A Christmas Surprise & Season's Greetings

Christopher de Hamel delivered an early Christmas present today, thanks to his identification of a young John Waynflete Carter (1905–1975) as one of at least four previous owners of a Greek New Testament (Oxford, 1675) now held by Dunedin Public Library. Carter is perhaps best known today as the author of an ABC for Book Collectors (1952) and along with Graham Pollard (1903–1976) as co-author of An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets (1934), which exposed the literary forgeries of Thomas J. Wise (1859–1937). 

The person who likely gave Carter this book was the ecclesiastical historian Cuthbert Hamilton Turner (1860–1930), whose ownership inscription is also present. Turner authored a volume on The Early Printed Editions of the Greek Testament (1924) and watched benevolently over the young Carter, whose inscription is most fitting for this time of year: 'J. W. Carter Eton College, elect of King's Coll[ege] Christmas 1923'.

Wishing everyone who has visited Antipodean Footnotes a happy holiday season and all good wishes for a joyous New Year. Here is to more bibliographical discoveries in 2012.

University of Melbourne Digitising Its Middle Eastern Manuscripts

Image property
 of the University of Melbourne

[The following was included in today's Hidden Treasures of the University of Melbourne Library e-newsletter]

The University of Melbourne Library holds almost 200 Middle Eastern manuscripts, dating from the twelfth to the twentieth century. Languages include Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Prakrit, Mongol, Sanskrit, Malmud, Ethiopic and Syriac. The collection is just one of a number of collections built up by the Reverend Professor John Bowman between 1959 and 1975 during his time as head of the Department of Semitic Studies.

MUL 134 [at left], tells the love story of Kamrup and Kamlata in Persian poetical form, although it was produced in Northern India in about 1737. Its miniature illustrations are in gouache, gold and silver leaf. The script is in black ink with some red, ruled borders with decoration of silver, red and blue.

One of the exciting projects of the University’s Digitisation Service is to digitise this beautiful collection and to date half of the manuscripts have been digitised.

The digitised manuscripts are available through the University's Digital Repository.

Iconography Exhibition - Dunedin Public Library

'Why is the Virgin Mary's gown blue?' 'Does that snail in the manuscript's margin mean anything?' 'Who are those figures standing by the Cross?'

These questions were all asked by an inquisitive school group, which recently paid a visit to the the Dunedin Public Library's Heritage Collections. The library's latest Reed Gallery exhibition 'Signs & Symbols: Decoding Mediaeval and Renaissance Iconography' hopes to shed some light on these once familiar icons, and reacquaint visitors with the images and hidden messages of centuries past.

The exhibition includes over thirty-five items from thirteenth-century Bibles to an early-twentieth-century facsimile of the Gutenberg Bible. Christian iconography lies at the heart of the exhibition, with supplementary cases on such subjects as colour, flora and fauna, and the printer's device.

The link will lead you to the digital version, where you may also download a PDF of the item list (6.2MB).

'Signs & Symbols: Decoding Mediaeval and Renaissance Iconography' runs until 22 January 2012.

Rare Books Summer School 2012, Melbourne

The seventh Australian and New Zealand Rare Books Summer School is being hosted by the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.

On offer are:

Artists’ books, zines and other collaborative ventures
6–10 February 2012
The artist’s book has a schizophrenic existence. One of its traditions finds its origins in the luxury livre d’artiste – involving elaborate collaboration between artists, poets, letterpress artisans and master printers. The other tradition is that of the subversive, avant-garde, democratic multiple, frequently self-published or produced by an ideologically committed publisher in large non-editioned print runs and using cheap materials. Russian revolutionary avant-garde books, American, European and Australian minimalist and conceptual artists’ books of the 1960s and 1970s and present-day zines are part of this alternative tradition. This workshop with Sasha Grishin will introduce participants at first hand to some of the finest artists’ books and zines, and their creators.

Professor Sasha Grishin AM FAHA is the Sir William Dobell Professor of Art History at the Australian National University and works internationally as an art historian, critic and curator. He has published 18 books and over a thousand articles dealing with various aspects of art, especially printmaking and artists’ books.

Botanical riches: the art of the book
13–17 February 2012
Books are far more than mere texts, as demonstrated by sumptuous publications on topics such as exploration, botany and garden making. Drawing on the rich collections of the State Library of Victoria, and including privileged visits to other key Melbourne rare book collections, this course with Richard Aitken will reveal ways in which books can be repositories of cultural history, not only through their texts and illustrations, but through their physical characteristics as artefacts through provenance, use (and abuse) and reception.

Richard Aitken is an independent scholar and collector specialising in the literature of the garden. His books include Gardenesque (2004), Botanical riches (2006) and The garden of ideas (2010). He coedits the quarterly journal of the Australian Garden History Society and is writing Cultivating modernism: the literature of the modernist garden (due out in 2013).

Ephemera: a collector’s key to the history of books
13–17 February 2012
Ephemera of all kinds – type specimens, printers’ and binders’ bills and labels, prospectuses, subscriber lists, booksellers’ catalogues, library tickets, trade receipts and more – are a substantial part of the evidence for the history of books in the west. In this course, Wallace Kirsop will look systematically at the collecting, organising and interpreting of such material, drawing on North American, European and Australian examples from recent times back to the 18th century.

Wallace Kirsop is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at Monash University and a past president of the Book Collectors’ Society of Australia (Victorian branch). He collects and studies trade and library ephemera as part of his interest in the history of books in 19th-century Australia and in France between the 17th and 19th centuries.

The poetics of printing on the iron hand-press
13–17 February 2012
Participants in this course will combine the mind, hand and eye with a classic printing process to explore the physical qualities of text. They will experience hand-rolling both wood and metal type and printing on fine papers with an iron hand-press, learning to use the type creatively, operate the press safely and control the ink when rolling both small typefaces and large surfaces. The emphasis will be on text as image, with poetry as the main focus.

Caren Florance is a Canberra-based printer. She teaches book arts and letterpress at the Australian National University School of Art and operates the private press Ampersand Duck. Her printing output spans both traditional and less structured textual works.

An application and contact details can be downloaded here [The application deadline has now passed, 11.12.11].

Text and image reproduced with permission of Des Cowley, Rare Printed Collections Manager, SLVA.

Pycroft Auction Results

Results from the 2 and 3 November sale of the Pycroft Collection in Auckland. 596 of the 632 lots sold for a total of $546,060. The big winners were:

- Augustus Earle's Sketches Illustrative of the Native Inhabitants and Islands of New Zealand (1838), estimated at $18,000 to $24,000, sold for $30,000. 

- G. F. Angas's The New Zealanders Illustrated (1847), estimated at $12,000 to $15,000, realised $20,500.

- Alexander Mackay's A Compendium of Official Documents Relative to Native Affairs in the South Island (two volumes, 1871 and 1872), estimated at $10,000 to $15,000, sold for $26,000.

The pre Treaty of Waitangi Maori land purchase deed (1839) made its minimum of $25,000. The set of Cook's Voyages sold for $16,000, just under its low end estimate of $18,000.

The Dunedin Public Library was successful in securing Sir George Grey's compilation of Maori proverbs with English translations, Ko Nga Waiata Maori He Mea Kohikohi Mai (Cape Town, 1857); Bagnall 2355; Parkinson 468.

Happy Birthday, William Colenso

From the biography of William Colenso
by A. S. Bagnall and G. C. Petersen.
Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1948.

7 November 2011 marks the bicentennial of the birth of William Colenso (1811–99), New Zealand's pioneer printer (he was also a missionary, botanist and politician).

[Update: Despite what is stated in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, the Bagnall-Petersen biography, and doubtless other resources, Colenso was actually born on 17 November. This is recorded in his earliest surviving journal for 1833 (held by the Turnbull Library) and is also etched on Colenso's tombstone. Thanks are due to Ian St George for this correction.]

The honour of producing the first printed matter on New Zealand shores actually falls to the Rev. William Yate (1802–77), whose Ko te Katekihama III, a six-page printing of the third catechism in Maori, appeared in 1830 and survives in two known copies only. Yate's printing venture, however, was unsuccessful. He produced just the catechism and a few hymn sheets before his press was shipped back to Sydney.

William Colenso arrived in New Zealand as printer for the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in December 1834. He served as the CMS printer for eight years and produced a large body of work with little efficient help. An estimated 74,100 books and pamphlets were printed by Colenso between January 1835 and January 1840. Among his most important pieces of printing are: The Epistles to the Philippians and the Ephesians in Maori (1835), the first book printed in New Zealand; the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand (1836), the first printings of the New Testament and Book of Common Prayer in Maori (1838 and 1839 respectively), and the Treaty of Waitangi (1840).

Opening of the Gospel of St. John
New Testament in Maori (1838)

Colenso took an inventive approach to the layout of his type cases. He organised them in a way that was most effective for arranging lines of type in the Maori language, the alphabet for which (developed by church missionaries from the Maori oral tradition) includes about half the number of letters used in English. The Alembic Press website has some very useful examples of the distribution in Colenso's cases, as described in D. F. McKenzie's Oral Culture: Literacy & Print in Early New Zealand (Wellington, 1985): Maori (upper case) and Maori (lower case).

For more information on the life of William Colenso, see his entry in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.

From 15th-Century Germany to 20th-Century New Zealand: Signs of Ownership in the Legenda aurea sanctorum (Cologne, 1476)

No other early-printed book in the Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection bears such robust and identifiable provenance as its copy of the Legenda aurea sanctorum printed in Cologne by Conrad Winters, de Homborch, and issued in November 1476.

From the Book Stalls of Ghent
The earliest inscription, found beneath the colophon, was written a mere four months after the book’s publication. Though obscured by being nearly obliterated under heavy black ink, Christopher de Hamel has deciphered the inscription as that of a Master Nicholas Flint who appears to have purchased the book in Ghent in March 1477 (35).

The partially erased inscription of Nicholas Flint

Flint’s exact identity is not known, but de Hamel does note a Master Nicholas Flint among the Fellows of Oriel College, Oxford, from 1480 until approximately 1486 (30).

When and how the Dunedin copy left the possession of Master Nicholas remains a mystery. What is known, thanks to a much clearer inscription, is that the book made its way to Arbuthnott, Scotland, before the end of the fifteenth century.

Scottish Collection #1: Church of St. Ternan

An inscription in Latin along the top edge of the preface states that this copy was presented as a gift by the rector David Luthirdale to the Church of St. Ternan. The Church was consecrated by David de Bernhem, Bishop of St. Andrews, on 3 August 1242, and is perhaps best known for its association with the finely decorated Arbuthnott Missal.

David Luthirdale was inducted into the church at Glasgow as rector of Weem in 1474 and was rector of the Church of St. Ternan by 1484 (Durkan and Ross 126). Prior to his appointment in Arbuthnott, Luthirdale served as Archdeacon of Teviotdale, Glasgow, from June 1474 until October 1475 when he was appointed Archdeacon of Dunkeld – a position held until November 1479 (Watt 157, 177). Two years after his appointment to St. Ternan's, Luthirdale was employed as comptroller under James IV, and his name is found throughout the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland for that year (Murray 25, 27–8). No mention of Luthirdale is found after 1486, and we may assume that he died in office.

Luthirdale's inscription

With the coming of the Scottish Reformation in 1560, there can be little doubt as to the fate of the Legenda aurea. In all probability it was purged from the Church of St Ternan library, joining the wave of other books flooding into the Scottish and English book trade as a result of the religious upheaval. 

Scottish Collection #2: The Library of James Balfour
The book is next recorded in the library of herald and antiquary Sir James Balfour (ca. 1603–1657), whose ownership inscription appears on the recto of the front flyleaf. Balfour was one of the most significant book collectors in seventeenth-century Scotland, and his acquisition of such material as chronicles, registers of religious houses and bishoprics, and cartularies preserved some of what might have been lost during the scattering of pre-Reformation Scottish libraries (ODNB).

After Sir James’s death, his library is presumed to have passed to his brother, the botanist and collector Sir Andrew Balfour (1630–1694). Four years after the death of Sir Andrew, the manuscript portion of Sir James's library was purchased from the Balfour family by the Faculty of Advocates on 2 December 1698 (Ovenden 18). His printed books were dispersed at auction the following year, along with some books from Sir Andrew's own collection (the majority of his library had already been auctioned in 1695). The Legenda aurea, however, is not recorded in the Catalogus selectissimorum ... fratres D.D. Balfourios, Jacobum ... et Andream (Edinburgh: Andrew Symon and Henry Knox, booksellers, 1699). 

Ownership inscription of Sir James Balfour

Scottish Collection #3: Newhailes Library
The book resurfaced around the beginning of the eighteenth century in another important Scottish collection. The Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report IV (1874) lists a copy of the ‘Sanctorum Legende’, bearing the same inscription by David Luthirdale, among the Newhailes Library of the Dalrymple family. This collection was formed over three generations, beginning with Sir David Dalrymple (ca. 1665–1721), continued by his son James Dalrymple (1692–1751), and then by his grandson Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes (1726–1792), who greatly expanded the library and brought it to its zenith.

One of the gaps in this book’s history had been what happened after it left the Balfour collection and before it entered into the Newhailes Library. The shelf-mark ‘K4.41’ on the verso of the flyleaf and the Balfour inscription may hold the answer.

According to Brian Hillyard this early Newhailes shelf-mark designated that the book was the 41st volume on the fourth shelf from the ground in press K. Hillyard explained that in about 1740 extra presses were added to the library room (previously A–Q, now A–Z) and the books rearranged. This evidence suggests the Legenda aurea was acquired before the death of James Dalrymple, father of Lord Hailes, in 1751. Hillyard also noted that a number of books in the Newhailes Library bear the Leo Armorum Rex inscription of Sir James Balfour, and that Lord Hailes’s grandfather, Sir David, was purchasing books in 1699, the same year as the Balfour sale. It therefore seems most likely that the Legenda aurea passed directly into Sir David’s collection around the time of the July 1699 sale of the Balfour library.

Newhailes shelf-mark

To England and then Aotearoa

The Legenda aurea remained in the Newhailes Library until 1937, when Sir Mark Dalrymple, the great-great-great grandson of Lord Hailes, sold a portion of the collection at Sotheby’s, London, on 24 and 25 May. The book (lot 420) was purchased by the firm of John & Edward Bumpus, bidding on behalf of Dr Charles Newman of Peterborough, England. It remained in Dr Newman’s possession for almost thirty years before being auctioned again by Sotheby’s on 14 June 1966.

According to John O’Mara of the Early British Department at Maggs, the firm was commissioned by an ‘R. D.’ to purchase the Legenda aurea. The lot, however, went unsold, as this unidentified person (or institution) possibly used up their funds on earlier bids. In the end, Maggs purchased the book as stock. O'Mara theorised that the mysterious ‘R. D.’ could have stood for ‘Reed Dunedin’, and that Maggs planned to offer the book to the Dunedin Public Library once it secured further funds. This is indeed plausible, since the Library acquired the book from Maggs five months later in November 1966, adding the Legenda aurea to its extensive collection of Bibles and biblical commentaries.

The fact that the book ended up in Dunedin is rather fitting. Given the city’s strong Scottish heritage, Sir Alfred Reed perhaps summed it up best: ‘it seems not inappropriate that the [Legenda aurea], after ... thirty years in England, should find its ultimate resting place in the Scottish-founded city of Dunedin, the Edinburgh of the South’ (17). In an interesting twist, the Governor-General of New Zealand at the time of the 1966 acquisition was Brigadier Sir Bernard Ferguson (1911–80), a descendant of Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes.

Sir Bernard and Lady Ferguson with the 1476 Legenda aurea
From A. H. Reed's Story of the Golden Legend (1967)
Photograph by Earle Andrew, Wellington

Legenda aurea sanctorum, sive Lombardica historia. Cologne: Conrad Winters, de Homborch, 8 Nov. 1476 (shelf-mark: RBC Jac 1476). ISTC ij00086000; GW M11193.

-------------------------------------

This entry is based upon two earlier works – by Sir Alfred Hamish Reed and Christopher de Hamel respectively – with additional information provided, such as the details on David Luthirdale, the examination of the Newhailes shelf-mark, and the connection between the Balfour and Newhailes collections.

Thanks are due to Brian Hillyard and John O'Mara for the information they provided in 2008.

Please see my blog post on two manuscript fragments used as pastedowns in this copy.

Sources
John Durkan and Anthony Ross. Early Scottish Libraries (Glasgow: J. S. Burns, 1961).

Christopher de Hamel. 'Medieval Books in New Zealand' in Transactions / treizième congrès, Édimbourg, 23-29 septembre 1983 ([Edinburgh]: Association Internationale de Bibliophilie, 1985): 29–35.

Athol L. Murray. ‘The Comptroller, 1425–1488’. Scottish Historical Review, 52:1 (April 1973): 1–29.

Richard Ovenden. 'Sir James Balfour (1600–1657) and Sir Andrew Balfour (18 January 1630–10 January 1694)' in William Baker and Kenneth Womack (eds.), The Dictionary of Literary Biography: Pre-Nineteenth Century Book Collectors and Bibliographers (Detroit: Gale Group, 1999): 12–20.

Alfred Hamish Reed. The Story of the Golden Legend (Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1967).

Sotheby’s & Co. Catalogue of a Selected Portion of the Valuable Library at Newhailes, Musselburgh (London: Printed by H. Davy, 1937).

---- Important Printed Books of the 15th Century, 14 June 1966 (London: Sotheby's, 1966).

Alexander Du Toit. 'Balfour, Sir James, of Denmiln and Kinnaird, first baronet (1600–1657)' in H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: OUP, 2004); on-line edition, Lawrence Goldman (ed.), September 2010. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1189, accessed 25 November 2008.

Donald Elmslie Robertson Watt (ed.). Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae medii aevi ad annum 1638 (Edinburgh: Printed by Smith and Ritchie Ltd., 1969).