The saying says ‘never judge a book by its cover’, but sometimes the cover is so attractive you feel you just have to pick up the book. Of course, it’s always a disappointment if it doesn’t live up to its promise! A trend on Twitter in the past couple of weeks has been to post a book cover each day for seven days, with no explanations, and to challenge someone else each day to join in. Glucksman Library Special Collections & Archives at the University of Limerick invited us and I accepted. Here are the covers which featured in my responses:
For the first post, I used the 1821 edition of J. L. de Lolme’s Constitution of England; or, an account of the English Government; in which it is compared both with the Republican form of government, and the other monarchies in Europe, which was first published in 1771 in French. My photograph prompted an almost instant reply from a follower in Glasgow: “Is that the Irish border @TCDResearchColl? Is this some subtle geo-political-biblio-trolling of Ireland’s blundering and blustering near neighbour? I really do hope so… Well done! A++”! In fact, I had just answered an email query about its binder, J. Journeaux of Cork, so I happened to have the image to hand, and had no ulterior motive. The shelfmark is OLS BIND B 5, signifying that the binding is noteworthy. My challenge was to Marsh’s Library.
On Day 2, I posted Revolving pictures: a reproduction from an antique book, shelfmark OLS POL X 8345 from the Pollard Collection of around 10,500 children’s books. The 1892 original was both illustrated and published by Ernest Nister (1841-1906) but unfortunately we do not have it – this is a 1979 facsimile. Each opening (there are six) has a poem by Clifton Bingham (1859-1913) and a round picture with a tab which can be pulled to rotate the pieces of the picture and form a new image. Ussher Professor of Children’s Literature, Jane Carroll, has a lovely wee video of it here. As it is a children’s book, I thought it would be appropriate to invite Seven Stories to participate. This is The National Centre for Children’s Books in Newcastle, which houses a bookshop, story station, exhibition spaces and a huge, ever-growing, collection of children’s books, including drafts, proofs, correspondence ‘and anything else that helps us explore how books are created’.
For the third day’s post, I chose Episodes of insect life, published in 1849 and written by Miss L. M. Budgen under the pseudonym Acheta Domestica (House Cricket). The illustrations are by the author. Reeve, Benham and Reeve were lithographers as well as printers and publishers so they would have produced the images from her drawings. The image on the cover is blocked in gold using a tool cut by Thomas Staples of London (his name is in very small letters under the books in front of the cricket). The shelfmark is Fag.I.16.8, although the book is not part of the Fagel Collection. Given the subject matter, my choice of ‘victim’ was the Zoological Society of London’s Library and Archive, who have tweeted some beautiful beastly images.
Day 4 was 25th January – Burns’ Nicht – so I decided to focus on Scotland. My chosen image was part of a 6-volume set (although TCD Library never received volume 1) of musical scores, words to the songs, and notes about them: Scots Minstrelsie: A national monument of Scottish song, edited and arranged by John Greig with original coloured illustrations (cover and frontispiece) by James Michael Brown (1853-1947). The set was published 1893-4 and is at shelfmark 110.a.94-98. I suggested Special Collections at my alma mater, the University of Aberdeen, might like to show off some of their #bookcovers.
Day 5’s cover was one I spotted on the returns trolley and couldn’t resist. It absolutely was not a political statement of any kind! Thoughts of a Fool by Evelyn Gladys (pseudonym of Herman Kuehn, 1853-1918) was first published in Chicago and London in 1905 by E. P. Rosenthal and Company. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any indication of who illustrated the cover, and the only other illustrations are an unattributed photograph of a young girl, and a vignette of a donkey in a frame on the title page. The shelfmark is Gall.20.o.13. Special Collections and Archives at Queens University, Belfast, were my next target.
My tweet for Day 6 was Pagan Ireland: an archaeological sketch – A handbook of Irish Pre-Christian Antiquities by William Gregory Wood-Martin, M.R.I.A. (1847-1917) “with numerous illustrations”, published in 1895. The cover is an engraving of Legananny cromleac in County Down. A cromleac (spelled cromlech in English) or dolmen is a megalithic tomb, usually with two or more upright stones supporting a fairly flat capstone. This one is described in the book as “ten feet in height, the cap-stone being 11 feet 4 inches by 5 feet, and about 2 feet thick”. The image is from one of the well-known Irish views by photographer Robert John Welch (1859-1936), and the original photograph appears as Fig.63. I appealed to the Burns Library at Boston College, Massachusetts to join the fun, which they did.
On the final day of the challenge, I continued the Irish theme with Myths & Legends of the Celtic race by the writer (and founder of the Dublin University Review) Thomas William Hazen Rolleston (1857-1920). This was published in London in 1911 and contains sixty-four full-page illustrations, mainly black and white drawings by the Scottish illustrator Stephen Reid (1873-1948) although there are some photographs which are accredited individually. Its shelfmark is 83.r.1. I enlisted The McClelland Irish Library in Arizona, who joined in whole-heartedly.
I don’t know who dreams up these seven-day challenges, but they are a nice way to showcase some of our material which might not be seen by many people otherwise. If you are on Twitter, but not already following us, why not take a look at our account – you might just see something that takes your fancy!