April 24, 2005
Ye Olde Linkes
A Variety of Ladies' Head Dresses, The New lady's magazine (1786). Click for larger image.
Ladies' headdresses at the Beinecke (via Jim Chevalier on C18-L).
Sharon posts a multitude of links on crime. She writes, "Has to come around sooner or later in an election campaign." Indeed. She has also scored a copy of Hanging not punishment enough (1701) and plans to make it available. Please do!
The Gutenberg Bible held at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin is available on CD-ROM. G. Zombie has one. Here it is online. There are a number of other copies online: two at the British Library, which one can compare; the Göttingen Gutenberg Bible (ca. 1454); and the Keio Gutenberg Bible. Bible links from the University of Calgary. See also The Oliver Cromwell Website and The Goodspeed New Testament Manuscript Collection (both via Plep).
Libraries as fingerprints at Historiological Notes.
The fantastic architectural drawings of Achilles G. Rizzoli (1896-1981) at Giornale Nuovo.
The Opium Wars (via Plep).
Britain's 18th-c canal system being restored (via Metafilter).
Click for larger image.
April 03, 2005
Those were the days
The Juvenile Miscellany (1826-1836): Cover for 1828. Click for larger image.
Marking papers, still fighting a cold, hovering over at The Valve checking for comments on my comments, wondering how this ALSC issue is going to play out, particularly as I am an unregenerate race-class-gender kinda gal — but, the show must go on!
"Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera & Books." Doesn't seem to be much online, but here are some links to photos in the media.(via BoingBoing).
Visit Giornale Nuovo for misteraitch's post about George Psalmanazar (1679?-1763):
a man of uncertain origins who came to claim that he was a native of the island of Formosa (i.e. Taiwan). So little was known about this island in Europe at the turn of the eighteenth century, that Psalmanazar got away with an elaborately fanciful back-story, one which he eventually expanded into a marvellously inventive book-length Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, which was published in London in 1704.
Read the post and see the novel illustrations of "Formosans" and their putative language.
A Small Gallery of Magazine Covers: covers of nineteenth-century children's magazines (lots of great illustrations, including the one above); old magazine covers from Nostalgiaville; "Magazine Covers and Cover Lines: An Illustrated History" by Gerald Grow, Ph.D. (has some nice late 18thc and 19thc covers) (all via growabrain. Check the post for other magazine links).
The original handwritten MSS of Madame Bovary will be online next year (also via growabrain. Be sure to see his other book links).
The Persistent Puppet: Pinocchio's Heirs in Contemporary Fiction and Film by Rebecca West. A lovely article about the century-old Italian tale and its successors (via Plep).
Ramelli's Machines: original drawings of 16thc machines (via Plep).
The rise of the English novel during the 18th century coincided with a growing pride in the landscape of Britain. As novels portrayed society, so maps and topographical views delineated the grandeur of Nature and the man–made elegance of new urban streets and squares. Town and country often provide the travelling backdrop to novels and poems, sometimes exerting such a strong a presence they almost become players in the plot.
From the British Library (via Plep).
Alexander Cruden and his concordance of the Bible (at Metafilter).
Moliere in English: translations by Timothy Mooney, online (via Plep).
Volcanoes, slugs and comets: rare scientific books at UCL (via C18-L, via Sharon).
Two posts by Sharon from some days back, Women’s history and gender history: what and why? and Alice Clark, working women’s historian. Loaded with her usual astute analysis, and links.
And, I don't usually post about ancient history, but this caught my eye: Welcome to the Obsolete Technology Website (via Plep).
from Ramelli's Machines
March 26, 2005
And I just went on South Beach
Bibi posts to a wonderful site about medieval and Renaissance food. Check out Gode Cookery, a large site with lots of links with intriguing names like A Tale of Two Tarts and Gentyll manly Cokere (from the manly Pepys).
Other tasty links:
Cressee, an Anglo-Norman recipe
Medieval and Anglo Saxon Recipes and Medieval European Recipes
Medieval Italian stew
Medieval and Renaissance Food Homepage
Recipes from Cariadoc's Miscellany
Monumenta Culinaria et Diaetetica Historica: Corpus of culinary & dietetic texts of Europe from the Middle Ages to 1800
The Medieval & Renaissance Cookery Webring Homepage
The Forme of Cury, A Roll Of Ancient English Cookery, Compiled, about A.D. 1390, by the Master-Cooks of King Richard II, Presented afterwards to Queen Elizabeth, by Edward Lord Stafford, and now in the Possession of Gustavus Brander, Esq. Illustrated with Notes, And a copious Index, or Glossary (facsimile)
The Renaissance at the Dinner Table
Sabina Welserin's cookbook (1553)
Food in Tudor England
Two fifteenth-century cookery-books
Jacobean Dinner Recipes
The Accomplisht Cook, or The Art & Mystery of Cookery (1685), and The Compleat Cook (1658): online facsimiles, Biblioteca de la Universitat de Barcelona.
Receipts of Pastry and Cookery For the Use of his Scholars?, by Ed. Kidder, 17-- (facsimile)
Lady Logie's Recipes
18th Century Cooking Equipment
Tallyrand's Culinary Fare: History of Cooking
Seeds for an 18th Century Historically Themed Garden
Jed Wentz's Favorite 18th Century recipes (Quince trifle, anyone?)
"Was death by fire common in Colonial kitchens?" (No.)
Three period restaurants at the fascinating Fortress Louisbourg, N.S. (we visited a few years back)
18thC Cuisine: a blog
Regency Collection: Recipes
Victorian Cake Recipes from Godey's Lady's Book (1860)
Update (12:19pm): Don't know how I could have forgotten to check with the unparallelled linker of things early-modern: Sharon has a great page of foodie links.
March 17, 2005
Fun with words
Three ways to recycle those letters (and they do pile up):
Visit the Web of Letters (via Mirabilis),
spell words in letters made of book-covers (Warning! Resource-intensive. Via BoingBoing), or
spell with flickr photos (original source mislaid).
February 27, 2005
Streetprint
The Flowers of Maiden Lane, Pub. John Pitts, London, c1818 (Click on image for more information and a typscript of the text)
Jim Chevalier just posted the following to C18-L:
... this site has a variety of 'street literature' — including ballads, newspapers, etc. — much around our period.
It also uses a tool — the Streetprint engine — especially designed for this sort of thing that might interest anyone looking to put a collection of documents on-line.
Streetprint is open source:
A collection of British street literature needed an online home, a place where students and researchers could interact with these fragile texts as though they were sitting down with the original artifacts. The technological complexity of this task soon became a problem; specialists in centuries-old popular print are rarely internet wizards.
In search of an ideal solution, our team in the CRC Studio developed the Streetprint Engine, free software that gives researchers and collectors (like YOU!) easy-to-use tools to create powerful digital archives and share them on the web.
We broadened our focus along the way, creating a system which can now showcase much more than "street print." We like to think, however, that the ideals which underlie our first collection — finding value in the popular and the importance of public circulation, among others — remain at the core of the Streetprint Engine's mission.
What a wonderful idea. And a beautiful dovetailing of the web and print culture. Of all the texts that need to be digitalized, it seems to me that ephemera is close to the top of the list. It's certainly convenient to have canonical texts online, particularly for teaching, but the various projects, large and small, that digitalize street literature and other ephemera are invaluable. The Revolution and Romanticism collection at U of A contains a broadside about William Corder that I hadn't seen, quite possibly the only copy extant, and I probably would not have visited the collection and so might never have known of it.
February 13, 2005
Reading
Matthew Kirschenbaum continues his series of posts on the Technologies of Writing seminar he is attending. He discusses Don Quixote, and how revolutions in technologies of writing paradoxically spur innovation in older technologies. And, more beautiful graphics.
The playful antiquarian points towards a special issue of The Lion and the Unicorn with the evocative title "Handmade Literacies." She particularly recommends "Why I Like to Set Type by Hand" by master printer Barbara Henry:
Henry's essay reminded me of all the reasons why I love hand-press books — the poetic vocabulary of printing, the meditative nature of the process, and the connection to the history of printed word.
Full texts are available through Project Muse, if your library subscribes (ours does), but the abstracts can be read. There appear to be a lot of studies of children's literature in the mix.
January 30, 2005
Print links
Matthew Kirschenbaum posts about the first meeting of a Folger Institute Technologies of Writing seminar taught by Peter Stallybrass and Roger Chartier,
and G Zombie is taking a bookmaking class. I envy them both.
Check out Secular Books, an exhibit of medieval manuscripts at the Getty (via Rashomon). And see their many other exhibits, most on not – so – secular books. Worth a look: Comic Art: The Paris Salon in Caricature, and The Making of a Medieval Book.
Misteraitch posts beautiful figurative alphabets.
January 26, 2005
Bits and pieces
"You know you're living in 2005 when you accidentally enter your password on the microwave." And nineteen more (via Old Schooler).
New York Times Link Generator gives you weblog-safe links, and there is a bookmarklet (via Bibi).
More webby-introspection: Disturbing Auctions. I wish I'd had the Tartan Doll for the Robbie Burns night party I went to on Saturday (also via Bibi).
Akbar and Jeff are real! (from BoingBoing).
Lip balm for the literati. Choose from ShakeSpearmint, Brontë Berry, Alcott Apricot, or PoeMegranate (from the Catalogue Blog). Come on, they're not even trying! Steinbeck Grape. Milton Pippin, Granny Smith, and Golden Delicious. You could base a whole line on Jeanette Winterson alone.
Drawings of aliens by children (via Life in the Present).
Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women: group blog which highlights cool (and some not-so-cool: Rhinoplasty glasses?) gadgets.
A collection of recent comments and posts on writing by hand, at Moleskinerie. Which led to a couple of interesting sites: Future of the Book and Visiting the Well.
Ballads & Broadsides and Last Words (also via Life in the Present). Madame de Pompadour's were apparently, "Wait a second." Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (1562-1635) got a little cranky: "All right, then, I'll say it, Dante makes me sick." My favourite is Civil War General John Sedgwick (1813-1864): "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--."
January 24, 2005
Representations
From the Bottom Up: popular reading and writing in the Michael Zinman Collection of early American imprints (via Bostonia). A lot of these items are reprints of, or are very like, texts printed in the U.K.
At the same site, another exhibit: Picturing Women explores how women are figured, fashioned, turned into portraits, and told about in words and pictorial narrative.
January 21, 2005
Fun with words
Hobbit paleontologists from the wonderfully named Improbable Research (via Krista).
This works on so many levels. All it needs are a few ex-wives (from G Zombie).
What's your Scrabble score? (via CatalogueAnnie).
January 14, 2005
It's payday
(Click for larger image)
and I just ordered this. For half price, my fellow dix-huitiémistes! I got very excited when I read that it was edited by William Smellie, but it was not the William Smellie I was thinking of.
Though they were both Scottish.
According to Robbie Burns,
SHREWD Willie Smellie to Crochallan came;
The old cock’d hat, the grey surtout the same;
His bristling beard just rising in its might,
’Twas four long nights and days to shaving night:
His uncomb’d grizzly locks, wild staring, thatch’d
A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch’d;
Yet tho’ his caustic wit was biting-rude,
His heart was warm, benevolent, and good.
Bonus links on the first Smellie:
William Smellie, A sett of anatomical tables, with explanations, and an abridgment, of the practice of midwifery (1754)
Of the Management of new-born Children, with the Diseases to which they are subject; A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery (1762)
Smellie lived for a time with William Hunter, author of Anatomia uteri humani gravidi tabulis illustrata [The anatomy of the human gravid uterus exhibited in figures] (1774), and of whom I have written.
Collection of obstetrical and gynecological instruments in the Historical Library, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library.
Obstetric Literature and the Changing Character of Childbirth.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Collection.
And the second:
Major Topics of the Encycopedia Britannica, First Edition (1768–1771)
Buffon's Natural History: General and Particular translated by William Smellie (8 volumes, 1781).
A Romantic Natural History Bibliography
Elegy on the death of Smellie's son (facsimile from the wonderful The Word on the Street).
"Romanticism and the Triumph of Life Science: Prospects for Study."
The Scottish Printing Archival Trust. See particularly Links to printing historical resources. Also of interest: First Scottish Books.
The Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers.
January 12, 2005
Something old
The Scrap Album: Victorian Greeting Cards, Valentines, and Scraps (via Plep).
Check for the History Carnival tomorrow.
There is a thread at C18-L about monstrous births.
Watercolours of Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) (featured at Giornale Nuovo).
Misteraitch has started a new weblog at which he is reproducing the essays of Isaac D’Israeli from his Curiosities of Literature, a wide-ranging work full of excellent advice, such as the following:
AMONG the Jesuits it was a standing rule of the order, that after an application to study for two hours, the mind of the student should be unbent by some relaxation, however trifling.
He also warns,
THE literary treasures of antiquity have suffered from the malice of men, as well as that of time. It is remarkable that conquerors, in the moment of victory, or in the unsparing devastation of their rage, have not been satisfied with destroying men, but have even carried their vengeance to books.
Though Misteraitch has rescued him from such a fate.
This is quite an inspiring project. I wonder if I have anything that is otherwise unavailable; one or two things, I think. Think how much we could add to the common pool if we all followed Misteraitch's lead.
December 09, 2004
Dream Anatomy
Dream Anatomy, an online exhibit by the U.S. National Library of Medicine about the history of anatomical imagery, from 1500 to the present:
The interior of our bodies is hidden to us. What happens beneath the skin is mysterious, fearful, amazing. In antiquity, the body's internal structure was the subject of speculation, fantasy, and some study, but there were few efforts to represent it in pictures. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century-and the cascade of print technologies that followed-helped to inspire a new spectacular science of anatomy, and new spectacular visions of the body. Anatomical imagery proliferated, detailed and informative but also whimsical, surreal, beautiful, and grotesque — a dream anatomy that reveals as much about the outer world as it does the inner self.
Over the centuries anatomy has become a visual vocabulary of realism. We regard the anatomical body as our inner reality, a medium through which we imagine society, culture and the human condition.
Here is the gallery.
(Via Boing Boing).
December 05, 2004
Crime and punishment
More great links from Sharon, including one to a piece about murder ballads, a descriptive essay with several good links from a student of Michael Hancher's from what looks to be a great course on street literature. Of particular interest to me is the mention of two "murderous sweetheart" ballads, in one of which, "The Horrid Murder Committed by Mary Wilson," the murder was committed by a woman upon a man. Unfortunately that one is not reproduced, though the author does provide the reference. Very exciting to hear about; directly relates to a project I'm doing. But mum's the word.
November 16, 2004
Hogarth
The Jones Family Conversation Piece by Hogarth, held at the National Museum & Gallery Cardiff. Long-lost ancestors, no doubt.
The Rake posted, a few days back, on William Hogarth (1697-1764), and pointed towards the very useful page about Hogarth on Artcyclopedia, a comphrehensive site that links to online resources on particular artists: "Great art online, from over 8,000 famous painters, sculptors and photographers, at art museum sites & image archives worldwide."
Bonus links:
A previous post on print culture and Hogarth.
William Hogarth's Realm, Or, an XVIII Century Artist's Magazine: nice setup, like a period newspaper.
The Site for Research on William Hogarth
HOGARTH: "Helpful Online Gateway to Art History"
August 29, 2004
Print history
The Museum Plantin-Moretus website offers to guide the visitor "through 300 years of printing activity," though we are cautioned that
The atmosphere of a real printing business, where the smell of paper and ink blends with the sound of the platen,1 fiercely pushed on the press, cannot be conveyed in this virtual visit. To savour it, you should come and pay a real visit to this old Antwerp printing facility.
fn1. Platen are the thick slabs used to press ink into paper at high pressure.
(Link from Andrew Brown on C18-L).
August 27, 2004
Illustrations
Seeing Is Believing: 700 years of scientific and medical illustration: an exhibition from the New York Public Library (2000). Nice site which allows you to look at some of the illustrations in detail (from Mirabilis).
Drolleries and two posts about Andrea Mantegnaat Giornale Nuovo.
July 03, 2004
c18th resources
Three from Early Modern Resources from a couple of weeks ago: Dynamic Directory: 18th century, Glossary of 18th Century Costume Terminology, and 18th Century English Music.
Print culture links
MagazineArt.org: thousands of scanned magazine covers from the 19th and early 20th Centuries, including pulp and sf (via Boing Boing).
Victorian Pulp from Dennis Denisoff at Ryerson: penny dreadfuls and more! (via The Salt Box).
June 22, 2004
Caxon, Shakespeare, and Children's lit.
Priceless Caxton book goes on show for first time. Book written by Benedictine monk in 1360 and printed by William Caxton in 1482 (via Mirabilis).
William Caxton stamps commemorating the 500th anniversary of printing in 1976.
Printing in England from William Caxton to Christopher Barker — An Exhibition: University of Glasgow, November 1976 — April 1977.
Caxton's Chaucer: compare the 1476 and 1483 editions held in the British Library.
18th and 19th Century Shakespearean Illustrations (via Plep).
Shakespeare Illustrated "explores nineteenth-century paintings, criticism and productions of Shakespeare's plays and their influences on one another."
How Shakespeare Prepared Manuscripts.
Intermingling illustration and text: hyper-illuminated criticism of Shakespeare's Works.
Alice and Beyond: English Children's Books (via Plep).
The Children's Literature Web Guide.
Authors & Illustrators on the Web.
Fairrosa Cyber Library of Children's Literature.
June 11, 2004
Linked links
Three book links:
Altered Books: the site of the International Society of Altered Book Artists (via moleskinerie).
Pop-up and Movable Books, part of the University of Delaware Library's "world of the child" collection (via Plep).
Fancy limited edition of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver , list price $ 200.00. But as they say at the Literary Salon, while it's tempting, think of all the not-so-fancy books you could buy with that money!
Segue into SF links:
China Miéville's next novel, Iron Council, due out July 27, takes us, according to the editors, "back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later." (Thanks to The Agony Column). Miéville is also one of the authors represented in the anthology Cities: The Very Best of Fantasy Comes to Town, out this past April.
Segue into dead languages:
"Yoda speaks like Anglo-Saxon" (courtesy of Mirabilis).
Blogging in Latin (via Household Opera).
(Clever how I did that, wasn't it?)
June 03, 2004
Poaching
culture, poaching links...
Hand knit superhero costumes that look like grandpa's longjohns, embroidery samplers featuring comic book vignettes, beaded trading cards: it's all here (via Boing Boing).
The Heinz Nixdorf Museum: "From cuneiform to computers." Think stone tablets and computers that fill whole rooms (via Boing Boing. Who have the resources). On a related note, Liz Lawley contemplates adding to the landfill.
Elizabeth Gaskell's home open to tourists (from MoorishGirl). I've been to Chawton and Dylan Thomas's boathouse, have walked through Bloomsbury, and will be going to Haworth in July as part of a conference. Now to get up to Manchester ...
More on gendering robots, from the new, refurbished ms.musings.
Also from msmusings: WisCon, and seven women sf writers talk about rewriting a masculine tradition. This from Patricia Wrede: "Size does matter."
Perhaps I have misjudged Eliot all these years (from Rake's Progress).
The Shatnerian keeps up with his home town.
Vintage tobacco ads (and related products such as "Slug-a-Bug insect killer for use around children, food, pets!") and before and after trade card ephemera (from Beautiful Stuff [and here]).
"Corpi, Murakami, and Contemporary Hardboiled Fiction" by Cathy Stebly, about using hard-boiled fiction to examine the past (from wood s lot).
"Studies in Narrative: Science Fiction and Fantasy": twenty lectures that overview both genres, available as MP3 downloads from The University of Minnesota (from Beautiful Stuff).
Index to the biographies and writings of members of the Frankfurt School and The Charles Booth Online Archive (both from Plep).
June 02, 2004
Modern Translations
News story about e-commerce monks: "It's a modern adaptation of what we've done for hundreds of years." (from rebecca's pocket).
And, a review of Troy in mock-heroic blank verse, by Liz Penn:
I sing of arms and the man:
Very large arms, and the man who built them ...