Early Modern Notes

Google Books has digitized ‘the bulk of’ the Bodleian Library’s public domain books, mostly 19th-century works.

Which makes this rather good news for me: Google has teamed up with Sony to provide up to 7 million public domain ebooks via Sony’s online book store in the open ePub format (you’ll still be able to download PDFs directly from Google books). Good news for me because my latest plaything is the pretty shiny Sony eBook Reader (did I mention its pretty-shiny-ness?). Disappointing, though, that the Sony online book store is still Windows only. Boo Sony.

And meanwhile, in the Trouble with Physical Books department:

The British Library has lost 9000 books. (They say mislaid, not stolen. But how do they know?) To put this in perspective, of course, the BL delivers 3.5 million items a year to the reading rooms, and these are losses over a long period of time. (H-T.)

And the Bodleian is running out of space. Should we worry, at all, just a teensy bit, about what they might decide to do with some of those space-occupying dusty old books which have now been digimatized?

A Companion to Digital Literary Studies is now online!

Kristine has posted some notes on a new Blackwell Companion to Digital Literary Studies, in which this blog gets an honourable mention, along with Blogging the Renaissance and Renaissance Lit Blog, as early modern pioneers. Cool!

I’m certainly not going to nitpick that I’m an historian, not a literary scholar. It’s not as though we history bloggers ever have any problems co-opting folk from the Literature department as members of our little empire, is it now? One of the many good things about blogging is that boundaries are fuzzy, and long may that continue.

But it does seem a bit of a shame that the book, unlike recent guides to Digital History and Digital Humanities*, isn’t available as an online resource.

There’s something not quite right about a guide to digital studies only being available in a paper version. Can you have a completely meaningful discussion of digital artefacts that is paper-bound and hyperlink-less?

Oh yeah, and it’ll set you back the guts of £100/$200. I’ll bet that somewhere in its pages there’s something completely unironic about crisis in academic publishing and the prices of academic books…

………

*A quick Wayback check suggests that Blackwell made that Companion (pub. 2004) freely available online in 2006. So perhaps they’ll do the same with this one sometime next year.

I haz a shiny book!

Publisher’s catalogue. (Amazon UK; Amazon US)

There’s summat curious going on here – the publisher’s told me that the price is £45 (which is probably what I’d expect – the Amazon UK price is £46.99), but their online catalogue says £35. So if you want a cheap copy, you’d better jump in there and order it quickly before they notice. Just sayin’.

It feels so good to have it out. I NEVER EVER have to touch this thing again!

The criminals went to the place of execution in the following order, Morgan, Webb, and Wolf, in the first cart; Moore in a mourning coach; Wareham and Burk in the second cart; Tilley, Green, and Howell in the third; Lloyd on a sledge; on their arrival at Tyburn they were all put into one cart. They all behaved with seriousness and decency. Mary Green professed her innocence to the last moment of the fact for which she died, cleared Ann Basket, and accused the woman who lodged in the room where the fact was committed. As Judith Tilley appeared under terrible agonies, Mary Green applied herself to her, and said, do not be concerned at this death because it is shameful, for I hope God will have mercy upon our souls; Catharine Howell likewise appeared much dejected, trembled and was under very fearful apprehensions; all the rest seemed to observe an equal conduct, except Moore, who, when near dying, shed a flood of tears. In this manner they took their leave of this transitory life, and are gone to be disposed of as shall seem best pleasing to that all-wise Being who first gave them existence.*

In my research sources before I came to Sheffield, capital punishment appeared fairly infrequently, briefly and usually in the future tense: typically, the marginal note ‘suspendatur’ (abbreviated to sur’ or sr’), ‘to be hanged’. Even those terse notes of an event 300 years old, which quite possibly didn’t happen anyway (as many of those sentenced were reprieved), always disturbed me slightly.

I read the records of homicides and coroners’ inquests – murders, gruesome accidents, negligence and cruelty – and they are distressing and disturbing, yet they don’t evoke quite the same sense of culture shock as do the accounts of executions and ‘Last Dying Speeches’. We aren’t simply talking about the execution of murderers here: in the 18th century burglars, robbers, pickpockets, horse thieves, sheep- and cattle-rustlers, forgers and counterfeiters could all face slow, horrible deaths, in most cases public strangulation, and this was regarded by most people as perfectly normal and civilised. (Indeed, there were those who thought that hanging was not punishment enough.)

In my new job, I’ve spent some time reading Ordinary’s Accounts, which are one of the many sources we’re digitising. These are rich and fascinating sources, full of stories of the lives of common people. But they are also stories of death, and they give me the willies – not least because ordinary, decent, intelligent people in the 18th century had no problem with the idea of pickpockets, shoplifters, burglars, sheep rustlers, forgers and counterfeiters, receiving exactly the same punishment as murderers.

So, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Andrea McKenzie, since she has written an entire, densely detailed book about the subject and the source: Tyburn’s Martyrs: Execution in England 1675-1775. She must be a tougher soul than me.

In fact, at the very beginning of the book she mentions some of the bemused reactions she received from people learning what her research topic was, including the gentleman who suggested that she should study “something pleasant, like great battles”. (more…)

New book arrived today.

Update: the foreword is a bit of a hoot. As is A Mormon and His Wives Dancing to the Devil’s Tune (p.64). It’s fun just opening pages at random to see what happens.

Well, for one thing, I promise not to join in the raving just because England beat France by being the slightly less awful team on the night. This does not make them heroes, and although some of them are ugly enough to warrant the label of bulldogs, that comes with the territory. But what bugs me more is the idea that they are ‘underdogs’, just because they’ve spent most of the last four years being rubbish. Teams with the resources and support England have at their disposal are not underdogs. Argentina are underdogs. England are just under-achievers. (Better than being chokers, though, some might say.)

[Update after watching the South Africa/Argentina game: Goddam, the ITV commentary was hilarious tonight. One of them (Will Greenwood, apparently) just could not stop himself from breaking off in the middle of his commentary on the game being played to talk about the England game ('Good pass... and what about that move by Jason Robinson last night then? And JONNY JONNY JONNY!!!') and gloating about the exits of the All Blacks and Aussies, while the other kept trying to lead him back to the matter in hand... except when he forgot and stopped for a quick crow of his own. Who needs unbiased commentary anyway? Priceless.]

Where was I? Oh yes, promises. Real posts in the not-too-distant future! I swear! Maybe even two of them! I’ve been sent a copy of Andrea McKenzie’s new book Tyburn’s Martyrs by the publishers. So I’ll write something about that fairly soon. Man, it’s nice when people send you free things.

I’ve been doing a bit of cleaning and tidying up over on EMR. So I promise to start getting more of those posts out of the black hole more commonly known as the ‘drafts folder’. (If you emailed me months ago to suggest a link and it still hasn’t appeared, that’s where it’s got to…) And I will try to post more events on Early Modern News. I’ve already taken the opportunity to post a CFP for a new series of seminars at the Globe Theatre in London, which may interest some of you.

When I saw this book, the first thing I had to do was find a copy online. So, thanks to the Internet, within five minutes of seeing the pictures and going ‘ooooh…’, my credit card had been raided and my order placed. It was much less expensive than I expected…

A little toast to Bookfinder seems in order.

Update (Thursday): Have book. It’s utterly delightful.

For those of you interested in the Old Bailey Proceedings, eighteenth-century crime and all that jazz, this should be entertaining: Tales from the Hanging Court.

Buy it and make my bosses happy guys.

Acephalous is looking for help compiling a list of ‘best intro’ books to literature and lit-theory for a wide range of historical periods and topics. He’s doing well on the modern sections (competing intros to Foucault coming out his ears…) but there are a lot of medieval/early modern gaps.

I wonder what a list of ‘best introductions’ to various themes in social and/or cultural history would look like? Maybe if I have time later I’ll start something up. Of course, people are welcome to leave suggestions (for categories that ought to be included and for books to read).

Blogging here has been a pretty haphazard, stop-start, affair since Christmas, with far too many breaks for Real World intrusions. Yet visitor numbers keep going up. I find this both pleasing and puzzling.

Fortunately you lot don’t get to see it because of the spambusting Akismet, but for the last few days I’ve been inundated with particularly vile p*rn spam. Eugh. Still, I have been mildly amused by the lame joke spam comments from (apparently) a Zoroastrianism (?) site. Very odd.

[Update: Looking at the stats more closely, I was getting a lot of traffic from spambots. Not happy with that, not least because it eats bandwidth which I pay for, dammit. So I've installed Bad Behaviour for the time being. It blocks the little nasties from being able to visit the site in the first place. I'm worried that it might throw out real visitors too, so I'll be keeping an eye on it.]

I went for a job interview a few weeks ago. I didn’t get the job, but I did get a book recommendation from one of the other interviewees, which I want to pass on to the rest of the world: Havoc, in its Third Year, by Ronan Bennett. It’s set in the 1630s and its central character is a Yorkshire coroner. It starts out like a whodunnit… and then turns into something else.

Firstly, I can tell you that the author wrote a PhD on law enforcement in mid-17th-century Yorkshire (which I have finally got round to ordering on interlibrary loan): he knows the history. Secondly, it’s a great, beautifully written, disturbing novel about religious fanaticism, moral panic and political corruption. Not subtle in its parallels between the 17th century and today, mind you.

“We live in bitter times and the world is divided in two: those who live inside the godly nation, and those outside. Inside is righteousness and strength. Outside is barbarism and terror. You chose to live outside.”

“I chose rather not to live inside,” Brigge said.

“It is the same… There is nothing in between.”

There’s also a great scene involving cruentation. And the scribbling woman likes the book too. Great minds think alike.

For anyone interested, I’m listening to Karen Mantler and Her Cat Arnold Get The Flu, and eating Tyrrell’s sausage and mustard crisps. Both excellent experiences.

I was browsing through WG Hoskins’ Local history in England (originally published in 1959, although this is the 1972 edition) earlier today. And this, in the chapter on fieldwork on buildings, did make me giggle.

It is obviously not always easy for someone who may be a total stranger to approach a house and expect to roam all over it. One should always, of course, knock at the front door and ask permission to look… Men usually find it much easier than women to get inside a house as they are rightly reckoned not to notice that the house has not been polished and dusted for a day or two.

Well, perhaps I shouldn’t make assumptions just because the women in my family don’t have the dusting and polishing gene, and if complete strangers turned up at my door asking to have a look around, my first thought wouldn’t be whether the house was clean enough. But it does seem to me to conjure up an image of a vanished era, with houseproud wives and strong silent chaps who wouldn’t know how to boil an egg… and a world of innocence.

It’s got to number 6, and I hadn’t even noticed it before.

(Which sort of reminds me of something I was saying to a friend the other day: I compared the history/academic blogosphere when I started back in summer 2004 to print culture at some point in the 16th (17th?) century when it was still physically possible to have read every book ever printed. But now I don’t think anyone could ever keep up.)

News of the 1743 recipe book of Mary Swanwick, currently in Derbyshire County Record Office. They have plans to publish it next year.

Sunday’s Foyle’s War, always watchable at the end of the weekend, was largely about the tensions surrounding the arrival of the Americans – which (of course) led to violence and murder. Along the way came an amusing scene of Anglo-American dispute and reconciliation through fly-fishing. ‘You Brits like everything old’/ ‘You Americans have to keep changing everything’/ ‘But thank goodness for diversity’, etc. (Ah, and it was the trusty old British rod that caught all the fish…)

Which reminded me of the delightful little book I picked up before Christmas: Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain 1942 (publisher’s page), extracted from a pamphlet distributed to GIs who were being sent to Britain.

Most ‘little books’ are, of course, utter bilge. But this one definitely isn’t. Much of it feels like another world, a marker of how much has changed in the last 60 years; yet some of it is oddly familiar; and definitely funny. And so, a few quotes…

THE BRITISH ARE TOUGH. Don’t be misled by the British tendency to be soft-spoken and polite. If they need to be, they can be plenty tough. The English language didn’t spread across the oceans and over the mountains and jungles and swamps of the world because these people were panty-waists. …

The British have great affection for their monarch but have stripped him of practically all political power. It is well to remember this… Be careful not to criticize the King. The British feel about that the way you would feel if anyone spoke against our country or our flag. … [British] customs may seem strange and old-fashioned but they give the British the same feeling of security and comfort that many of us get from the familiar ritual of a church service. …

Cricket will strike you as slow compared with American baseball, but it isn’t easy to play well… The big professional matches are often nothing but a private contest between the bowler (who corresponds to our pitcher) and the batsman (batter) and you have to know the fine points of the game to understand what is going on. …

You will find that English crowds at football or cricket matches are more orderly and polite to the players than American crowds… you must be careful in the excitement of an English game not to shout out remarks which everyone in America would understand but which the British might think insulting. …

The British don’t know how to make a good cup of coffee. You don’t know how to make a good cup of tea. It’s an even swap.

Go get yourself a copy. It’s great fun for a fiver.

A Making Light chat about the Demonic Dan Brown leads to a post by the linguist Geoff Pullum about Dan Brown’s opening sentences.

So I learned the proper term for that irritating thing undergrads often do in essays: “Historian Jane Brown says such-as-such”. (Even worse, they sometimes capitalise the word when it’s in the middle of a sentence.)* At least, I find it irritating. It nearly always seems completely irrelevant and besides, even if a specific essay might require the identification of writers by their disciplinary backgrounds, it just feels wrong to leave out the definite article.

The post points to an explanation both of why students do this and why it jars with me: as Pullum points out, it’s a common construction in newspaper articles. He comments that it feels odd in a novel, but I think it feels equally out of place in academic writing. It’s the wrong style.

Or am I just being peculiar?

….

*Although I find that generally undergrads capitalise words pretty liberally anyway: Early Modern or Eighteenth Century or Capitalism, etc etc. And History, of course. It doesn’t usually bother me that much, but it feels oddly dated.

While still thinking about children’s books, as a more positive followup to yesterday’s post, a question:

Which children’s book (or series of books) do you wish you’d read when you were a child?

Perhaps you couldn’t have read it because it hadn’t been published yet, or you simply didn’t come across it until later. Something you like very much now, but you just wish you could have experienced it without all your grown-up knowingness. (Examples that don’t include the words ‘Harry Potter’ are especially welcome…)

Alternatively, maybe there’s something you’ve never quite got round to reading at all but always rather wanted to?

For me, it might well be Philip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart mysteries (rather than the Dark Materials trilogy, which I do like a great deal, but don’t quite give me that ‘Oh, I wish I’d found this when I was twelve!’ effect). They are absolutely terrific. I only wish there were more of them.

So there’s this huge movie coming out, and I read an essay by Alison Lurie (whom I generally love), and even a spirited defence by Brandon. All of which got me mulling something over.

I suppose I have a problem with Lurie’s piece from the moment she claims that children either love the Narnia books or hate them, since as a child I had no strong feelings about them one way or the other. I read quite a few of them at one time or another but in no particular order (except that I know I did start with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). I consumed a lot of books in my pre-teen years and the Narnia series was just another one that I dipped into and out of.

I had no idea LWW was an allegory of anything. And to tell the heretical truth, although the story was fine, it didn’t spark any passion. I picked up other books in the series here and there along the way; I remember almost nothing about any of them. I think it all felt rather boringly middle-class, and perhaps the earnest pious highmindedness underlying it all just turned me off – even though I didn’t know that was what it was all supposed to be about.

Now, I would read books about middle-class children, no problem (Famous Five: yep, had fun with those. Not that I could tell you any of the plots of those books either… but I think they were all the same really, weren’t they?). Mind you, the children’s books I really devoured were nearly all about kids who might be middle class but were a sort of quirky middle class (probably with struggling writers or artists for parents, or poor clergymen, or something equally threadbare): they were the poorest girls at the local stables (or in the boarding school, where they were probably scholarship girls) – but in the end they beat all the rich kids hands down.

Pony books, more pony books, and sometimes girls’ boarding schools books. How middle class is that? I devoured them.

What worked best was a good rousing narrative where the heroine starts in the mud (it was always best if she was completely useless when she first climbed on a pony and fell straight off again, even more useless than me) with everyone laughing at her and by a mixture of unexpected talent, passion and downright hard work ends up with the big shiny silver cup. Up yours, spoilt rich brats! (Ah, Jill and Jinny, my friends.)

And I could dream that one day I might do the same.

Perhaps, then, the Narnia books didn’t cut it because they weren’t for me particularly good stories. They weren’t tales I could insert myself into, aspire to, with characters I would particularly like or want to be like. They had really very little to say to me: to my inner fantasy life, or my outer social one either.

And so, really, all I’m saying is that I wish so many people wouldn’t make so many assumptions that everyone cares about them one way or the other. Because I still think they’re mostly rather dull and vastly overrated.

Crooked Timber has a seminar on JS & Mr N. And they have persuaded Susanna Clarke to participate.

Bookish has The Kama Sutra of Reading.