From a forgery of William Shakespeare’s signature to a queen’s love note asking not to be beheaded.
Via luna.folger.edu
In January, the British Library was readying Chaucer's Canterbury Tales for digitization when they noticed an unusual handwritten note on the medieval manuscript: "She cares not a turd."
The marginalia was a surprise, and the library turned to scholars and social media for help. Who didn't give a shit? And was she really apathetic, or was this nothing more than idle gossip? We may never know the answers to these pressing questions, no doubt heartbreaking to Chaucer scholars worldwide, but for those of us who relish in marginalia — writing in books — this discovery was simply delightful.
Committing your personal thoughts to a library copy of Pride and Prejudice will certainly earn you the ire of many parties, but during the manuscript era, extra-wide margins provided scholars with plenty of room to interpret, debate, and reinforce authorial intent. They made quite a few doodles, too but whatever they scrawled, no matter how insignificant, personalized the text, transforming a standard document with each new addition. It could also be done somewhat unconsciously, lending the page an inherent intimacy. Whether this occurred in the rarest of books or one of a hundred or thousand, marginalia has the power transform the solitary act of reading into a social exploration.
Marginalia comes in many forms, and I found seven great examples at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
The Father and the Forger
By the 1790s, Samuel Ireland had acquired Oliver Cromwell’s leather jacket and Joseph Addison’s fruit knife, but the London-based collector longed for something signed by Shakespeare. His son, William-Henry Ireland, was just as desperate for his father’s approval. Like the rest of the nation, he had gone in search of Shakespeare’s personal documents, only to return empty-handed — but unlike others on the hunt, William-Henry had an interest in forgery. In 1794, he presented his father with a document signed by Shakespeare, authenticated by the poet-laureate Henry James Pye and various antiquarian book experts. Basking in his father’s attention, William-Henry went on a serious forging binge, which the Ireland family proudly displayed in their home. The Shakespearean scholars who visited immediately questioned their provenance, but Samuel, none the wiser, stood by his son and proudly published his discoveries. This allowed the poems, deeds, letters, and play to be widely circulated, and a consensus quickly formed: The materials were bogus. Although William-Henry confessed, his father received much of the blame, and by the time Samuel died in 1800, they were still estranged.
Via luna.folger.edu
Epic Annotation
The extensive annotation crowding this edition of Homer’s Odyssey seems worthy of the epic poem, the second oldest extant in the Western canon. The library believes the manuscript, printed in Greek type in 1517, was probably used as a schoolbook, thus the pages are littered with underscored words, Latin translations, and notes on the themes each character embodies — a testament to Penelope and Odysseus’ perseverance.
Via luna.folger.edu
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