Tag Archives: AC

Victorian railway excursions

Posted on November 20, 2025 | Leave a comment

In this second blog post marking 200 years of the modern railway, we focus mainly upon its arrival and early years in the Lake District, with a few other choice items from our collections making an appearance towards the end.

The arrival of the railway in the Lake District in the late 1840s markedly increased accessibility to a landscape that had been growing in popularity with tourists since the late eighteenth century. Here, just as in Cambridge, the guidebooks quickly adapted to reflect the new realities of travel.

Likely one of the earliest railway maps of the region is the Collins’ Railway Map of Westmoreland, a small folded map mounted on linen, which would have made it durable and easily portable for use by travellers.

Cover of map. Has a bright orange background

Cover of Collins’ Railway Map of Westmoreland, London, [circa 1847]. Classmark: Bicknell.233

The map is undated, but examination of the railway lines that are indicated on it in black suggests a publication date of around 1847, since it depicts the railway line extending to Lake Windermere which opened in 1847, but not the line to Coniston which arrived in the following year.

Map from Collins’ Railway Map of Westmoreland

Another nice map can be found in a tiny pamphlet guide from 1848, which this time has rail lines marked in red.

Title page of The Lakes, By Way of Fleetwood and Liverpool …, Manchester, Bradshaw and Blacklock, 1848. Classmark: Bicknell 243

Map from The Lakes, By Way of Fleetwood and Liverpool …

This guide includes timetables for steam ships and railways leading to the Lakes, alongside information about coaches to and from Keswick, which was not yet served by a rail line.

Railway timetables on page 03 of The Lakes …

Coach and steamer information, on page 04 of The Lakes …

Steamer information on page 05 of The Lakes …

A slightly later guide focuses on areas made more accessible by the Whitehaven and Furness Railway, which opened in 1850. Note the sweet little title page vignette depicting a steam engine:

Ttile page, featuring a small illustration of a steam engine

Title page of: A Handbook of the Whitehaven and Furness Railway by John Linton, London, 1852. Classmark: Bicknell.107

The guide states its purpose clearly (if a little long-windedly) in the introduction:

Our object is merely to supply what, in consequence of the changes recently effected by railway travelling in the approaches to this district, has become a desideratum; – to point out the routes by which the greatly increased number of tourists and others … may arrive at various interesting points of the district; – and to give brief descriptions of several places, all within an easy distance of the railway we have taken as our starting point, which have hitherto, owing to the difficulty of approaching them, been much less frequented …

One such place is the vale of St. Bees, which is described as if viewed from a moving train. The guidebook goes into raptures about its charms:

After emerging from the cutting, we are again at liberty to enjoy the beauties spread so abundantly on either hand, and it may with truth be said, that a more pleasant and enlivening scene is very rarely met with than that presented to the traveller through the vale of St. Bees. It is a scene of quiet and repose, and yet of the highest cultivation, combining the varied charms of dale and upland, grove and meadow, stately mansion and thriving farm.

If you look closely at the centre of the accompanying engraving (below), you can see a train travelling along the track, trailing steam behind it.

Black and white engraving of a valley with a church and small hamlet, and a train track running through the centre. A train is coming along the track

Plate facing page 24 of A Handbook of the Whitehaven and Furness Railway

Rail access played an important part in the viability of many business ventures in the Victorian age. When the historic Great Exhibition in London’s Hyde Park, the world’s first international trade fair, closed its doors in October 1851, the future of the exhibition hall, the magnificent Crystal Palace, was initially uncertain. However, the designer Sir Joseph Paxton soon orchestrated the raising of enough private funds to purchase the building and have it re-erected in an adapted and enlarged form on a hilltop in Sydenham, in the south east of the city. An elaborate park was constructed around it and the site was opened to the general public in 1854 as a place for relatively cheap entertainment and recreation for the masses. Attractions included concerts, exhibitions, pantomimes, circuses and the delights of the building itself and the surrounding landscaped gardens. Vital to the success of the scheme was the construction, by the London, Brighton and South-Coast Railway Company, of a dedicated railway station for the site, which opened shortly after the park itself. Close co-operation with the railway was expedited by the fact that the chair of the railway company, Samuel Laing, was also chair of the new Crystal Palace Company. It also made commercial sense for the railway, since any big attraction would boost the growth of rail travel.

The illustration below comes from a little guidebook to the palace and park, published in its inaugural year. Our copy is part of the Thackeray Collection.

Black and white illustration showing the Crystal Palace building in parkland. It looks like a huge greenhouse.

Frontispiece from Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park by Samuel Phillips, London, 1854. Classmark: Thackeray.VIII.11.24

Detailed information on accessing the park by rail is provided inside the guide, revealing that the service ran at least every quarter of an hour and more frequently at busy times of day. Return tickets, which included admission to the Palace, were one shilling and sixpence for third class travel, rising to two shillings and sixpence for first class.

Cover of the guide. The title is depicted within an illustration of a large ornate archway

Front cover of Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park

Travel information on the back of the half-title page of Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park

Incidentally, this guide includes an advertisement by the South Eastern Railway for what they refer to as: “tidal trains”, which offered a streamlined service between London and Paris. Passengers could board an express train to Folkestone, embark upon a waiting steamer ship and be met after the channel crossing by a direct train for Paris. Luggage would be managed from start to finish by the rail company. The same arrangements applied for a trip in the other direction. Not bad for the early decades of rail travel!

Page 47 of the Advertiser section of Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park

The final destination on our whistlestop tour of railway-themed material is our Rylands Collection of children’s books. An illustration from the first edition of Through the Looking Glass depicts Alice in a train carriage with some rather odd travelling companions.

Illustration within the text of Alice in a railway carriage with a goat and a man with a paper hat. There is a guard peering at her through binoculars

Illustration by John Tenniel from page 50 of Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll, London, 1872. Classmark: Rylands.C.CAR.Thr.1872

We also hold a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, which includes this wonderfully evocative poem about a train journey.

The text of the poem, illustrated with a railway carriage

Page 68 of A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, London, 1896. Classmark: Ryland’s.C.STE.Chi.1896

The second page of the poem, with a small illustration of a retreating train

Page 69 of A Child’s Garden of Verses

We hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the early days of rail travel as reflected in our collections and that you enjoy any and all excursions you make this autumn and winter, whether by train or by any other means!

References and further reading:

Railway 200 [accessed September 2025]

Lee Jackson, Palaces of pleasure: how the Victorians invented mass entertainment, New Haven, 2021

The Crystal Palace Foundation [accessed September 2025]

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Tagged AC, Crystal Palace, Guidebooks, John Tenniel, Lake District, Lewis Carroll, Poetry, Railways, Rare Books, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rylands Collection, Samuel Laing, Sir Joseph Paxton, Thackeray Collection, Timetables, Trains

The railway arrives in Cambridge!

Posted on November 13, 2025 | Leave a comment

This year marks both 200 years of the modern railway and the 180th anniversary of the opening of Cambridge Station on 29 July 1845. These anniversaries prompted us to search out and share some railway-related material from our various special collections. Enough material was found for two blog posts, so this first will begin close to home with Cambridge, whilst a second subsequent post will range further afield.

We happen to hold both a Cambridge guidebook published in 1845 and an edition of Bradshaw’s Railway Companion from the same year, both of which anticipate the imminent arrival of the station.

Titlepage of Bradshaw's railway companion from June 1845

Title page of Bradshaw’s Railway Companion, London, 1845. Classmark: N.26.33

Bradshaw’s guides were the first railway timetables ever to be published and were hugely popular in the Victorian era. They are frequently referenced in the literature of the day, including in Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of Sherlock Holmes. Our copy dates from June 1845, when the closest station to Cambridge was Bishop’s Stortford, but the timetable below is already labelled as: “Eastern Counties – Cambridge Line”.

A detailed timetable for the Eastern Counties Cambridge line, in dense, small type.

Timetable from Bradshaw’s Railway Companion

The Cambridge Guide published the same year has a map which already includes directions to the station, although the travel information provided at the rear of the guide still focuses on describing the numerous stagecoach routes between Cambridge and London. Many of these coaches travelled via the station at Bishop’s Stortford, presumably in order to provide onward travel to Cambridge for rail passengers alighting there.

Title page of The Cambridge Guide, Cambridge, 1845. Classmark: NW CAM 3ML Cam

Part of the folded, black and white city map from The Cambridge Guide

Section of the folded city map from The Cambridge Guide. The road in the bottom right-hand corner is labelled as leading to the station

Description of coach routes between London and Cambridge

Coach information from page 268 of The Cambridge Guide

In the course of describing the wider region, this guide explains that:

A rail-road is now in rapid progress from London by Cambridge, and extending by Brandon to Norwich; a branch is also contemplated from Ely to Peterborough, and so to the north of England.

Bradshaw’s Railway Companion also provides an interesting insight into the rules of the early railway. These include the very modern sounding prohibition: “Smoking not allowed at the Stations, nor in any of the carriages”. This rule was in force across much of the rail network until Parliament passed a law in 1868 mandating that every train must have a smoking compartment.

List of rules for travelling on the railway

General instructions for railway travellers from Bradshaw’s Railway Companion

Once Cambridge station was open it soon became the natural starting point for many descriptive tours of the city, on the justified assumption that the majority of tourists would now choose to arrive by rail. The first paragraph of The Pictorial Guide to Cambridge, which adopts a very informal, discursive tone, states this clearly, and the author even disparages other forms of transport:

The majority of visitors reach Cambridge by means of the Eastern Counties Railway. Some, however, arrive by the old-fashioned mode of coaching, or by omnibuses … Those who arrive by the latter mentioned methods we will suppose to have refreshed themselves both inwardly and outwardly, to have obliterated all disagreeable reminiscences of their semi-barbarous mode of transit …

Introduction to The Pictorial Guide to Cambridge, Cambridge, [1853]. Classmark: NW CAM 3ML Pic

The Pictorial Guide goes on to hymn the glories of the new station and the convenience of rail travel:

… here we are standing on the pavement of the Cambridge station. What a surprise! I had no idea of such a length of building, all covered over, and comfortable; it cannot be much less than four hundred feet. This really is one of the best stations I have seen for many a day. But, how is it that the stream of passengers are dividing? Oh, I see, one half are taking themselves off to that handsome refreshment room, and the other half are passing through the building to trudge on foot into the town, or to indulge themselves with a cheap ride to the same place.

You see the advantage of travelling by rail; whilst we breakfasted at home, and have come all this distance as fresh and clean as when we started, there are those less fortunate folks who left their homes by day-break this morning and arrived an hour ago, have hardly had time to make their first meal, and cannot possibly turn out in half such good trim as ourselves.

Another guidebook, from 1863, explicitly markets itself to rail passengers by using the title The Railway Traveller’s Walk through Cambridge. The station was completely remodelled in that year and the guide remarks approvingly that: “It now forms one of the finest on the line”. Naturally, King’s College Chapel is depicted on the guide’s cover.

Decorative blue and red cover with an illustration of King's College Chapel in the centre

Cover of The Railway Traveller’s Walk through Cambridge, Cambridge, 1864. Classmark: NW CAM 3ML Rai

A later edition of this guidebook from the 1890s, reissued under a different title, contains a useful fold-out map of the city, in which important buildings and the station are highlighted in red.

Map from The Cambridge Visitor’s Guide, Cambridge, [1892]. Classmark: NW CAM 3ML Rai

By this final decade of the nineteenth century, writers were already reminiscing about the privations of the early days of the railways, as can be seen in the amusingly titled guidebook A Gossiping Stroll through the Streets of Cambridge. The author, S.P. Widnall, recalls using an umbrella to keep off the rain when travelling in a second class carriage that had no glass in its windows!

Title page of A Gossiping Stroll Through the Streets of Cambridge, by S.P. Widnall, Cambridge, 1892. Classmark: NW CAM 3ML Wid

Page 113 of A Gossiping Stroll Through the Streets of Cambridge

Widnall also discusses the effect of the railway upon coaching routes between London and Cambridge, stating that:

When the railway was finished to Cambridge the coaches were of course driven off the road. Some people professed to dislike railways and to prefer riding behind four horses; this led to the attempt to keep one coach on the road, and for a short time the Beehive continued its journeys, when it arrived for the last time it was draped in black, as mourning for its own decease.

Additionally, he touches upon the location of the station, which is (and remains today) some way out of the city centre, remarking that:

We believe the Station would have been nearer the town had it not been opposed by the University authorities on account of the supposed disturbance to University pursuits.

Some modern histories of the Cambridge railway dismiss this as a myth, asserting that the area to the west of the eventual site was already too heavily built up for a more centrally located station to be either economically or practically feasible. Nevertheless, the belief that the University was to blame persists to this very day, especially among those who trudge wearily to the station every evening after work!

References and further reading:

Reginald B. Fellows, London to Cambridge by Train 1845 – 1938, Cambridge, 1939

Cambridge: its Railways and Station [accessed September 2025]

Railway 200 [accessed September 2025]

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Tagged AC, Cambridge, Cambridge Railway Station, Guidebooks, Railways, Rare Books, Timetables, Trains

Sinuous, slithery snakes!

Posted on February 3, 2025 | Leave a comment

As the Lunar New Year of the Snake gets underway, we’ve discovered that our rare book stores are teeming with these sinuous reptiles! They slither through the pages of bibles, travel books, natural history books, works of heraldry and more! Where is St. Patrick when you need him! What follows is a only a selection of the many serpents that have recently emerged, hissing, into the light of day.

It seems appropriate to begin in China, with an illustration from a book on the country by Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Kircher was a German Jesuit and Renaissance polymath, who has been styled by some as the last man who knew everything. He had a long eventful life during which he published around forty books on a wide variety of topics, including ancient languages, music and geology. He was refused permission to become a missionary in China himself, but compiled the reports of many of his Jesuit colleagues to produce a magnificently illustrated volume on the country, encompassing zoology, geography, religion, botany, and much more besides. Below is one of the illustrations, featuring two large snakes, and a man in the corner apparently about to attack them with a stick!

Two large snakes slithering across the foreground, with trees and buildings in the background and a man with a hammer in the left hand corner

Illustration from page 81 of China Monumentis by Athanasius Kircher, Amsterdam, 1667 (Shelfmark: M.40.28)

From one of our early printed bibles comes this woodcut of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with the wily serpent coiled around a tree in the background. If you look closely, it appears to have a Mohican haircut!

Black and white woodcut showing Adam, Eve and the serpent in Eden, and also being ejected from the garden by a winged figure

Woodcut from fol. 1 of Biblia cum concordantiis veteris et novi testamenti et sacrorum canonum, London, 1522 (Shelfmark: Keynes.E.12.15)

A later depiction of Eden is found in one of our copies of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, which has glorious illustrations by Francis Hayman (1708-1776), one of the founding members (and first librarian) of the Royal Academy. Here, in an engraving placed at the beginning of Book 10, the serpent lurks in the corner while Adam and Eve beg forgiveness from God for their disobedience in eating the apple.

Plate facing page 221 of volume 2 of The Poetical Works of John Milton, London, 1761 (Shelfmark; Thackeray.J.60.19)

An earlier engraving from Book 2 of the same poem shows Satan at the gates of Hell, which are guarded by a skeletal figure in a crown, a many-headed hell hound, and a woman representing sin, who has a serpent’s coils instead of legs. The text describes it thus:

The one seem’d Woman to the waste, and fair [line 650]
But ended foul in many a scaly fould
Voluminous and vast, a Serpent arm’d
With mortal sting: about her middle round
A cry of Hell Hounds never ceasing bark’d

Plate facing page 83 of volume 1 of The Poetical Works of John Milton, London, 1761 (Shelfmark; Thackeray.J.60.18)

Next we turn to classical mythology and the story of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, who, along with his two sons, was attacked by venomous sea serpents. Reasons given for the attack vary, but Virgil’s version of the story goes that Laocoön was punished for attempting to alert Troy’s inhabitants to the grave threat posed by the Trojan Horse. From the Bury Collection, this seventeenth-century volume of sketches of classical statues includes a rendering of a Roman statue of Laocoön and his sons languishing in the coils of the serpents.

Laocoön and sons being attacked by serpents

Plate 1 from Segmenta nobilium signora et statuarum by François Perrier, Rome, 1638 (Shelfmark: Bury.PER.Seg.1638)

Another engraving in the same volume depicts a statue of a Vestal virgin, with a snake draped over her shoulder.

A statue of a vestal virgin with a snake on her shoulder

Plate 65 from Segmenta nobilium signora et statuarum, by François Perrier, Rome, 1638 (Shelfmark: Bury.PER.Seg.1638)

Snakes are among the many different creatures that appear in printers’ marks or devices, which were a kind of early logo or copyright mark commonly found on the title pages of early printed books. Below is the printer’s device of William Jaggard (1569-1623), which features the ancient Ouroboros symbol of a coiled snake devouring its own tail.

Printer’s device from the title page of The Two Most Unworthy and Notable Histories Which Remaine Unmained to Posterity, by Sallust, London, 1609 (Shelfmark: Keynes.D.2.14)

In heraldry, snakes have often been used on coats of arms as symbols of prudence and subtlety, as this seventeenth-century book, A Display of Heraldrie by John Guillim (1565-1621) explains. Guillim was an antiquarian and officer of arms at the College of Arms in London. His book references the Medusa myth, and notes a belief that if the hair of a woman is placed in manure it will transform into venomous snakes!

Explanation of the use of snakes in coats of arms

Illustration and text from page 153 of A Display of Heraldrie by John Guillim, London, 1611 (Shelfmark: H.17.39)

Later in the same book, an adder wrapped round a pillar is said to symbolize prudence combined with constancy.

Explanation of a snake wrapped round a pillar

Illustration and text from page 213 of A Display of Heraldrie by John Guillim, London, 1611 (Shelfmark: H.17.39)

Moving into early works of natural history, we find an abundance of snakes. The sixteenth-century drawings below come from a work published by the traveller and naturalist Pierre Belon (1517?-1564).

Text in French and black and white illustrations of two snakes

Illustrations of snakes from pages 209 and 210 of Les Obseruations de plusieurs singularitez & choses memorables by Pierre Belon, Paris, 1555 (shelfmark: T.16.20)

Next comes an entire work dedicated to snakes by French apothecary Moyse Charas (1619-1698). Charas, whose work was first published in French in 1669 under the title: Nouvelles expériences sur la vipère, was interested in the nature of snake venom and the ways in which extracts from snakes could allegedly be used to treat various ailments, such as smallpox and leprosy. Our library holds an English translation from 1670.

Title page of New Experiments upon Vipers by Moyse Charas, London, 1670 (Shelfmark: Thackeray.VIII.11.12)

In addition to the main title page, it contains a glorious added engraved title page, showing entwined serpents.

Two entwined snakes, with the title in the middle

Added engraved page of New Experiments upon Vipers by Moyse Charas, London, 1670 (Shelfmark: Thackeray.VIII.11.12)

The book includes detailed anatomical drawings on folded plates at the rear, one of which is shown below.

folded plate showing illustrations of a snake's skeleton and various heads and skulls

Folded anatomical plate from New Experiments Upon Vipers by Moyse Charas, London, 1670 (Shelfmark: Thackeray.VIII.11.12)

Another book focused entirely upon snakes is An Essay towards a Natural History of Serpents by Charles Owen (d.1746). Owen was a clergyman rather than a scientist, and his (often inaccurate) information is drawn from various biblical and mythological sources. The title page describes the contents in a fair amount of detail.

Title page of An Essay towards a Natural History of Serpents by Charles Owen, London, 1742 (Shelfmark: Bryant.M.12.5)

The illustrations in this volume are great fun, and very striking, as can be seen from the examples below. The snakes all have very expressive faces.

Plate 1 facing page 54 from An Essay towards a Natural History of Serpents by Charles Owen, London, 1742 (Shelfmark: Bryant.M.12.5)

Plate 3 facing page 78 from An Essay towards a Natural History of Serpents by Charles Owen, London, 1742 (Shelfmark: Bryant.M.12.5)

The plate above includes the depictions of a mythical creature: the Basilisk (here conflated with the Cockatrice), which the text describes as the Little King of Serpents, hence the crown upon its head.

Plate 6 facing page 142 from An Essay towards a Natural History of Serpents by Charles Owen, London, 1742 (Shelfmark: Bryant.M.12.5)

Other natural history books provide beautiful colour images. Below is an illustration of a double-headed snake from a work chiefly devoted to rare birds, by noted English ornithologist George Edwards (1694-1773). Edwards widened the scope of his work to include other unusual creatures, including reptiles, and described this snake thus:

I did not propose at first in this Natural History to exhibit monsters, but our present subject (considered even with a single head) may be looked on as a natural production of a species little or not at all known to us.

We now know that this phenomenon comes about in some snakes in a very similar way to the development of human conjoined twins, and is not a sign of a separate species.

Colour illustration of a double-headed snake

Double-headed snake. From the plate facing page 207 of volume 4 of A Natural History of Uncommon Birds by George Edwards, London, 1743-51 (Shelfmark Keynes.P.6.11/1)

Leafing through a multi-volume miscellany of the natural world by biologist George Shaw (1751-1813), we were spoilt for choice for great images to highlight. Shaw was a Fellow of the Royal Society and sometime keeper of the Natural History Department at the British Museum. He described many new species of amphibian and reptile. Below are just a few of the many vibrant illustrations of snakes contained within Shaw’s Miscellany.

Painted snake. Plate facing fol. C2 recto in volume 1 of The Naturalist’s Miscellany by George Shaw, London, 1790 (Shelfmark: Thackeray.IV.2.2)

Large bright green snake with white spotches

The canine boa. Plate 24, facing fol. L4 recto in part 1 of The Naturalist’s Miscellany by George Shaw, London, 1790 (Shelfmark: Thackeray.IV.2.2)

The spectacle snake. Plate 74, facing fol. 2K4 verso in part 2 of The Naturalist’s Miscellany by George Shaw, London, 1791 (Shelfmark: Thackeray.IV.2.2)

The Great Boa. Plate 51, facing fol. Z5 recto in part 2 of The Naturalist’s Miscellany by George Shaw, London, 1791 (Shelfmark: Thackeray.IV.2.2)

The Gilded Snake. Plate 209, facing fol. O8 recto in part 6 of The Naturalist’s Miscellany by George Shaw, London, 1795 (Shelfmark: Thackeray.IV.2.4)

Strange thin red and white snake with bristles.

The Serpentiform Nais. Plate 270, facing fol. E4 recto in part 8 of The Naturalist’s Miscellany by George Shaw, London, 1796 (Shelfmark: Thackeray.IV.2.5)

Finally, a little snake appears in a charming little German alphabet book from our Rylands Collection of children’s books. This tiny book, dating from the latter half of the nineteenth century, consists of three strips of paper stuck together and folded accordion-style. The German word for snake being “Natter”, the snake comes under the letter N in this sequence, alongside a Nashorn, or rhino, and a nightingale.

Illustrations representing different letters of the alphabet - a grid of four letters is shown. other animals shown include a lion, orangutan and an Ox

Section from Das ABC in Thieren, Neuruppin, circa late 19th century (Shelfmark: Rylands.C.ABC)

We hope you have enjoyed this survey of snakes within the pages of our rare book collections, and that you have a wonderful New Year!

References

Joscelyn Godwin, Athanasius Kircher: A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge , London, 1979.

Paula Findlen (editor), Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything, New York, 2004.

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Tagged AC, Athanasius Kircher, Charles Owen, Chinese New Year, Eden, Francis Hayman, George Edwards, George Shaw, John Guillim, John Milton, Laocoön, Lunar New Year, Moyse Charas, natural history, Paradise Lost, Rare Books, Serpents, Snakes

Horticultural delights

Posted on October 15, 2024 | Leave a comment

The library holds a fascinating collection of books on horticulture given to us by Kingsman Richard Gorer (1913-1994), who was a scholar here in the 1930s. In later years Gorer himself wrote a considerable number of gardening books, and became a fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society.

The collection spans the 17th to the 20th centuries and includes some wonderful works, with equally glorious illustrations.

The oldest volume in the collection is The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. Prominent sixteenth-century English herbalist, John Gerard (c.1545-1612) published the first edition of this work in 1597. It was based almost entirely on the work of a Flemish botanist Rembert Doedens (1517-1585) with fanciful additions by Gerard. The work was then overhauled and expanded by Thomas Johnson (c.1595-1644), to produce a second edition in 1633, in which many of Gerard’s inaccuracies and fabrications were removed or corrected. The lavishly engraved title page of this second edition is pictured below, in a reprint dating from 1636. Gerard is shown in the bottom centre panel, holding a potato flower, the first image of this plant to appear in a work published in the Western world. Vases of exotic flowers and fruits appear either side of Gerard, and arrayed above him are figures from the ancient world associated with agriculture and plants, including, at the top left, Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture.

Engraved titlepage with mythical figures and plants

Title page of The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes by John Gerard and Thomas Johnson, London, 1636 (Classmark: Gorer.50)

The revised Herball still contains some fanciful notions, including a description of the “Goose tree” which was believed to generate barnacle crustaceans that then developed into live geese! This was a myth of long-standing, featuring in various forms in medieval bestiaries and numerous other works over the centuries. It is thought to have originated, before bird migration was known about, as a way to explain why barnacle geese were never seen nesting, and to have been prompted by some perceived similarities in colour and shape between the barnacle and the geese. Barnacle shells were often seen attached to driftwood, which was mistaken for fallen tree branches.

A goose beside a branch full of barnacles

Illustration of a branch from a Goose Barnacle tree, page 1587 in The Herball (Classmark: Gorer.50)

Another elaborate illustration is found on the added engraved title page of Theatrum botanicum by John Parkinson (1567-1650). The engraving is divided into the four quarters of the known world: Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa. These are arranged clockwise from the top left. Each section depicts a woman riding an animal, or in the case of “civilised” Europe, sat in a horse-drawn carriage, and also shown are plants thought (often erroneously) to be native to each continent. Maize, for example, is depicted in the Asian quarter, since it was not yet known that it originated in the Americas. The European quarter has the most abundant selection of plants, highlighting the lack of in-depth knowledge of the other areas of the world. In the centre of the page are two figures: Adam, holding a spade, and Solomon, known for his wisdom.

Detailed engraving depicting the four corners of the known world

Title page of Theatrum botanicum by John Parkinson, London,1640 (Classmark: Gorer.51)

Moving on to the latter part of the seventeenth century, we have a copy of The History of the Propagation & Improvement of Vegetables by clergyman and natural historian Robert Sharrock (1630-1684). Sharrock was a fellow of New College, Oxford and an associate of noted chemist Robert Boyle (1627-1691). He was also involved with the University’s Physick Garden, where he carried out some of his experiments with grafting.

Title page of The History of the Propagation & Improvement of Vegetables by Robert Sharrock, Oxford, 1660 (Classmark: Gorer.30)

The work’s only illustration, shown below, depicts the many different ways to carry out propagation via grafting.

Illustration of a stem with various methods of grafting shown

Page 60 and accompanying illustration from The History of the Propagation & Improvement of Vegetables

Next we have the third edition of Synopsis Methodica stirpium britannicarum by the famous naturalist John Ray (1627-1705). Originally published in 1690, this work became a hugely popular guide for amateur and professional botanists alike throughout the eighteenth century and beyond. It is now of great historical value, as it records many plants which were much reduced or lost entirely as a result of land enclosures, the expansion of cities and the Industrial Revolution.

Title page of Synopsis Methodica stirpium britannicarum by John Ray, London, 1724 (Classmark: Gorer.29)

Illustration facing page 477 from Synopsis Methodica stirpium britannicarum

Transitioning into the eighteenth century, the collection contains a 1754 edition of The Gardener’s Dictionary by botanist Philip Miller (1691-1771). Originally published in 1731, this work was based on Miller’s experience with plants from around the globe gained through his role as head gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden. It is notable for its breadth of coverage and assured tone, which meant it sold well enough to be reissued in many subsequent editions across the century. The lavish engraved frontispiece depicts Britannia sitting in an orangery being gifted a cornucopia, or horn of plenty, by allegories of industry, science and nature.

Title page from volume 1 of The Gardeners Dictionary by Philip Miller, London, 1754 (Classmark: Gorer.27/1)

Frontispiece from volume 1 of The Gardeners Dictionary by Philip Miller, London, 1754 (Classmark: Gorer.27/1)

Arriving in the Victorian era, when gardening became a much more widespread pastime, we find books and periodicals containing an abundance of advice for amateur gardeners, often accompanied by vibrant colour illustrations.

One such periodical, The Annals of Horticulture (1846-1850), first appeared monthly, and was then reissued in five annual collected volumes, of which the Gorer collection contains two. The illustrated title pages and frontispieces are very attractive.

Attractive colour frontispiece showing many different flowers and an illustrated titlepage

Frontispiece and engraved title page from The Annals of Horticulture, London, 1849 (Classmark: Gorer.32/1)

The subject matter of this periodical even extends to designs for summer houses, as illustrated below. These examples wouldn’t be out of place in a modern garden.

Garden architecture from page 449 of the 1849 edition of The Annals of Horticulture

One of the most popular writers of the period was Shirley Hibberd (1825-1890), who tailored his advice particularly towards the requirements of those with urban and town gardens, rather than grand, sprawling country estates. His first gardening book, The Town Garden: A Manual (1855) was devoted to this topic. It also provided those new to gardening with tips on how to get going. In his writings, Hibberd drew upon his own experiences of hobby gardening, initially in a small garden in North London, and subsequently in various suburban settings. He was also a keen early environmentalist, and a strong opponent of cruelty towards animals and birds.

Title page of The Town Garden: A Manual by Shirley Hibberd, London, 1855 (Classmark: Gorer.10)

Hibberd went on to edit numerous gardening magazines and produce many more successful gardening books, often issued with attractive floral covers:

Cover of The Amateur’s Flower Garden by Shirley Hibberd, London, 1871 (Classmark: Gorer.11)

Cover of The Amateur’s Rose Book by Shirley Hibberd, London, 1885 (Classmark: Gorer.12)

Cover of Familiar Garden Flowers by Shirley Hibberd, London, 1879-1885 (Classmark: Gorer.14/1)

Familiar Garden Flowers, produced in five volumes between 1879 and 1887, contains particularly delightful colour illustrations, a selection of which provide a fitting way to conclude this post on gardening books through the ages. We hope you have gained some inspiration for your own gardens or flower boxes!

Everlasting pea illustration facing p.105 in vol.1 of Familiar Garden Flowers (Classmark: Gorer.14/1)

Sweet pea illustration facing p.113 in vol.1 of Familiar Garden Flowers (Classmark: Gorer.14/1)

Verbena illustration facing page 105 in volume 5 of Familiar Garden Flowers (Classmark: Gorer.14/5)

Wall flower illustration on frontispiece of volume 1 of Familiar Garden Flowers

Amethyst illustration facing page 5 in volume 5 of Familiar Garden Flowers

References and further reading:

Richard Gorer: An English Jewish horticultural scholar and garden writer of the mid-twentieth century [accessed September 2024]

John Gerard’s Herball [accessed September 2024]

John Parkinson’s “Theatrum Botanicum” (1640) [accessed October 2024]

Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum. John Ray [accessed October 2024]

Robert Sharrock [accessed October 2024]

A Botanical Wonderland Resides in the World of Rare and Unusual Books [accessed October 2024]

Shirley Hibberd – the Father of Amateur Gardening [accessed October 2024]

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Tagged AC, Botany, Flowers, Gardening, Horticulture, John Gerard, John Parkinson, John Ray, Philip Miller, Propagation, Rare Books, Richard Gorer, Robert Sharrock, Shirley Hibberd, Thomas Johnson

Soaring into the New Year on the back of a dragon

Posted on February 9, 2024 | Leave a comment

In honour of the Year of the Dragon, we went on a perilous mission into the Library’s treasure hoards of books to find out if any of those fearsome beasts might be lurking inside. Alas, no Chinese dragons were discovered, but we did encounter several of the European variety and bravely captured their images to share with you in this post.

Our first dragon however, is not to be found within the pages of a book. It is a much more solid beast; a sculpture which originally adorned the College Chapel, but which was removed and replaced during restoration work. For the last few decades it has stood guard over the upstairs entrance of our Library, somewhat worn and battered by time maybe, but fierce and stalwart nonetheless.

A stone dragon standing upright with mouth open

The dragon outside the upstairs entrance of the Library

Several sixteenth-century works from our collections proved to be harbouring dragons. The first image comes from a volume of natural history by Pierre Belon (1517?-1564), originally produced in 1553. This is a very early printed depiction of a dragon with wings. Belon, a French naturalist and traveller, claimed to have seen embalmed bodies of these creatures during his travels in Egypt.

Egyptian dragon from Les Obseruations de plusieurs singularitez & choses memorables by Pierre Belon, Paris, 1555 (T.16.20)

Secondly, we have an illustration depicting a very grand St George slaying a dragon, which adorns the title page of the 1527 edition of Polycronicon, by Benedictine monk, Ranulf Higden (ca. 1280-1364). This was a very popular work of world history, written originally in Latin and later translated into English and added to over the following centuries.

Woodcut of St George on horseback with a dragon under the horse's hooves

St George and the dragon from the title page of Polycronycon by Ranulf Higden, London, 1527 (M.24.08)

Our last sixteenth-century image is from a 1590 edition of Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Here we have another knight, the Redcrosse Knight, killing a dragon in a very similar fashion. The Redcrosse Knight is very closely associated with St George.

Image of a knight on horseback with a dragon under the horse's hooves. The knight is running a spear through the dragon

The Redcrosse Knight from The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, London, 1590 (Keynes.C.02.19)

Moving into the seventeenth century, a work of alchemy provides more images. Dragons in alchemy symbolize the unification of opposing forces like the sun and the moon or sulphur and mercury, and the change they produce when combined. We therefore get these striking illustrations of entwined or two-headed dragons, as shown in the images below.

Two dragons perched atop a ring with their necks intertwined

Alchemical dragon symbol from page 212 of Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum edited by Elias Ashmole, London, 1652 (Keynes.C.4.2)

Upright two-headed dragon with a bird above and alchemists gathered around it

Two-headed dragon from page 213 of Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum edited by Elias Ashmole, London, 1652 (Keynes.C.4.2)

From our collection of children’s books comes a tale brimful of dragons. Snap-dragons: a Tale of Christmas Eve by Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1885) revolves around the parlour game of Snap-dragon, very popular in the nineteenth century, in which people took it in turns to snatch raisins from a bowl of flaming brandy. This particular game conjures up a bevy of real dragons who draw a little boy into their boisterous and violent game of trading insults, or “snapping” at each other. It has some delightful illustrations.

Cover of the book showing a boy looking at a swirling group of dragons

Cover of Snap-dragons: a Tale of Christmas Eve by Juliana Horatia Ewing, London, 1888 (Rylands.C.EWI.Sna.1888a)

Text with a dragon illustration. The dragon is entwined with the initial B

Page 33 of Snap-dragons

Text with an illustration of a dragon confronting a small boy

Pages 34 and 35 of Snap-dragons

Finally, we have this charming little dragon wrapped around an initial letter A in a volume of fairy tales, also by Ewing. Oddly enough, the tale it accompanies: “Knave and Fool”, features no dragons at all.

Initial dragon from Old-fashioned Fairy Tales by Juliana Horatia Ewing, London, [1882?] (Rylands.C.EWI.Old.1882)

Happy New Year!

References

Mythical creatures at the Edward Worth Library: Here be dragons! [accessed January 2024]

Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, A Dictionary of Symbols. Oxford, 1994.

Lyndy Abraham, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery. Cambridge, 1998.

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Tagged AC, Alchemy, Chinese New Year, Dragons, Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene, Juliana Horatia Ewing, Keynes Bequest, King's College Chapel, Lunar New Year, Pierre Belon, Rare Books, St George

Spooky Shakespeare: Macbeth

Posted on October 31, 2023 | Leave a comment

As the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare’s First Folio reaches Halloween and the nights draw ever inward, our focus shifts to some of the spookier elements in Shakespeare’s plays, and particularly the witches and ghosts to be found in Macbeth. In addition, as we proceed, other witches and eerie creatures may swoop in from elsewhere in the Library’s collections.

The opening page of Macbeth in the First Folio (Thackeray.D.38.2)

Macbeth, believed to have been first performed in 1606, appears in print for the first time in the First Folio in 1623. It is thought that the Folio text was drawn from the latest version in theatres at the time, which incorporated revisions by the playwright Thomas Middleton (1580-1627). One of Middleton’s revisions is thought to be the addition of two songs for scenes featuring the witches: “Come away, come away” and “Black spirits and white”. These songs are only mentioned by title in the Folio, but appear, complete with full lyrics, in Middleton’s own play The Witch (ca. 1613-1616). This expansion of the role of the witches reflected the continuing fascination of Jacobean audiences with witchcraft. This fascination was born partly out of the obsessions of King James I, whose book Dæmonologie was first published in 1597, and was then reprinted when he ascended the throne of England in 1603. James, who was convinced that he had almost met his death via witch-conjured storms in the North Sea, argued in his book that witchcraft arose from demons and humans working together to spread misery and destruction. Shakespeare is thought to have used Dæmonologie as one of his chief sources and inspirations in creating the play in the first place, likely with an eye on the King’s favour. The plot’s focus on the murder of a King and its aftermath is also believed to reflect elements of the Gunpowder plot of 1605.

Image of a witch on a broomstick depicted in gilt decoration on a blue cloth book cover

Cover of The Blue Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang, London, 1897 (Rylands.C.LAN.Blu.1897)

Illustration of three witches flying through the sky on broomsticks, accompanied by black cats

Frontispiece of The Ingoldsby Legends, by Thomas Ingoldsby; illustrated by Arthur Rackham, London, 1907 (YHK BARH ZIN)

Next we turn to two eighteenth-century editions of the dramatic works of Shakespeare. The first, part of the Keynes Bequest, was edited by Lewis Theobald (ca. 1688-1744), who is a significant figure in Shakespeare scholarship. Theobald worked hard to correct errors and alterations that had crept into the plays through the work of earlier eighteenth-century editors, and surveyed as many surviving copies of the plays as he could in order to produce the most authoritative versions possible. His edition, originally published in 1733, was drawn upon heavily by subsequent major editors such as Edmund Malone (1741-1812), and thus continues to inform modern editions of the plays. Our set of Theobald’s Shakespeare dates from 1762. Macbeth appears in volume six, accompanied by an engraving by Hubert-François Gravelot (1699-1773), which depicts Macbeth confronting Banquo’s ghost during the feast scene (Act 3, scene 4).

Engraving of a feast scene in which Macbeth confronts the ghost of Banquo

Plate from The Works of Shakespeare, edited by Mr Theobald, London, 1762 (Keynes.P.13.24)

Title page of 1762 edition of the works of Shakespeare

Title page of volume six of The works of Shakespeare, [edited] by Mr Theobald, London, 1762 (Keynes.P.13.24)

First page of Macbeth from The works of Shakespeare, [edited] by Mr Theobald, London, 1762 (Keynes.P.13.24)

The second eighteenth-century edition is, like the First Folio, part of the Thackeray Collection. This fifteen-volume set, which dates from 1793, is an expanded version of an eight-volume edition of Shakespeare’s plays which originally appeared in 1765, and which was co-edited by the eminent writer Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). Johnson had an abiding love of Shakespeare and had long wished to produce his own edition of the plays. He tested the waters in 1745 with the publication of his Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, then spent the next twenty years working towards his goal. The preface to Macbeth in the 1793 edition includes Johnson’s ruminations on the supernatural themes of the play. He states:

A poet who should now make the whole action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would be censured as transgressing the bounds of probability … and condemned to write fairy tales instead of tragedies; but a survey of the notions that prevailed at the time when this play was written, will prove that Shakspeare [sic] was in no danger of such censures, since he only turned the system that was then universally admitted, to his advantage, and was far from overburdening the credulity of his audience.

Speaking of the prevailing atmosphere of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, he writes evocatively:

The Reformation did not immediately arrive at its meridian, and though day was gradually increasing upon us, the goblins of witchcraft still continued to hover in the twilight.

Having touched upon on James I’s preoccupation with witchcraft and its effect on the population, he goes on to say:

Thus the doctrine of witchcraft was very powerfully inculeated [sic]; and as the greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion, it cannot be doubted but this persuasion made a rapid progress, since vanity and credulity co-operated in its favour.

Image of the title page of Johnson's edition of the plays

Title page of The Plays of William Shakspeare, edited by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens, London, 1793 (Thackeray.J.62.1)

Image of the first page of Macbeth from Johnson's edition of the plays

First page of Macbeth from volume 7 of The Plays of William Shakspeare, edited by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens, London, 1793 (Thackeray.J.62.7)

Black and white illustration of three witches huddled in an old shack

Three witches from a story called “The witches’ frolic”. Plate facing page 106 of The Ingoldsby Legends

An old bent-over woman with a black hat and a cat standing outside a hovel on a wild moor

“There’s an old woman dwells upon Tappington Moor”. Plate facing page 26 of The Ingoldsby Legends

In 1807, Charles Lamb (1775-1834) and his sister Mary (1764-1847) produced a prose version of some of Shakespeare’s plays, modified to be suitable for children. More adult elements and complicated subplots were removed, but care was taken to adhere to the spirit of the originals, and to keep as much of the language as they could. The Library has a copy of the sixth edition, dating from 1838, which is the first edition to credit Mary Lamb on the title page. Macbeth appears in this volume, and the witches are described as follows:

… three figures like women, except that they had beards, and their withered skins and wild attire made them look not like any earthly creatures.

Title page of Tales from Shakspeare, which features an engraving of Shakespeare

Title page of Tales from Shakspeare, by Mr and Miss Lamb, London, 1838 (YHK LAM X 4)

First page of text from the prose version of Macbeth

Opening page of Macbeth from Tales from Shakspeare, by Mr and Miss Lamb, London, 1838 (YHK LAM X 4)

An illustration, pictured below, accompanies the tale, showing Macbeth and Banquo encountering these strange beings.

Macbeth and Banquo in armour, confronting three cloaked and bearded figures

Engraving of Macbeth and Banquo encountering the three witches. Plate from Tales from Shakspeare, by Mr and Miss Lamb, London, 1838 (YHK LAM X 4)

We leave you with a final dose of the supernatural via another wonderful illustration by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) from The Ingoldsby Legends. Originally serialised in the 1830s, the legends comprised ghost stories, myths and poems written by clergyman Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845) under the pen-name Thomas Ingoldsby. They were later published in book form and were hugely popular for decades. An edition featuring Rackham’s glorious illustrations was first published in 1898.

A gathering of witches, goblins and ghouls seemingly having a friendly chat amongst themselves

“Witches and warlocks, ghosts, goblins and ghouls”. Plate facing page 396 of The Ingoldsby Legends

Stay safe and watch out for whatever might be lurking out there in the dark this Halloween!

References

Julian Goodare, A royal obsession with black magic started Europe’s most brutal witch hunts [accessed 10/10/23]

Emma Smith, The Making of Shakespeare’s First Folio, Oxford, 2015

You can browse King’s College’s First Folio on the Cambridge University Digital Library here and it also features on the First Folios Compared website where you can compare it side by side with other digitised copies of the First Folio.

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Tagged AC, Arthur Rackham, Charles Lamb, First Folio, Ghosts, Halloween, Keynes Bequest, King James I, Lewis Theobald, Macbeth, Mary Lamb, Rare Books, Samuel Johnson, Thackeray bequest, The Ingoldsby Legends, Thomas Middleton, William Shakespeare, Witches

Hopping into the new year

Posted on January 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

Last year we marked Chinese New Year with images of ferocious tigers discovered within our collections. 2023 is the year of a less fearsome creature, the rabbit, whose natural habitat appears to be the pages of children’s picture books. As a way of welcoming in the new year, this post will share some of the images unearthed from the warrens of our stores.

We start however, with a rabbit who has hopped his way into the very stonework of the College Chapel! Designed by master mason John Wastell, in the early 16th century, the jamb of the Chapel’s west door boasts an elaborate pattern of roses, crowns, leaves and stems, and at the base of one side can be found a dog playing hide and seek with a rabbit. The dog is now sadly weathered beyond recognition, but the rabbit is still very much visible, gazing up into the foliage above.

Close-up view of the rabbit on the jamb of the West door of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge

The stonework of the door jamb of the West door of King's College Chapel

The rabbit within the larger context of the decorative pattern on the door jamb

Next we have two illustrations from one of the early nineteenth century natural history titles featured in last year’s tiger post: Histoire naturelle des mammifères by Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire and Frédéric Cuvier. These depict a familiar brown rabbit and one of the albino variety.

Plate from Vol. 2 of Histoire naturelle des mammifères, 1824, Shelfmark F.1.21

Plate from Vol. 2 of Histoire naturelle des mammifères, 1824, Shelfmark F.1.21

From here, we move into the realm of children’s books. The library holds an early edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, which features a very famous rabbit, the White Rabbit, whom Alice follows down the rabbit-hole, thus beginning her strange and eventful sojourn in Wonderland. The White Rabbit, complete with his waistcoat and pocket watch, is charmingly depicted by John Tenniel.

The White Rabbit, dressed in a waistcoat, looking at this pocket watch

Illustration by John Tenniel from chapter one of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, London 1874. Classmark: Rylands.C.CAR.Ali.1874

Rabbits also appear in books intended to educate children about the natural world and its inhabitants. My Own Annual: An Illustrated Gift-Book for Boys and Girls edited by Mark Merriwell, has a chapter entitled “Rabbits, hares and ferrets”, which informs us that rabbits hail originally from Spain, and that Cambridgeshire is amongst the counties of England where they are most common.

Page 65 from My Own Annual: An IIlustrated Gift-Book for Boys and Girls edited by Mark Merriwell, London, 1847. Classmark: Ryland’s.C.MER.Ann.1847

Similar information is conveyed in The Pleasure Book of Domestic Animals by Harrison Weir, which has its own section on rabbits, accompanied by some attractive illustrations.

From The Pleasure Book of Domestic Animals by Harrison Weir, London, circa 1855-1870. Classmark: Ryland’s.C.WEI.Ple

Finally, a very large and stately looking rabbit appears in full colour in Aunt Louisa’s Birthday Gift, dating from around 1875.

Plate from Aunt Louisa’s Birthday Gift [by Laura Valentine], London, circa 1875. Classmark Rylands.C.VAL.1875

We hope you have a fruitful new year, and that, like the reproductive capacities of rabbits, your good luck grows and multiplies many times over!

References

King’s College Chapel: a History and Commentary by John Saltmarsh; edited by Peter Monteith and Bert Vaux. Peterborough, Jarrold, 2015.

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Tagged AC, Chinese New Year, John Wastell, King's College Chapel, Lunar New Year, rabbits, Rare Books, Rylands Collection, Stonework, year of the rabbit

Parisian fashion plates

Posted on May 12, 2022 | 1 comment

They may not be the very latest in fashion, but the dresses depicted in this slim volume from the Keynes Collection are far too pretty to remain under wraps. The book: Douze nouveaux travestissements (Paris, 1856) features twelve hand-coloured engravings produced from illustrations by the artist Paul Gavarni (1804-1866). Gavarni was a popular caricaturist and book illustrator, who illustrated the first collected edition of the works of Balzac in 1850. He also produced many illustrated volumes of his own, sketching and parodying the eccentricities of the various classes of French society.

This particular volume was published by the monthly fashion magazine Les Modes Parisiennes, which was published between 1843 and 1875. In magazines, fashion plates such as these were usually accompanied by detailed instructions on how the outfits could be reproduced, providing avid followers of French fashion – including many British women – with the information needed in order to dress to impress.

Plate No. 1 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 2 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 3 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 4 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 5 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 6 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 7 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 8 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 9 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 10 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 11 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Plate No. 12 from Douze nouveaux travestissements,1856, Shelfmark Keynes.P.12

Finally, tucked loose inside this volume is another wonderful nineteenth-century engraving. An inscription on the back reveals that it was sent as a Christmas card to Lydia Lopokova, the wife of John Maynard Keynes, in 1929.

Loose plate tucked inside Keynes.P.12

Verso of the loose plate. The inscriptions read: “A picture for your country house!” and “A Christmas card, dearest Lydia, with [Molly’s?] love, Christmas 1929”

If this has left you keen to seek out more images of nineteenth-century fashion, then the National Portrait Galley has a fashion plate gallery covering the period 1770-1870, with a wealth of gorgeous images to explore. Have fun!

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Tagged AC, Engraving, Fashion, Illustrations, Keynes Bequest, Lydia Lopokova, Paris, Rare Books

Tyger, tyger, burning bright

Posted on January 31, 2022 | 1 comment

Inspired by Chinese New Year, which this year heralds the year of the tiger, we sought out that ferocious beast within some of the many volumes of natural history which form part of the Library’s Thackeray collection and uncovered some wonderful illustrations, which roared out to be shared through this blog.

We begin with this lovely woodcut illustration from the first volume of Conrad Gessner’s Historia animalium (History of the animals). Gessner (1516-1565) was a Swiss physician and naturalist. He produced several major works of zoology and botany and had a lasting influence upon the scientific world. Historia animalium, published in five volumes between 1551 and 1558, was a hugely popular and influential work. Gessner drew heavily on medieval and classical sources, building upon these with the latest zoological knowledge from his own time. These generously illustrated (for their time) volumes cover mammals, reptiles, fish and birds, detailing their diet, habits and physical attributes.

A note in Gessner’s hand found in one copy of this work indicates that this tiger was modelled on a real life example from Florence. This may have been a beast housed in the menagerie of the Medici ruler of that city.

Early nineteenth-century works provide the rest of our illustrations, starting with a handsome colour engraving from Histoire naturelle des mammifères by Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire and Frédéric Cuvier. The authors were both associated with the French National Museum of Natural History: the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle. Frédéric Cuvier (1773-1838) was head keeper of the menagerie, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) was a professor there.

Colour engraving of tiger — Frédéric Cuvier’s brother, Georges (1769-1832) was a naturalist of great renown and author of many works on this subject. The most famous of these was *Le Règne animal* or, *The animal kingdom*, which was first published in 1817. The Library holds an English translation of this work in which can be found attractive engravings of several different types of tigers, displayed below.

Fearsome tigers on the attack appear in an engraving (shown below) from John Church’s A Cabinet of Quadrupeds, which was published in 1805.

Our final image, aptly enough, depicts a tiger prowling away towards a deep dark forest. This is taken from a book of prints by English landscape and marine painter, William Daniell (1769-1837). Daniell travelled widely in India in his youth, so it is possible that he saw the beasts with his own eyes.

We hope this “ambush” of tigers has provided a stimulating start to your new year!

References:

Marisol Erdman, Conrad Gesner: Illustrated Inventories with the use of Wonderful Woodcuts [accessed 27/1/22]

Florike Egmond, 16th century ‘zoological goldmine’ discovered – in pictures [accessed 27/1/22]

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Tagged AC, Chinese New Year, Conrad Gessner, Lunar New Year, natural history, Rare Books, Thackeray bequest, Tiger, Tigers, year of the tiger

Conjuring tricks for Elizabethans

Posted on January 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

The Library holds a first edition of Reginald Scott’s Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), an important early work on the subject, which attacked contemporary received opinion. Scott (d.1599) believed there were no such thing as witches, arguing that those accused were very often beggar women who, having “cursed” those who refused them assistance, were then blamed for anything that subsequently went wrong in the lives of the uncharitable. He claimed that anyone who confessed to being a witch likely did so as a result of delusion or coercion.

Title-page of The discovery of Witchcraft

Title-page of The discoverie of witchcraft, 1584, Shelfmark M.18.65

Scott also sought to debunk other forms of magic and superstition, devoting part of his book to an explanation of how easy it was to deceive people with sleight of hand and other trickery. This section stands as the first major exposé of the fakery behind conjuring tricks, influencing subsequent works on this topic for centuries to come. This mini blog post highlights a few of those tricks, some weird and wonderful, some bearing very close resemblance to simple card tricks still performed today. An example of the latter is shown below:

“How to tell one what card he seeth in the bottom, when the same card is shuffled into the stocke” (page 334)

Other tricks simply relied upon having a paid accomplice in the audience:

“To make one dance naked” and “To transforme or alter the colour of ones cap or hat” (page 339)

Scott then explains how to perform more gruesome tricks, involving feigned bodily mutilation:

Tricks involving apparent mutilation of the body

“To thrust a piece of lead into one eie, and to drive it about (with a sticke) betweene the skin and flesh of the forehead, until it be brought to the other eie and there thrust out”, “To cut half your nose asunder, and to heal it againe presently without anie salve”, and “To put a ring through your cheeke” (page 348)

These even include stabbing yourself in the guts and simulated decapitation!

“To cut off ones head, and to laie it on a platter, &c: which the jugglers call the decollation of John Baptist” (page 349)

“To thrust a dagger or bodkin into your guts verie stranglie, and to recover immediatelie” (page 350)

It is amusing to imagine avid Elizabethan readers of this tome rushing off to try out some of these tricks on their unsuspecting friends and family. Hopefully none of these would-be conjurors were subsequently burnt as witches or warlocks!

References:

David Wootton “Scott [Scot], Reginald” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 Sep. 2004; Accessed 3rd March. 2020.

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Tagged AC, Card tricks, Conjuring tricks, Illusions, Magic tricks, Rare Books, Reginald Scott, Witchcraft, Witches

Tag Archives: AC

Victorian railway excursions

The railway arrives in Cambridge!

Sinuous, slithery snakes!

Horticultural delights

Soaring into the New Year on the back of a dragon

Spooky Shakespeare: Macbeth

Hopping into the new year

Parisian fashion plates

Tyger, tyger, burning bright

Conjuring tricks for Elizabethans

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