large fonts getting in the way of the rest of the book; more books nowadays have small-text reviews on the front, and perhaps an award stamp, which are easily enough ignored. But at least some of the books probably should not be judged by these covers, since they are the lesser-known books by authors such as L. M. Montgomery.

The first covers in the front of volume 1, which cost 9 pence, are only the front covers. Often they don’t have the author’s full name displayed, only the last name, and even that may be the enlarged part of a catchy slogan about the author. However, the later books in the back of volume 1 and all of volume 2, which cost 2 shillings (10 pence) or more, nearly always feature the spine as well. The spine lists the author, title, price, and H&S. The full dust jackets are quite interesting: in the first part of volume 2 they belong to the “H&S Half-a-crown library”, and the back cover is a simplified version of the front cover. No title or author appears, but the cover art appears in approximate mirror image, as a penciled sketch on a white background with one solid color in some places, and often the caption appears at the bottom. … The two full dust jackets in the inverted part of volume 2, which are not labeled in the same series, have colorless pencil sketches on the back that provide some sort of continuation of the front cover art. One has a man in a spotlight onstage at the front, and the back has an audience and the beam of light for the spotlight; the other has two people sitting and talking on the front, and one person hiding (perhaps eavesdropping) on the back. This art comes across better on a flattened cover, and it would work well when seen on the back of an open book.

Regarding the boxes of loose leaves

The three boxes proved much more difficult to sort out. Box 2 has covers mounted on light sheets of paper, but the sheets cannot possibly all come from the same wrapper book, because not only do they have different numbering styles but they also come in different sizes. Still, I was able to sort most of the leaves and half-leaves out into three wrapper books and put the rest in a folder together, numbering them. I used “M” before the number to show that it was not a page number that had already been written in. Many of the covers in this box were less garish than the usual yellowjackets, which were on perhaps half of the leaves. A lot of the covers had white backgrounds, used more colors for less stark cover art, and were without epithets if not captions. The captions were more often book review quotes such as one might find on covers now, though one caption claimed its book was “transfused with a white flame.”

Box 1 was probably originally a volume much like volumes 1 and 2 (labeled 3), because it has books on brown leaves, some of which are foliated in yellow and some in white. Unfortunately this led to difficulty because some of the leaves had been cut in half and a number appeared only at the corner of the right half, so I had to play a matching game and match unnumbered half-leaves with the numbered ones. This was unexpectedly successful, partly because two covers on one page usually feature the same author, and otherwise because whoever cut or tore the pages in half never did it quite the same way twice; he left a reasonable jigsaw puzzle. Box 3 has the remnants, including some dark brown half-leaves matched up, and a few leaves numbered differently. In these two boxes, one would often see a message such as “This is one of [auth.]’s most famous novels, and this is the edition for your Library” or “This is a completely NEW BOOK now first published”, and these seem to reflect different marketing ploys from the usual captions and epithets. In addition, there are some covers for 1-shilling books in a category one might call “Christian inspiration,” as they seem to have a missionary purpose. These are never yellow jackets, but always have thin white spines. They also didn’t have captions, as the attention was probably meant to be drawn by the titles themselves, such as What If He Came?”

L’Album-Guide contient: La vue des Principaux Monuments de Paris, le Plan de l’Exposition, le Plan de Paris, le Plan detaille des differents Theatres, les Services Maritimes, l’Organisation des Services publics, Postes, Telegraphes, Moyens de Transport, Omnibus, Voitures publiques, Tramways, Chemins de fer de banlieue, Promenades dans les environs de Paris; et un mot, tout ce qui est de nature a interesser le Voyageur et l’Etranger venant a Paris. Nota. – Une Table des Matieres se trouve a la fin de cet Album.
Administration: 36 , Boulevard Haussmann (Chaussee-d’Antin). D. Lubin, Editeur et Concessionnaire Exclusif. [Amiens, Imp. T. Jeunet]. 1878. (Ex) Item 4943082 oversize

The International Exposition or World’s Fair served for over 150 years as a primary arena for the display of national prestige. Manufactured product and the resources that produced it – natural, inventive, managerial – provided the common means by which nation could be measured against nation. Progress was regarded as visible, tangible and local. Gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded to objects. Achieving individuals were inducted into Legions of Honor. In today’s world focused on speed, process, and individual celebrity, certainly in terms of public visibility, the Olympics have superseded the International Exposition as an arena for estimation by others.

For over one hundred years, the Library has been building its collection of materials relating to international expositions. Frederic Vinton, librarian from 1873 to his death in 1890, recognized the importance of these materials by listing them in his 894 page Subject Catalogue of the Library of the College of New Jersey (Princeton, 1884), under the headings: London international exhibition, 1851; Paris expositions, 1844, 1867, 1878 ; Philadelphia exposition, 1876; Vienna exposition, 1873. Since then, such materials have been gathered by such units as the Art Library, the Geology Library, the Architecture Library, Graphic Arts, the Theatre Collection, Numismatics, General Rare Books, as well as in the general circulating collection.

This latest addition, an Album Guide is the rare first edition of this charming large format guide for English and American visitors to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878. It is not listed in WorldCat.

The following description of the contents is provided by Ed Smith of Pickering & Chatto (London) — “The work, complete with a large folding coloured Paris street map (and on the verso a map of the regional railways) provides all the information necessary for the visitor in negociating the language barrier on their way to, and at, the exhibition. After a brief introduction ‘to the elements of the language’, the first section provides useful phrases on the journey to France (‘the Landing and Custom House’, ‘At the Railway Station’ etc). This is then followed with further phrases useful at the hotel, when eating and drinking, at the Tobacconist or Hairdresser, and even when needing to take a bath. Part II gives details of exchanges and weights and measures, Paris Omnibuses (apparently much more comfortable than in London), Theatres, Music Halls, Promenades and Gardens, and a list of the entertainments to be given at the exhibition. The final section contains the professional and commercial list, bankers, doctors, milliners, perfumers, chemists and dentists, to name but a few. The work concludes with an advertisements section, both for Paris and London businesses. … This exposition was on a far larger scale than any previously held anywhere in the world. It covered over 66 acres (267,000 m²); the main building in the Champ de Mars occupying 54 acres (219,000 m²).

The illustrations and illustrated advertisements are of particular interest, as they are documenting the ephemeral nature of exhibitions, certain business, commercial design and places of entertainment, such as the 22 theatres colour-illustrated seating plans, together with price lists. On p. 7 is a half-page size woodengraved bird’s eye view of the exhibition ground.

Each double-page of this album has a large view of thestreet, landmark or square where the businesses advertised for are located. The highlights among the illustrated advertisements are: a full-page woodengraved composition of views of the workshops and the large shop of the manufacturer of sweets and chocolate Au Fidèle Berger (p. 2), a full-page tinted lithograph of the Grands Magasins de la Paix (p. 40), and a half-page advert for a shoe manufacturer printed in black, silver, gold and bronze (p. 46), a full-page advertisement for the ‘magnificent Summer Garden’, the Alcazar d’ Été near the Champs Élysées. There is advertising for various shipping companies, as well as a section of illustrated advertisements for hotels in Paris and French holiday resorts. Numbered page 99-100 is a large folding handcoloured map, Le nouveau guide de l’étranger dans les 20 arrondissements de Paris, (Paris : J. Gaultier, 1878), 50 x 67 cm.

Provenance: From the fashion shop run buy the Madames Biays in the Rue d’Échelles, whose advert is on p. 53, with their name stamped in gilt on front cover.”

Mr. Cox’s Perpetual Motion, a Prize in the Museum Lottery, single sheet, 225mm. x 174mm., full-page engraving with letterpress on verso, London, 1774. (Ex) Item 4848706

James Cox (c1723—1800) was a noted clockmaker, and developed this ingenious timepiece in the 1760’s in collaboration with John Joseph Merlin (with whom Cox also worked on developing automata). Cox believed that his design was a true perpetual motion machine, but in fact it was powered from changes in atmospheric pressure via a mercury barometer. This provided sufficient movement of the winding mechanism to keep the mainspring coiled inside the barrel. The clock was designed to enable the timepiece to run indefinitely and over-winding was prevented by a safety mechanism.

He exhibited the clock at his Museum in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, London, and as with other such marvels, it was accompanied by extravagant literary puffs to ensure public attention, and promote revenue from ticket sales. Cox’s Exhibition was the talk of London when it opened in 1772; a riot of brilliance, movement and sound, and an accumulation of bejeweled automata valued then at an enormous sum of £197,000. It was recommended by Johnson, visited by Boswell, featured in Fanny Burney’s Evelina and Sheridan’s The Rivals. “A peacock (now in the Hermitage, Leningrad) screeched and spread its tail when the hour struck, while a cock crowed and a cage with an owl inside revolved and twelve bells rang. A silver swan with an articulated neck glided across a surface of artificial water.., sixteen elephants supported a pair of seven-foot high temples adorned with 1,700 pieces of jewelry… a chronoscope inlaid with 100,000 precious stones evidently needed no animal guise.” (See: Richard Altick, The Shows of London, p. 69-72, 350-351, for a long and detailed account of Cox and his exhibition.)

Cox charged admission at the unprecedented rate of 10s. 6d, and the Catalogue was first issued March 2nd 1772, as a 20-page quarto edition. Such was the grumbling amongst even his most well-heeled clients that he was forced to cut the admission price by half to one quarter of a guinea and reduce the size of the catalogue. In 1773 an Act of Parliament was passed “allowing James Cox to dispose of his museum pieces by lottery”, and it is likely that this handbill was printed to promote the sale of this particular exhibit. The verso contains a full description of the piece, as well as a testimony as to its ingenuity by the noted astronomer James Ferguson, dated January 28th, 1774.

A note in Cox’s commonplace book, dated 1769, is the first recorded reference to the clock. It was purchased in the lottery by Thomas Weeks, who opened “Week’s Mechanical Museum” at 3 & 4 Tichborne Street, and after adding his own embellishments, exhibited it until his death in 1833. It was not included in the sale catalogue of his effects in 1834, and remained lost until 1898 when it was exhibited at the Clerkenwell Institute. After a period on loan to the Laing Gallery in Newcastle, is was auctioned, and then finally acquired by the V & A Museum in 1961. The engraving is recorded, occurring as a plate in The London Magazine for February 1774; but this hand-bill is unrecorded by ESTC. [This text supplied by Alex Fotheringham.]

Published in London in 1789, the broadside Description of a Slave Ship is an icon of the antislavery moment in England and the United States. Between March and July of that year, more than 10,000 copies of the plan of the slave ship Brooks, in one form or another, were issued. The plan makes visually striking what until then had been grasped only verbally or by consulting the statistical data gathered by Commons regarding the ships involved in the trade.

The 10,000 printed copies descended from three primary versions of the plan, which can be distinguished by their place of origin : Plymouth, Philadelphia, and London. The Plymouth version is the very first, occurring in two variants: (a) a four-page pamphlet with inserted plate, and (b) a broadside with engraving and text. The earliest Plymouth version appeared in March 1789. The Philadelphia version is based directly on the Plymouth version. It is known in three variants: (a) an inserted plate in the May 1789 issue of the journal American Museum, (b) a broadside with engraving and text in four columns bearing the imprint “Matthew Carey — Price 3d. — or 18s per hundred,” and (c) a broadside with engraving and text in three columns and no imprint. Philadelphia variants (b) and (c) were evidently issued in June and July 1789, respectively. Temporally between the Plymouth and Philadelphia versions is the London version, printed by James Phillips. It is known in two variants: (a) one illustrated by woodcuts, and (b) one illustrated with a copperplate engraving. It was first published between April 21 and 28, 1789. According to minutes of the London Committee of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, the printing orders are recorded on July 28, 1789, as follows : “1,700 Description of a Slave Ship with copper plate ; 7,000 ditto with wood cuts” (see Cheryl Finley, “Committed to Memory : The Slave Ship Icon in the Black Atlantic Imagination” [Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2002], 94, n.119).

The Plymouth version (a) is very rare ; only three copies of the pamphlet are recorded. One copy of the Plymouth broadside variant (b) is known. The Philadelphia variants are more common but still quite rare. Princeton owns a copy of the May 1789 issue of the American Museum (a) with the plate still intact. Princeton also acquired, evidently in the 1960 s, a copy of Philadelphia variant (b). It is beautifully preserved and shows signs of once having been folded so as to form a postal letter.

This accession was acquired from a London bookseller in early 2006. It was purchased in part with funds donated by Sid Lapidus, Class of 1959.

It is a fine copy of the London version (a), the variant with woodcuts. Historical evidence shows that the London version was by far the most commonly distributed version of the plan of the Brooks. As the years went by and the debate over the slave trade continued, the London version was reprinted time and again. It appeared in the précis of the proceedings of the Commons committee on the slave trade published in 1791. Princeton has two copies of this précis, one in the general rare book collections and another in the Scheide Library. It appeared several times after 1791, most notably in the 1808 History of the … Abolition of the African Slave-Trade by the Reverend Thomas Clarkson, a chief agent of the London Committee. (The Library recently purchased a copy of the London edition of the History; the Philadelphia edition has been in Princeton’s collections since the early nineteenth century.) On the eve of the American Civil War, the London version of the Brooks plan appeared in an abolitionist pamphlet, which was given to the Library in the late nineteenth century by John S. Pierson.

Color (Lat. color, connected with celare, to hide, the root meaning, therefore, being that of a covering — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed.)

In 1794, publisher Johann Ferdinand, Ritter von Schönfeld (1750-1821) revealed an extraordinary system of calibrated, named, and numerated colors in the following work:
Wiener Farbenkabinet oder vollständiges Musterbuch aller Natur-, Grund-, und Zusammensetzungfarben, “Viennese Color Collection or Complete Book of Samples of all Natural, Basic, and Combined Colors.” [Wien und Prag: Verlag der Schönfeldschen Handlung, 1794]. 2 volumes: 272, [68] p.; 158, [2], [32], [124] p. • (Ex) Item 5577427 • Purchased with funds for the history of science and the general rare book collections.

What counts in this book? Here’s the answer, by the numbers:

• 4608 hand-painted specimens, organized virtually prismatically, individually numbered, labeled, and arranged 48 per page

• 14 prose divisions treating seven individual colors at length (black, blue, yellow, red, green, brown and white), watercolors, miniature painting (two sections), colorist’s techniques (for figures, landscapes, clothing, etc.), brightness and varnishes. Also discussed: coloring linen, cotton, wool, silk, leather, wood, ivory, bone, ceramics of all sorts, stone, papier-mâche and sealing wax, glass, enamel work, vellum and feathers. And there are notes on printing inks and papers used by book binders

• 250 terms used in various branches of the color industry arranged in an alphabetic dictionary

• 3 issues known: 54 plates = 2592 specimens (Smithsonian); 79 plates = 3792 specimens (Yale); 96 plates = 4608 specimens (Princeton)

“I am, and ever have been, a great reader, and have read almost everything — a library cormorant. I am deep in all out-of-the-way books, whether of the monkish times or of the puritanical aera. I have read and digested most of the historic writers, but I do not like history. Metaphysics and poetry and ’ facts of mind ’ (i.e. accounts of all strange phantasms that ever possessed your philosophy-dreamers, from Theuth the Egyptian to Taylor the English pagan) are my darling studies. In short, I seldom read except to amuse myself, and I am almost always reading.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, November 19, 1796.

This past December, the Library purchased six books formerly owned by Coleridge, thereby doubling the number of books once in his library now held by Princeton. In one day we added as many as it had taken more than 100 years to accumulate. (Among the very first of those earlier arrivals was one acquired by Moses Taylor Pyne and given to the Library in 1895, as reported in the Daily Princetonian of November 8 for that year. The Pyne gift is marked with the accession number “Sesq. 562” which indicates book number 562 in a collection marking the “Sesquicentennial” of Princeton.)

The newly purchased books were among the 24 lots consigned by the direct descendants of the poet and sold at Sotheby’s in London on 13 December 2007. These 24 lots consisted of the following:
• 5 lots were materials relating to the Coleridge family
• 19 lots were S.T. Coleridge personal letters, papers, and inscribed books.
Of the 19 lots, seven were manuscripts. The remaining lots were inscribed printed books.

The Library acquired the following books, listed here in chronological order by date of imprint:

• Hugh of Saint Victor.
De sacramentis christianae fidei. Strassburg: [Printer Of The 1483 Jordanus De Quedlinburg (Georg Husner)], 30 July 1485. This copy also formerly owned by Michael Wodhull with his arms on the front cover and his inscription dated “Jan. 5th 1795”.

• Plotinus.
Operum philosophicorum omnium libri liv in sex enneades distributi. Ex antiquiss. codicum fide nunc primum Graece editi, cum Latina Marsilii Ficini interpretatione & commentatione. Basel: Perneas Lecythus [I.E. Pietro Perna], 1580. Includes annotations by Coleridge.

• John Spencer.
De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus et earum rationibus…libri tres. Cambridge: Joan Hayes For (London) Richard Chiswell, 1685.

• Sir Francis Bacon.
The Works…In Four Volumes. With Several Additional Pieces, Never Before Printed In Any Edition Of His Works. To Which Is Prefixed, A New Life Of The Author, By Mr. Mallet. London: A. Millar, 1740.

• William Cowper.
The Life, And Posthumous Writings…With An Introductory Letter…By William Hayley. Chichester: J. Seagrave For (London:) J. Johnson, 1803.

• Charles Augustus Tulk (transl. and ed.) of Emmanuel Swedenborg, The Doctrine of New Jerusalem respecting the Lord. London: T. Bensley, Neely, and Jones, 1812. Inscribed on front endpaper: “For my Friend S. T. Coleridge from Cha: Aug: Tulk.”

These six were purchased at auction by antiquarian bookseller Christopher Edwards and were acquired by the Library directly from him shortly thereafter.

Catchpenny Dreadfuls! 24 broadsides given by Bruce Willsie, Class of 1986
by Hannah Lemonick, Class of 2010, University of Chicago, and student assistant in the Rare Book Division, Princeton University Library, 2008

Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street first appeared in London plays and urban legends dating back to the 1800s. He did not spring fully formed from the head of film director Tim Burton or composer Stephen Sondheim. The recent gift to the Library of a set of broadsides — single-sheet sensationalist press pieces detailing murders and violent crimes which actually occurred during this time period — is a fascinating illustration of just how much of the Sweeney Todd legend was based in a genuinely terrifying world, and how believable the original urban myth must have been.

The universal constant in these examples of street literature is the firm and absolute judgment they pass on their unfortunate objects. There is no ambiguity; in all cases a terrible crime has been committed, and justice has rightly struck down the perpetrator. The broadside Blackburn Tragedy is especially telling in that it details how an innocent vagrant was nearly hanged for the murder of Emily Holland, a seven year old girl, before a local man volunteered the use of his dogs and allowed the police to discover parts of her body and skull in the home of William Fish. It is perfectly clear – indeed, the text admits – that although there can have been little evidence against the other man, “Yet people have been hanged for less, and Robert Taylor probably escaped a similar doom by the narrowest chances.”

The genre combines absolute, unwavering judgment with unbelievable rapidity — most execution broadsheets were being sold within moments of a hanging, and were often written the night before the hanging even took place, even while purporting to contain the last words of the deceased. Then again, the courts seem to have acted with only slightly more deliberation than the printers; men were hanged within days of being apprehended, and in many cases, for crimes that we would consider mild, like breaking and entering. If life in London’s underbelly in the 1800s was violent and dangerous, so were the courts and the popular press.

The broadsides provide evidence of the need for ordinary people to make sense of a world in which such things happened — where children were starved and beaten by their parents and women were literally torn limb from limb. It was certain that crime was punished without hesitation — an understanding contrasting strongly to today’s concern regarding due process and fair trial.

Illustration: Detail from Particular Account of a most Barbarous and Inhuman Murder Committed by John Holloway upon the body of his Wife by Cutting off her Head, Legs, and Arms, with his Confession[London]: J. Catnach, n.d. Large tiff image of complete broadside.

List of the gift

• An Account of Matthew Clydesdale and Simon Ross, who were executed in front of the Prison, at Glasgow, on Wednesday the 4th of Nov. 1818, for the crimes of Murder and Housebreaking. [London]: T. Duncan, 1818. [Download file]

• Apprehension and Committal of Mrs. Sloane. London: E. Hodges, n.d.

• Cruel & Inhuman Murder of a little Boy, by his Father. London: H. Disley, n.d.

• Dreadful Cruelty to a Servant. [London]: n.d.

• Dreadful Tragedy at Kingston. London: Taylor’s Song Mart, n.d.

• Horrid Murder and Mutilation of a Woman, and recovery of different parts of the body from various places on the banks of the River Thames. London: Disley, n.d.

• Horrid Murder. [London]: E. Hodges, n.d.

• Inhuman Treatment of Two Children by their Father. London: Taylor, n.d.

• Lamentable Lines, on the Death of Joseph M’Mahon who was Shot in Dorset-street, On the 28th March, ‘82. [London]: 1882.

• Mournful Copy of Verses, concerning John Fawcett, who Shot his own Son, And will take his Trial in a few Days. [London]: Catnach, n.d.

• Murder of a Carrier, at Barrow-on-Soar, and the Committal of the Murderer for Trial. London: Disley, n.d.

• Particular Account of a most Barbarous and Inhuman Murder Committed by John Holloway upon the body of his Wife by Cutting off her Head, Legs, and Arms, —with his Confession. [London]: J. Catnach, n.d. Large tiff image

• Particulars of the Riot at Dover, Which took place on Friday last, May 26, 1820, in which the Gaol was nearly all pulled down, and the Prisoners set at liberty. [London]: Statesman Newspaper, 1820.

• Sentence of William Fish, the Blackburn Murderer. London: H.P. Such, n.d.

• Shocking Case of Cruelty and Starvation, In Cannon Street Road. London: Taylor, n.d.
• The [Sorr]owful Lamentations and Last Farewell to the World of James Fitzwilliams, Henry Wilkins, William Bull, for Burglary, and John Caffan, a Black Man, for a Rape upon a Child Ten Years of Age. [London]: Catnach, n.d.

• The Leeds Tragedy: Or, The Bloody Brother. [England]: [c. 1790].

• The Trial and Execution of Richard Smith, aged 45, for feloniously assaulting and ravishing Mary Green, executed this Morning, March 30th, 1836, at the new drop. [London]: Robinson, 1836.

• The Trial and Sentence of Frederick Peter Finnigan, for the willful Murder of his infant daughter, and who is Ordered for Execution on Monday next, at Horsemonger Lane Gaol. [London]: Smeeton, n.d.

• Trial and Sentence of G. Bentley, For the murder of John Pool, at Eccleshall, on Wednesday, the 10th of January last. London: H. Disley, n.d.

• A Warning Cry from the Cells of Nottingham! Or, Sorrowful Lamentation of Geo. Needham and Wm. Manderville, the two unfortunate Men who now lie under Sentence of Death in Nottingham County Gaol for Housebreaking. Nottingham: Ordoyno, n.d.

• What do you think of Billy Roupell. London: H. Disley, n.d.

• White, John.Blackburn Tragedy. Liverpool: White, 1876.

• White, John. Thebais Winner of the 1,000 Guineas, Oaks, and Ten other Prizes. Liverpool: J. White, n.d.

Illustrated above is the wrapper folded out completely. The parchment fragment is the upper two thirds of a bifolium. Scribal text is two columns per page, with red and blue initials. Visible at middle are the original sewing holes. To the right of the center fold are the sewing supports (for the leaves of the 1537 imprint) laced into the wrapper. At far left, there is a flap designed to cover the book’s fore-edge. An extremely detailed scan of the entire wrapper is available here.

For more on the use, re-use, and continued use of so-called “waste” from broken and / or discarded books, see the following section on the topic in the Library’s online exhibition on bookbinding. The link is:

http://libweb10.princeton.edu/visual_materials/hb/cases/bindingwaste/index.html

For more on limp parchment wrappers, see:
http://libweb10.princeton.edu/visual_materials/hb/cases/temporary/index.html.

For the future, the Library will keep the wrapper intact and protected by a specially made enclosure. • In sum: • First use: bifolium of a missal • Second use: protective wrapper for a book printed in 1537 • Present and future use: vivid example of how the frugal decision of a bookbinder provides multiple evidence about the survival of texts. More on this later topic can be found in Nicholas Pickwoad, “Onward and Downward: How Binders Coped with the Printing Press Before 1800” in A Millenium of the Book, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris. Winchester: St. Paul’s Bibliographies, and Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 1994, pp 61-106.