Provenance – Page 2 – Social Life of Books Course

Timeline of “The Story of Biology”

When we were presented with this assignment for the COPLAC course, I was initially very excited. Being a science major, I was hoping to search the library at the college… Read More

When we were presented with this assignment for the COPLAC course, I was initially very excited. Being a science major, I was hoping to search the library at the college and find a science based book that I could structure this assignment around. Since UVA Wise as an institution is so young, so small, and is in an area that is part of the bible belt, I was very curious as to what scientific literature would be available in the library. When I had found “The Story of Biology” and opened the front cover and saw the label indicating that this book was from the collection of C.K. Davenport, a professor at the University of Virginia at one time, I was very excited. However, as I was searching for information on the book itself and the professor that had owned it, it proved to be very frustrating. While I did find out that Charles Davenport did have an extensive book collection, unfortunately this was all I was able to find out about him. I was also unable to determine when exactly the book had come into possession of the UVA Wise library. This left me frustrated, and made me wish that the generations before me had been more meticulous recordkeepers. Throughout the book, I saw evidence of writing in the margins; I’m not sure if this was the work of Professor Davenport himself, or of one the few that had checked this book out. As I thumbed through the pages, I saw what was the schedule of a “Devona Powers” from the year 1971, and I was amazed that it had remained there all this time.

Shakespeare’s First Folio Investigation

This assignment set the standard for the rest of the semester! After searching through ridiculously expensive books in Midwestern State University’s rare books room I decided to turn back to the Moore collection. I found a first edition of Shakespeare’s First Folio in a display case that had a significant amount of wispy, ink writing in its margins. On the inside of the cover, among several taped-in articles and pictures, was a bookplate of famous English actor, David Garrick. Directly underneath followed the bookplate of a “Schmidtchen.” (The information I found through researching Schmidtchen’s bookplate could take up an entirely separate blog post but did not lead me to a full name as of yet.) The work was printed in 1623 by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount through the Stationer’s Company.

After talking with my archivist and through private research, I discovered David Garrick was a famous actor in England during the mid-1700s. Along with acting he was a successful producer, poet and co-managed the Drury Lane Theatre company. In addition to these things Garrick was well known for rewriting parts of Shakespeare’s works. Midwestern State University’s special collections even has a few of Garrick’s own published works. With Garrick’s background in acting and reputation for making alterations to Shakespearean plays I expected to find a sweeping amount of marginalia. The only marks I felt safe to assume were Garrick’s were several areas of wispy, brown ink writing or smudges. He never left more than a single word or letter. On several pages it looked as if he was practicing a letter ‘R’ and later in the book he marks out the Italian words ‘Tertia’ and ‘Quarta,’ then writes their translations ‘Third’ and ‘Fourth.’ There are several pages with significant brown ink smudges on them that seem to show this wasn’t deemed a valuable possession of Garrick’s.

The taped-in clippings and pictures could either belong to the mysterious “Schmidtchen,” or Nolan Moore. Because I haven’t found any other books with provenance left by Moore I’m going to assume the clippings writing were left by Schmitdchen. The pictures he left in the book reveal that Schmidtchen had a great appreciation for Shakespeare and his life. While there was very little writing left by him what I did observe looked to be in black pen and had a very contemporary style to it, which contradicts my theory of it being Schmidtchen since he does have a bookplate.

This assignment was challenging but so stimulating because I found that the book was my most reliable source of information. There were several instances where I was given incorrect information, but by turning back to the publication information I was able to correct those mistakes. I enjoyed attempting to reveal the history of ownership behind Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, and to view a production of the information I found you can view the timeline I created below.

Assignment 3: Using TimelineJS to Retrace the Life of a Book

I’m not sure, but I think I might have picked the one book in our Special Collections library with the absolute least notable owners in the entire world. I don’t mean to say that any of them led boring lives, don’t get me wrong. I mean that despite the abundance of names in the provenance […]

I’m not sure, but I think I might have picked the one book in our Special Collections library with the absolute least notable owners in the entire world.

I don’t mean to say that any of them led boring lives, don’t get me wrong. I mean that despite the abundance of names in the provenance available to me, exactly zero of them turned up in genealogical databases, and exactly zero of them had a hand in any other publications I could find. It didn’t help that none of them had the decency to include their location (or at least, a legible one).

But I digress. Even though none of the owners seemed to leave a lasting footprint in history, it was fun to figure out who might have come first and what they did with it. It’s a fairly outdated concept, so it doesn’t see much use today, but judging from the number of names in it I suspect that it saw a great deal of use from religious figures or followers. I’m fairly certain that I’m the first person to have sifted through it so deeply in a long while.

So, here: the product of my puzzling. Behold the vast amount of dead-end (but still cool) provenance. I view it as a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people.

Assignment # 3: Timeline JS

This week you will have the opportunity to present the “life story” of a book in the form of a timeline!

Students will choose a book in their university library (or their private collection) that contains marks of provenance (i.e. evidence of former ownership or use including marginalia, book plates, signatures of former owners, vandalism, etc.). They will then conduct research in an effort to identify former users. Finally students will use Knight Lab’s innovative program TimelineJS to present their research. Each timeline will serve as a narrative of the book’s “life.” Continue reading “Assignment # 3: Timeline JS”