Romantic Readers: The Evidence of Marginalia

385 Pages·2005·1.12 MB·English

by  H. J. Jackson

Romantic Readers

Romantic Readers
the evidence of marginalia
H. J. Jackson
Yale University Press New Haven and London
Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund and the Louis Stern
Memorial Fund.
Copyright ∫ 2005 by H. J. Jackson.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in
any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S.
Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written
permission from the publishers.
Set in Fournier type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jackson, H. J.
Romantic readers : the evidence of marginalia / H. J. Jackson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-300-10785-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Books and reading—Great Britain—History—19th century. 2. Marginalia.
3. Publishers and publishing—Great Britain—History—19th century.
4. Romanticism—Great Britain. 5. Great Britain—Intellectual life—19th century.
I. Title.
Z1003.5.G7J33 2005
028%.9%094109034—dc22 2004024638
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the
Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on
Library Resources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For
Margaret Elizabeth Murphy
and in memory of
Colman Harrold Murphy

Content s
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Introduction: The Reading Environment 1
1 Mundane Marginalia 60
2 Socializing with Books 121
3 Custodians to Posterity 198
4 The Reading Mind 249
Conclusion 299
Notes 307
Bibliography of Books with Manuscript Notes 325
Bibliography of Secondary Sources 340
Index 353

List of Illustrations
1 ‘‘Luxury, or the Comforts of a Rum p ford’’ 3
2 Front page of The Newcastle Chronicle, 1 July, 1797 11
3 Close-up of publisher’s advertisement from Fig. 2 12
4 ‘‘A Catalogue of Books,’’ from Thomas Wilson, An Accurate
Description of Bromley, in Kent (1797) 20
5 Henry Lemoine and the Wonderful Museum 23
6 Trusler, Twelve Sermons 25
7 Lackington, Allen, and Co., A Catalogue of Books, for the Year
1804–5 35
8 Hannah More, The Sorrows of Yamba 36
9 Regulations of Fellows’s Circulating Library, Salisbury, 1800 46
10 ‘‘The Library of the Royal Institution,’’ from Ackermann’s
Microcosm of London (1808–10) 48
11 The drawing-room of Miss Richardson Currer of Yorkshire, from
T. F. Dibdin, Reminiscences (1836) 50
12 Notes by Philip MacDermott in Voltaire’s Henriade (1807) 74
13 Richard Dreyer’s notes and illustrations in J. E. Smith’s Flora
Britannica (1800–1804) 80
14 Notes by an unknown reader in Five Books of Plotinus 85