Amherst College Digital Collections Update

Emily Dickinson. “Soul take thy risk”

We are delighted that so many people are using the Emily Dickinson manuscripts we made available through Amherst College Digital Collections. Over the past six months we have digitized other materials from the Archives and are pleased to announce that hundreds of new digital images have been uploaded and are now available to researchers the world over.

The development of Amherst College Digital Collections — ACDC for short — is a highly collaborative process. We work closely with the good folks in the Frost Library Digital Programs and Technical Services departments, and Amherst’s Information Technology to identify materials, image them, provide useful metadata, and get them uploaded to ACDC. The latest additions come from a wide range of collections in the Archives, including some great material from Dickinson’s contemporaries Edward and Orra White Hitchcock.

Orra White Hitchcock drawing of five lines of ornithichnites fossil footprints

We are in the process of digitizing everything in the Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Papers, but it’s going to take quite a while to work through all 31 boxes so we’re making material available online as we go. Among the materials currently available are the classroom charts that Orra White Hitchcock painted for use in her husband Edward’s lectures on geology. Edward Hitchcock is responsible for building the outstanding collection of dinosaur tracks held by Amherst College in the Beneski Museum of Natural History. Now anyone with an internet connection can see Orra’s illustrations of these specimens and read Edward’s account books for the Natural History Fund. Anyone interested in nineteenth-century science, particularly geology, will find a treasure trove in the Hitchcock materials now online.

Edward Hitchcock account book for the natural history fund of Amherst College, 1853-1863

Last September, Rebecca did a post about a manuscript memoir written by Royal Cole. Now the whole of this document is freely available in ACDC.

Royal Cole. Interior Turkey Reminiscences.

In a post here last summer, Mimi wrote about “The Flight of the Eagle” by John Burroughs. This manuscript is now in ACDC.

Flight of the Eagle (title page)

Last, but not least, we have added four photo albums full of pictures of Amherst’s sister school in Kyoto — Doshisha University — from our Doshisha Collection.

Doshisha University Photo Album 1

Stay tuned for more updates about Archives & Special Collections materials being added to ACDC!

Now you see it…

When I first saw the latest addition to our artists’ book collection, I thought “Now I’ve seen everything!”

A completely blank book?

All the pages are blank! As we have seen before on this blog, artists’ books come in all shapes and sizes. We even hold a copy of the world’s largest magazine issue. So anything is possible.

But then I saw the small accessory that accompanies the book – an ultraviolet flashlight!

The plot thickens…

The book is titled 2013 and was created by Justin James Reed. It was printed using UV-spectrum inkjet printer ink in a limited edition of 100 copies, and published by Horses Think Press. It was selected as a “best photobook” of 2012 by the British Journal of Photography.

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View the book in a darkened room using the flashlight, and the content appears. A recent reviewer noted the theatricality of the “gestures required of the reader to illuminate the pages and to reveal the images, which begin to take on life and even volume. The time required by the process of perceiving each page is part of the intentional transformation of the passive viewer into an active agent, and the image into material to be discovered.”¹  Viewings of the book as performances have been held at the New York Art Book Fair, and at the Photobook Slam held as part of C/O Berlin Book Days on May 26, 2012. The Berlin performance was captured on video and can be viewed here.

Come visit the Archives and Special Collections and create your own personal performance of 2013.

¹Giannetti, Claudia. “2013,” PhotoBook Review 003 (supplement to Aperture Fall 2012), p. 21.

“Description of a large bowlder”

I really need to get out more. I mean out around campus. Despite having worked at Amherst for over a decade, I somehow never heard about boulder sitting on the south side of the Octagon until recently. On the occasions I’ve gone past it, I’m sure I didn’t notice it.

A large bowlder and friends

This may seem like a minor offense – it is, after all, just a rock on campus, right? But knowing the history of the College is mandatory in the archives. It’s our raison d’être. We seek to know everything about our turf, and then to make it possible for others to know it too.

So when I heard about this boulder, I immediately reached into my bag of paranoias: surely I alone was ignorant of the facts surrounding the boulder. I would have to hide my ignorance from my colleagues. My stomach churned.

But perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps other people don’t know about the rock either. On the assumption, therefore, that my reader may also be ignorant of the facts, let me set them down here with the few relevant documents that remain to us.

President Edward Hitchcock, ca. 1854

The story begins with Edward Hitchcock, as so many Amherst College stories do. The man was everywhere back in the day, and his influence on the College in those early years was unequaled, and may be still. Probably we should be called Hitchcock College. A clergyman, a geologist, a professor, and for many years a president of Amherst College, Hitchcock roamed the area in search of its geological history. Geology was his passion.

“The Geology Around Amherst College,” from Hitchcock’s “Reminiscences” (1863)”

Main Street looking east toward Pelham, ca. 1880. Dickinson family houses on the left.

One day in 1855, Hitchcock was walking along Main Street when he glimpsed a chunk of rock poking out of the ground at the edge of Edward Dickinson’s property. The road was being graded, turning up rocks previously invisible. No doubt Hitchcock was taking the opportunity to scavenge for interesting bits when he came upon this choice specimen.

In an article for The American Journal of Science and Arts,* Hitchcock described the discovery and how the students in his geology class moved the 8-ton boulder to the Octagon (here called the “Geological Cabinet”):

Clever man, that Hitchcock. One can just imagine him suggesting hopefully to his students that he “doubted their ability” to move the boulder. No doubt the Class of ’57 sought to please him and would have moved heaven and earth, let alone the boulder.

Three years later an article in the Springfield Republican about a meeting of the American Association of Science featured a colorful version of the tale, as related by President William A. Stearns. Here, Pelham is the original location of the boulder, rather than Montague, where Hitchcock had placed it in his earlier article.

Springfield Republican, Aug. 8, 1859. William Augustus Stearns was the president “out of town” when the boulder was moved.

The local Hampshire-Franklin Express also chronicled the spectacle:

Hampshire-Franklin Express, June 6, 1856

I wondered about the unnamed song mentioned in the article. Was it really possible that a song with the refrain of “Coki-chi-lunk” could be “sad, pathetic, and affecting”? Or was the reporter being funny? I wondered if I might be able to determine what the song was and looked in the files for the class of 1857. This item was in the general file for the class.

The Express article above mentioned Alvah L. Frisbie as having delivered the oration when the rock reached its destination, and a notice buried in the July, 1856 Amherst Collegiate mentions a second student, Nathan R. Morse, describing him as the marshal of the class.

Men Who Stare Down Bowlders: Members of the Class of 1857 at their Vigintennial Meeting. Morse and Frisbie are left and right of center respectively.

I’ve managed to get through this post without mentioning Emily Dickinson, but it was always my intention to bring her into it, for the rock came from in front of her house. It would have taken no effort at all to watch the proceedings from her bedroom or from one of the rooms below, and it’s hard to think she didn’t. It must’ve been something to see (literally and figuratively, in her case). There are no letters from the period, so we don’t know if she commented about the occasion anywhere, and she seems not to have mentioned it in any poems. Even so, she was very likely the hidden spectator at the event, or perhaps she even departed from what was becoming her habit of seclusion to bring water or food for the workers.

If you’ve not yet noticed the rock on the south side of the Octagon, have a look at it the next time you walk by. You can’t miss it.

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*American Journal of Science and Arts, Vol. XXII, Nov., 1856, pp. 397-400.

Learning our Catechisms

One evening recently, while I was reading Little House in the Big Woods to my six year old, he asked what a catechism is (I believe some small children had just been forced to spend all Sunday reading one). I realized that I didn’t quite know. Our friend the internet quickly clarified that catechisms are books explaining core doctrine in question and answer format, generally religious and intended to be memorized.

Things might have stopped there, except that the next day, while immersed in some nineteenth century book at the bunker, I ran across Talcott Williams’ (class of 1873) catechism and got curious about this genre that was once so ubiquitous.

Talcott Williams’ catechism

The earliest catechism we have in the archives is a 1623 Heidelberg catechism in Latin:

Next, a Westminster catechism from 1658, eleven years after it was first published. The Westminster catechism was written in both long and short form, for the more and less sophisticated religious student.

Note how the Westminster catechism was recommended “for the benefit of Masters of Families”. This Protestant catechism (and Amherst College, being the institution that it was, has no Catholic catechisms) was intended for household use; for the “Master” of the family to use in the instruction of his children and servants.

Tellingly, the majority of the eighteenth century book that turn up in our catalog when you search for catechisms are lectures, sermons or other explications of catechisms – apparently even the masters were somewhat perplexed.

In the nineteenth century, the balance of our holdings shifts to simplified catechisms intended for use directly by children, the earliest ones included in the various editions of the New England Primer.

New England Primer 1836

New England Primer 1822

Milk for Babes, or, a Catechism in Verse 1840

Watt’s Plain and Easy Catechism for Children 1820

What particularly fascinates me are all the secular catechisms in our collection, from botany to anti-slavery to political economy (plus one Buddhist catechism for good measure), these show the familiarity and fondness that people felt for catechism as an instructional genre in the nineteenth century.

Botanical Catechism 1819

Anti-Slavery Catechism 1839

Catechism of Political Economy 1817

A Buddhist Catechism by Henry S. Olcott 1881 – a very interesting example of a westerner reaching first for a familiar tool… and not necessarily the best suited one.

And last, my most favorite, Noah Webster’s 1798 Little Reader’s Assistant, which includes both a Federal Catechism and a Farmer’s Catechizm! To quote from the latter: “Q. Why is agriculture the most agreeable employment? A. Because it brings the fewest cares, with the greatest certainty of food and clothing…”

Little Reader’s Assistant 1798

Additional images can be found on our flickr site

 

 

Murder and Method: the Curious Correspondence of Julius Seelye and Edward Rulloff

I must admit to a slightly macabre inclination in my travels. A recent visit to the Wilder Brain Collection in the department of Psychology at Cornell University brought me face-to-face with this:

 

This is the celebrated brain of the notorious murderer and philologist Edward Rulloff (1819-1871). Celebrated why? For weighing in at 1,770 grams, making it one of the largest such specimens ever recorded. It is, in fact, approximately 30% larger and heavier than the average male brain. This datum may be helpful for our understanding of Rulloff’s aberrant and tragic life; or, it may not. To be sure, (pseudo-)scientific theories of the late 19th century saw a connection; phrenology, for instance (a frequent subject of our blog: here and here) would have had much to say about the relative prominence of the various “organs” of Rulloff’s brain.

Edward H. Rulloff (1819-1871)

But more about Rulloff before we get carried away. He was a man of undoubted intellectual brilliance, but also (and just as undoubtedly) a serial criminal who would be judged to be insane in any court of law today. Born in New Brunswick, Canada, he found work as a law clerk and intensely studied the law, but when he was convicted of a series of robberies he spent two years in prison. Upon release, he relocated to Tompkins County, New York, finding work as a teacher. In June 1845, his wife and infant daughter disappeared, and though Rulloff was widely suspected of their murder, no bodies were ever found, and he was convicted only of the crime of abduction, for which he spent ten years in Auburn (N.Y.) State Prison.

Shortly after release in 1856, Rulloff was again tried for the crime of abduction, this time for his infant daughter. Escaping from Tompkins County Jail, he spent a few years on the run from the law. He also began to engage feverishly with his supreme intellectual fixation: the development of a universal “method” of language which, he claimed, would provide the key to its origins. (Rulloff, though he had very little formal schooling, claimed to have mastery of Latin, Greek, German, French, and Italian, as well as a smattering of Hebrew and Sanskrit.)

In 1859 Rulloff was captured and brought back to Ithaca, N.Y., but his conviction was overturned and he went free. Throughout the 1860s he lived in New York City and continued to work on his supposed magnum opus, which was entitled “Method of the Formation of Language.” He supported himself with accomplices in periodic crime sprees throughout the state. Failing to get his scholarly work published (or even understood by philologists of the time), Rulloff sought to publish it himself with money acquired through his various crimes. But in 1870 he was involved in the robbery of a dry goods store in Binghamton, N.Y., in which a clerk was killed, another injured, and his two accomplices drowned in the river. Rulloff was charged with their murder and convicted. His trial and execution received sensational treatment in newspapers all over the country. Rulloff was hanged in Binghamton on May 18, 1871. His was the last hanging in New York State.

As I got reacquainted with Rulloff while standing in front of his milky-colored, car battery-sized brain swimming in a jar of formalin at Cornell, I recalled our own tie-in to his colorful story: in the Julius Hawley Seelye Papers in Archives & Special Collections, a series of letters Rulloff had sent to Seelye, dating from 1857 until just one day before his execution in 1871. Ten letters in all, plus assorted news clippings that Seelye collected at the end.

Professor Julius H. Seelye (AC 1849), professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy, Amherst College, 1858-1890

Julius Hawley Seelye (1824-1895) probably first met Edward Rulloff when he was a young seminarian at Auburn Theological Seminary at the same time Rulloff was serving his prison sentence in the same town. However, the first letter we find from Rulloff to Seelye in the Seelye papers dates from somewhat later, 1857, when Seelye was then serving as a pastor of a church in Schenectady, N.Y. Rulloff, writing from Ithaca, wrote in answer to a letter that Seelye had written earlier, apparently expressing Christian solicitude and inquiring about his moral philosophy. Rulloff’s reply mainly said he would get back to him later. (It is fun to speculate that this letter may have been written around the same time he was plotting his escape from jail.)

Rulloff letter to Seelye, Feb. 14, 1857

In Rulloff’s  second letter of to Seelye, written 18 months later (PDF), he  lays out frankly his starkly atheistic conception of the universe: 

To me, so far as I can discover the agencies by which events are controled [sic], the universe around me has become a system governed by physical causes alone, operating with blind and indiscriminate constancy whether for good or for ill, as these words are commonly employed. [...]

I see no signs or certainty of any great moral or intellectual purpose to be ultimately worked out by the present order of things. [...]

The tendrils of affection, rudely bruised and repressed, have almost ceased to shoot and twine themselves around objects of ordinary attachment. And I live along, bearing the burden of existence, with almost passionless indifference.

As you can see from these samples, Rulloff’s writing style was grammatically precise, complex and florid — even at times poetic. But reading his philosophical disputations is like being trapped on a bus next to a slightly eccentric but charming older gentleman who  lectures to you eloquently for minutes on end until you realize that nothing he has just said made any sense to you.

In the last three months of his life, Rulloff wrote six letters to Seelye.  His murder trial was then approaching what looked to be an inevitable conclusion. In these final days, two things preoccupied Rulloff: preserving his “method” on the origins of language for generations to come, and convincing the court that his scholarly research was so valuable as to make his execution impossible to justify. Naturally, it would be necessary to win over academics like Seelye, a professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at an esteemed New England college, so that he might be moved to step forward as an impassioned advocate for clemency. It was an outlandish defense, the product of a thoroughly delusional mind.  If Rulloff ever did possess any well-developed manuscript of his “Method of the Formation of Language,” it has not survived. But in an attempt to preserve his thoughts, his last letters to Seelye mostly comprised lengthy outlines of his etymological theories, typically running to over twelve neatly handwritten pages. Here are two samples:

Rulloff to Seelye, April 7, 1871

Rulloff to Seelye, April 7, 1871

Rulloff urging Seelye to preserve his method as sketched out in his letter.

It’s unfortunate that we don’t have Seelye’s side of the correspondence, to find out what he made of poor Rulloff and his philological theories. In the last letter (PDF) Seelye received, written the day before Rulloff’s execution, he lashed out at the injustice of his situation and the blindness of those who condemn him:

Rulloff to Seelye, May 17, 1871

In the whole history of the human race no more instance of blind and stupid malignity can any where be shown than that which closes its eyes to the value of my discovery, and denies the time necessary to place it in available form. No more striking instance of gross and utter disregard towards one whose labors have resulted in a great and permanent blessing to the whole civilized world. 

Such is my discovery and time will show it.

Defiant to the last, Rulloff was executed the next day; and also, apparently, was his “Method on the Formation of Language.” Excepting, that is, for the abstruse scribblings preserved in his letters to Seelye, here at Amherst. And — just maybe? — also locked inside that massive brain on display in a jar at Cornell’s Wilder Brain Collection…

“Oh, Lord Geoffrey Amherst was a soldier of the King”

The question of whether Lord Jeffery Amherst (1717-1797) is an appropriate mascot for Amherst College is currently a topic of great interest for many students, alumni, and faculty. I have been invited to give a presentation on the history of our mascot at a forum hosted by the Association of Amherst Students on Monday, April 1, at 7:30 in the Cole Assembly Room (the Red Room) in Converse Hall. I thought it would be useful to lay out some of the basic facts regarding the history of Lord Jeff as the mascot of Amherst College in this blog in advance of this meeting.

There is plenty of information available about the actual Lord Amherst and his military career in North America during the eighteenth century. This article is one that I find particularly useful since it specifically addresses the question of smallpox-infected blankets: “The British, the Indians, and Smallpox: What Actually Happened at Fort Pitt in 1763?” by Philip Ranlet in volume 67, number 3, summer 2000 of Pennsylvania History, which is available through JSTOR. But that’s not the point of this post. 

I want to explore how Lord Jeffery Amherst, one time Governor-General of British North America, became “Lord Jeff,” the mascot of a small liberal arts college in bucolic Western Mass. The story begins with this guy, James Shelley Hamilton:

James Shelley Hamilton (AC 1906)

Hamilton was an active member of the Amherst College Glee Club and wrote several songs for the group to sing including “Good Days,” “High Upon Her Living Throne,” and “In This Blessed World.” He also wrote the song “Lord Jeffery Amherst” — or, as it was originally titled “Lord Geoffrey Amherst” — the original manuscript of which is held in the Archives.

“Lord Geoffrey Amherst” manuscript

In addition to the original manuscript from 1905, we also hold a letter from 1934 in which Hamilton explains how he wrote the song. He wanted to write something the Glee Club could sing to open their concerts, “…rather vaguely I wanted something a bit gay, like “Here’s to Johnny Harvard” and the song about Eph Williams “who founded a school in Billville”. No such thing existed for Amherst. Lord Amherst wasn’t a particularly familiar figure to us then except as a picture we saw every day in chapel; we certainly didn’t make light of his name by calling him “Lord Jeffery”.” You can read the full text of Hamilton’s letter here: Hamilton Letter.

Hamilton explains that his information and inspiration about Lord Amherst came from some verses published in the Amherst Literary Monthly in February 1903. This issue also includes a short biographical sketch of Lord Amherst that begins by asking “How many of us, for instance, ever stopped to inquire about the portrait of Lord Amherst which hangs before our eyes every morning that we attend chapel? Who was Lord Amherst, anyway? How did this fair college town ever receive his name? And where did this portrait come from?” (277).  The portrait, now part of the collections of the Mead Art Museum, was presented to the college by Herbert B. Adams (AC 1872):

“Lord Jeffery Amherst” Didier, Charles Peale; Reynolds, Joshua, after American (19th century); British (1723-1792)

The rest of the article gives a very brief account of Lord Amherst’s military career and includes a long quotation from The Gentleman’s Magazine (September 1797) that describes him thus: “He was a firm disciplinarian, but he was the soldier’s friend, a man of strict economy, always sober, and ready at all times to hear and redress the complaints of the army in general. No ostentation of heroism marked any of his actions; but the whole of his conduct evinced the firm simplicity of a brave mind, animated by the consciousness of what was due to himself and his country.” The only mention of Lord Amherst and Native Americans in this piece is a single paragraph about his actions in Pontiac’s War (1763): “Sir Jeffrey Amherst being unaccustomed to Indian warfare was not successful.” (279)

Hamilton himself was not particularly pleased with the song he wrote, but his classmates liked it and helped finish the last couple of lines. Hamilton says “The whole thing had been frivolously conceived and carelessly done, without any reference to historical justification or fact and even with Jeffery’s name mis-spelled. But it went well enough, though without causing any noticeable enthusiasm and was kept on the Glee Club programs.”

Amherst College Songs (1906)

The song was first published in 1906 in the anthology Amherst College Songs, which includes a total of 14 songs either composed or arranged by J. H. Hamilton. Lord Amherst’s name is mis-spelled in this edition, as it was when the sheet music was published in 1907.

“Lord Geoffrey Amherst” (1907)

In 1926 Hamilton generously donated copyright in the song to Amherst College, and it has been reprinted many times since. One mark of its rising status at the college is that it is the first song in the 1926 edition of Amherst College Songs (it was on page 82 in the first edition). Also notable is that someone took the time to correct the spelling of Lord Amherst’s name. A new edition of the sheet music was also published in 1926:

“Lord Jeffery Amherst” (1926)

But the song is not the only way in which the college embraced Lord Jeffery Amherst in the early decades of the twentieth century. In 1913 alumni made an attempt to erect an equestrian statue of Lord Amherst on campus, going so far as to commission a model from famed sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt.

Model for Lord Jeffery Amherst statue. Bela Lyon Pratt ca.1913.

Although the sculpture was never completed, it is telling that the process got as far as creating a model.

The good feelings between England and the United States that developed during the course of the first World War resulted in a wave of anglophilia in popular culture in the 1920s. Hamilton’s song grew in popularity throughout the 1920s, and Lord Jeffery Amherst’s name was borrowed for both a college magazine and a college inn.

“Lord Jeff” June 1920

The first issue of the student humor magazine Lord Jeff appeared in June 1920 to coincide with college Commencement. While Amherst College had many student publications come and go over the years, Lord Jeff was the first to take full advantage of color printing and the ability to publish photographs. It also had the same size and shape as many popular magazines in America at the time, and its bold graphic design made it stand out from all previous literary efforts on campus.

“Lord Jeff” February 1921

More of the beautiful covers of Lord Jeff can be viewed in our Filckr site. Unlike Hamilton, the editors of the Lord Jeff had no qualms about being casual with Lord Amherst’s name, even shortening it to the now familiar “Lord Jeff.” But there may be another angle to this nickname.

“Lord Jeff” May 1921

This cover from May 1921 portrays Lord Jeffery Amherst as a laughable character with a very Betty Boop-ish prom date, not as a noble, sober soldier for the King. For a comic historian such as myself, this image immediately reminded me of another cartoon character with a moustache who also happens to be named Jeff:

Mutt & Jeff

“Mutt & Jeff” was one of the first daily newspaper comic strips, created by “Bud” Fisher in 1907. Once you see the 1920s “Lord Jeff” next to his namesake, it’s difficult to deny the similarity. Although he did not appear on the cover of every issue of Lord Jeff, he appears inside most issues and makes regular cover appearances:

“Lord Jeff” June 1923

“Lord Jeff” February 1925

I could go on and on about the contents of this magazine and its place within the wider context of college humor during the 1920s (including the crossword puzzle craze of 1924-25), but I’ll save that for another time. I will also save a little space by simply linking back to a previous post on this blog about the history of the Lord Jeffery Inn, which opened for business in 1926 — the same year Hamilton’s song was given such a prominent position in the new edition of Amherst College Songs. Exactly why the Lord Jeff ceased publication in 1935 would take a bit more research than I have time for right now, but the history of this magazine within the context of changing youth culture in the 1920s would make a fine research project.

While there is clearly much more to be said about the history of this mascot, I will wrap up this post with a stop in the 1940s. During the second World War, publication of The Amherst Student was suspended. In its place came a temporary replacement that abbreviated Lord Amherst’s name even further: The Jeff

The Jeff (June 1944)

The Jeff was a far cry from the humor magazine of the 1920s. This 4-page paper was the result of war time shortages of both paper and manpower. It was meant to maintain some college spirit in a rather dark time in history. The Jeff ceased publication after the war ended and The Amherst Student resumed.

The cartoonish Lord Jeff of the magazine seems to disappear completely after the magazine stopped publishing, but the figure of Lord Jeffery remains a constant presence.  Another source of portrayals of Lord Jeff throughout college history is programs from athletic events, such as this one from 1946:

Amherst vs. Williams 1946

As with the Lord Jeff magazine, many athletics programs feature a caricature of Lord Jeff but the majority of them do not. A wide range of graphic styles and themes can be found on our programs, another potential source of data for anyone interested in quantifying the frequency of our mascot’s appearances.

Many questions about Lord Jeff as the Amherst College mascot remain. Who made the giant head and when? Who was the first student to dress up like Lord Jeff for a sporting event? A survey of back issues of The Olio might help answer that question, as would a careful study of back issues of The Amherst Student. All of these materials and more are available for research in the Archives & Special Collections on the A-Level of Frost Library.

Hidden treasures: Fore-edge paintings

Here’s something you don’t get to see every day, even if you work with rare books:

(Note: if your device or browser doesn’t display the video, view it directly at http://www.flickr.com/photos/amherst_college_archives/8548671802/ )

The practice of decorating the fore-edge of a book with a hidden painting was “popularised in the 18th [century] by John Brindley and (in particular) Edwards of Halifax, whereby the fore-edge of the book, very slightly fanned out and then held fast, is decorated with painted views or conversation pieces.¹ The edges are then squared up and gilded in the ordinary way, so that the painting remains concealed (and protected) while the book is closed; fan out the edges and it reappears.”²

The Archives and Special Collections holds eight examples of hidden fore-edge paintings. Below are pictures of three of them, showing the edge both closed and fanned.

Pleasures of Imagination by Mark Akenside (London : Cadell and Davies, 1796) – A handwritten note inside the book identifies the scene as “Belsay Castle, Northumberland.” [PR3312.P5 1796]

The Poetical Works of George Herbert (London : James Nisbet and Co., 1856) – The gilt edges are also “gauffered” in a fleur-de-lis pattern. The landscape looks like the Tower of London on the Thames. [PR3507.A1 1856]

Poems by Samuel Rogers (London : Cadell, 1834) – all three images are of the same book: this one has a double fore-edge painting, one visible when fanned front-to-back, and a second when fanned back-to-front! [PR5234.A1 1834 c.3]

Our last two examples are multi-volume works. When closed, the edges are plain gilt, just like Poems above, so I have left that out and show only the fanned images:

The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell (London : Henry Colburn, 1828) – in two volumes, each with a hunting scene. [PR4410.A2 1828]

The Works of Lord Byron (London : Murray, 1819) – in three volumes, with scenes of the Eurotas river in Greece, Chillon Castle in Switzerland, and a view of Mont Blanc and the Chamonix valley. [PR4350.E19]

If you want to learn more about this astonishing form of book decoration, I highly recommend the following:

• this great online resource from the Boston Public Library includes background articles and many videos and images of the 200+ examples of fore-edge paintings in their collection
• a blog post from the Folger Shakespeare Library on the subject
• an online exhibit from the Lilly Library
• an online exhibit including an extensive bibliography from Marist College Archives and Special Collections

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¹ You can see pictures of how the book is clamped in position, without damage, on this page from Johns Hopkins University.

² Carter, John, and Nicolas Barker, ABC for Book Collectors (New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2006), 8th ed., corr., 108.