In 2022, the British Library received a selection of rare books and manuscripts from the Honresfield Library, originally collected by industrialist William Law (1836–1901). This collection was purchased by the Friends of the National Libraries and shared across a number of UK institutions. The Honresfield Library contains several items of significant historical and literary importance.

The life and death of Jenny Wren, for the use of young ladies and gentlemen, Hon.129.(12) Many chapbooks were decorated with simple woodcuts, sometimes coloured, either by the seller or the owner.

Among the items that were allocated to the British Library are a collection of curiously small volumes in uniform brown watered silk bindings with green spine labels betraying their contents: “Chap Books”. This collection comprises of 764 individual pamphlets, bound together in seventy parts. The volumes are numbered on their spines, and suggest three distinct series: 1-48, 1-19, and four un-numbered. This division is reflected, and expounded, in the 1891 Sotheby sales catalogue listing them:

“48. Chap Books. A collection of numerous small popular work for children, with woodcuts arranged in 20 vol. uncut, v. y. – An extensive collection of chap-books, garlands, children’s books, &c. with woodcuts arranged in 49 vol. 12mo, uncut, v.y. – Manuscript catalogues of both series by W. Maskell. 70 vol.”[1]

Comparing the current British Library holdings with the 1891 catalogue entry reveals a few discrepancies. Notably, one volume is missing from each numbered series: neither no. 49 nor no. 20 feature in the present British Library holdings. Furthermore, the remaining four unnumbered volumes are not accounted for here. However, item 49 in the sales catalogue includes a further eight volumes of “Chap and Toy Books”, sold to Maggs, which may suggest the origin of these additional four volumes.

The Sotheby entry also mentions a manuscript catalogue, which is dated 1872 and survives in the present collection. It further introduces us to the original compiler of the collection, the Rev. William Maskell (1814?-1890). Maskell was a liturgical scholar and collector who was in the habit of building up collections of books and works of art and selling them to public institutions[2]. The British Museum Library acquired a large number of liturgical works from Maskell within his lifetime, with a major portion of his collection being sold to the Museum for £2,240 in 1847[3]. However, these chapbooks remained in Maskell’s private collection until his death in 1890 and were sold by Sotheby in the following year. Contemporary annotations in the sales catalogue suggest the volumes were purchased at auction by Bain (possibly the London booksellers James Bain) and were likely acquired by William Law not long after this.

Manuscript catalogue of chapbooks, children's books, garlands; &c. &c., Hon.112.(1) William Maskell kept a detailed manuscript catalogue of his chapbook collection. The catalogue is organised alphabetically, with entries relating to the numbers which can be found on the spines of the bound volumes. For each entry, Maskell provides the volume number, short title, format, place and year of publication (where available).

The sales catalogue also attests to the impressive scale of the collection: “so complete a collection of chap-books would occupy many years even if possible to procure them in the different towns of England and Scotland in which they were printed.” The collection represents examples of printing from 53 different towns and cities in England, Scotland and Ireland, spanning c.1770-1865. These imprints include the names of printers whose body of work is largely absent from research library catalogues.

The misfortunes of a bad boy, Hon.134.(5) Some chapmen, such as W. Davison of Alnwick, produced multiple series of popular tales to be collected. This printing of The misfortunes of a bad boy was no. 21 in a series of halfpenny chapbooks produced by Davison in the early 19th century.

The collection also varies enormously in the nature of its content. ‘Chapbook’ is an infamously slippery term used to describe abridgements, alphabets, ballads, cries, dreadfuls, fables, garlands, histories, rhymes, songsters and morals, among other things. Their physical appearance and cheap, sometimes crude, production are also defining marks. Chapbooks of this period were often illustrated with woodcut blocks, which were typically re-used across publications, sometimes even being shared by different printers[4]. The indeterminate status of the chapbook is well illustrated by the sheer variety of size, shape, theme, and tone of the pamphlets represented in Maskell’s collection. Most of the collection is in remarkably pristine condition, with only a small selection bearing markings of former owners[5]. Some volumes include pencil inscriptions, possibly by William Law, generally commenting on their contents. In addition, there is one chapbook titled, “A pleasant and delightful dialogue between honest John and loving Kate. Part the first.” (1791) which has been loosely inserted alongside a copy of the second part of the same story[6]. This title does not appear in the 1872 manuscript catalogue.

The wonderful advantages of drunkenness; to which is added, Protest against whisky, Hon.163.(11) Chapbooks were produced on various subjects, from popular children’s tales, to more serious moral works. This early 19th century Scottish chapbook was a pamphlet decrying the dangers of excessive drinking.

The Maskell collection provides a useful resource for study into the production of British and Irish chapbooks in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. It is also an interesting example of chapbooks being collected, rather than used, and provides the opportunity for further study of Maskell and Law as collectors of cheap printed materials. This collection complements substantial holdings of chapbooks and cheap print already in the British Library collections. The Maskell collection has been fully catalogued online and can be found within shelfmark range Hon.112.(1) - Hon.183.(14).

 

[1] Sotheby’s, Sales Catalogue for the Late William Maskell, 26 February 1891.

[2] de Ricci, S.M.R.R., English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts 1530-1930 and Their Marks of Ownership, 1930, p.143.

[3] Harris, P. R. “The development of the collections of the Department of Printed Books, 1846-1875.” The British Library Journal 10, no. 2 (1984): 114–46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42554204.

[4] Dutta, A., Bergel, G., and Zisserman, A., ‘Visual Analysis of Chapbooks Printed in Scotland’. In The 6th International Workshop on Historical Document Imaging and Processing (HIP '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, (2021) 67–72.  https://doi.org/10.1145/3476887.3476893

[5] See Hon.119.(2), Hon.121.(8), Hon.124.(4), Hon.129.(5), Hon.129.(11), Hon.129.(12), Hon.138.(4), Hon.138.(5), Hon.140.(6) and Hon.169.(6).

[6] See Hon.156.(6).

This weekend, bells in towers up and down the country will be ringing to mark the Coronation of King Charles III. Since the Coronation was announced there has been a concerted effort, ‘the ‘Ring for the King’ campaign, aimed at recruiting new ringers to learn the fascinating and absorbing hobby of change ringing and join the celebrations.

The art of change-ringing – the ringing of tower bells in mathematical patterns known as methods – originated in 17th-century England and, although practised in other countries today, remains a primarily English phenomenon. As such, it is perhaps strange that it is so little reflected in English literature. While poets such as Tennyson in ‘Ring Out, Wild Bells’ or A.E. Housman in ‘On Bredon Hill’ no doubt had the sound of change-ringing in mind, their work does not evoke or describe its specific patterns, although George Butterworth’s musical setting of ‘On Bredon Hill’ does capture it to some extent. Bells are a regular theme in the poetry of John Betjeman, who comes closer to reflecting change-ringing specifically and in one poem, ‘Bristol’, even speaks of ‘the mathematic pattern of a plain course on the bells’. In his Collected Works the pattern is printed below the poem.

Bells Betjeman X.989-6365. Caption: ‘Bristol’, from John Betjeman’s Collected Poems. 3rd ed. (London, 1970) X.989/6365.

The most famous literary bells in fiction are probably those in Dorothy L. Sayers’ detective novel, The Nine Tailors . Crime writers seem to have an affinity with ringing – it features in two of M.C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin books and an episode of the long running TV series Midsomer Murders – but Sayers’ novel captures it most (if not entirely) accurately, and ingeniously uses the pattern of a ringing method as the basis of a cipher that is a key to the mystery.

A recent British Library acquisition uses ringing methods in an equally ingenious and intriguing – though very different – way. The American author, poet and critic Randall Couch, like Sayers, was fascinated by this ‘tradition of algorithmic composition’ and the result was the unusual and beautiful book Peal (RF.2021.a.5), published in an edition of 300 copies by the Tipperary-based Coracle Press in 2017.

Couch uses the construction of various ringing methods to play with English syntax. The books starts with a ‘Cento’, a poem composed from other writers’ lines. The lines Couch uses, chosen from a wide range of literary, philosophical, musicological and scientific sources, almost all relate in some way to bells, numbers, pattern, syntax or melody. He then turns each line into a ringing method by moving the words as the bells move in the chosen method, creating juxtapositions that range from the poetical to the nonsensical. In keeping with the conventions of writing out ringing methods, the path of the last word in the original line, corresponding with the heaviest working bell in the method, is printed in blue, and the first word, corresponding to the lightest bell (the treble, which may follow a different pattern to the other bells) is printed in red.

Here’s a simple example, using the line ‘Every text is a cento’ from French linguist François Rastier’s Meaning and Textuality. The method is Plain Hunt on five bells, the same as the ‘plain course’ quoted in Betjeman’s ‘Bristol’, although Couch better follows convention by writing the rows out in horizontal rows rather than vertical columns.

Plain Hunt on Five Bells from Randall Couch’s Peal, (RF.2021.a.5). Image from PEAL by Randall Couch, published by Coracle Press, Copyright 2017 Randall Couch

For a work that plays with ideas of syntax and meaning, an obvious line for Couch’s cento is Noam Chomsky’s famous example of a grammatically correct but semantically nonsensical sentence, ‘Colorless green ideas sleep furiously’. Couch turns this into a plain course of Grandsire Doubles ‘Grandsire’ is the name of the method, and ‘Doubles’ means it is being rung on five bells. (You can read more about how methods are named here.)

Grandsire Doubles from Randall Couch’s Peal. Image from PEAL by Randall Couch, published by Coracle Press, Copyright 2017 Randall Couch

While Plain Hunt and Grandsire are among the easiest methods and the first that ringers tend to learn, Couch also uses more complex ones which he says were ‘chosen with an eye to the associations created by juxtaposing their names with the corresponding opening lines.’ Here is a line from a work by the earliest writers on change-ringing, John Duckworth and Fabian Stedman, set to a course of London Delight Bob Triples.

London Delight from Randall Couch’s Peal. Image from PEAL by Randall Couch, published by Coracle Press, Copyright 2017 Randall Couch

Couch also includes the method that bears Stedman’s name with a quotation from Gertrude Stein, ‘Money is what words are.’ Among the less familiar methods he uses are Bobby Dazzler Little Alliance Major (to Alan Turing’s words ‘Machines take me by surprise with great frequency’), Titanic Triples (John Cage’s ‘Every something is an echo of nothing’) and some with deliberately amusing names such as Ursa Minor (poet John Cleveland’s ‘I like not tears in tune’).

Couch’s cento and its variations may not have the instantly catchy appeal of Tennyson’s, Housman’s or Betjeman’s poems, but they are a unique and fascinating reflection on the structures of both change-ringing methods and the English language itself, with a lasting appeal for anyone with an interest in either.

Running now for its second year, the British Library and National Trust have collaboratively designed a doctoral fellowship programme which aims to examine the connections between each organisation’s collections. Starting in January 2023, I have had the pleasure of taking the role of Doctoral Fellow on a project which examines the importance of public entertainment spaces, such as Bath’s Assembly Rooms, within Georgian society. The project’s primary aim has been to analyse literature and other paper-based ephemera, found in the British Library and National Trust’s extensive catalogues, in order to gain insight into Austen’s society and, more widely, social life in Bath.

During the eighteenth century, Bath was a place for both the fashionable and the infirm, a city which enticed people for both their healing waters and lavish entertainments. Bath became synonymous with entertainment. Whilst there was an abundance of scheduled entertainments such as plays, balls and musical concerts, the biggest entertainment of all was that of the spa town’s social theatre.

Whether you believe that Austen liked or loathed Bath, the city most certainly had an impact on her life and writings. In fact, there isn’t a single one of Austen’s six major novels which does not mention Bath in some capacity, whether by using the city as the main theatrical stage for Northanger Abbey (1817), or a brief mention of Mr Wickham ‘enjoy[ing] himself in London or Bath’ in Pride and Prejudice (1813). The city features most prominently in Austen’s posthumously published novels, Persuasion (1817) and Northanger Abbey. The treatment of Bath within these texts receives two opposing perspectives: one of wonder and excitement of a small-town girl going to the “Big City” in Northanger Abbey, contrasted with the view of Bath as a faded metropolis, a place in which Anne Elliot rather reluctantly goes to join her family in Persuasion.

Whilst the city attracted fashionable society, this very social class became a prime target for criticism and ridicule, as seen in satirical prints of the period. Found within the British Library collection is an 1858 bound book which includes a series of satirical prints by Thomas Rowlandson titled, The Comforts of Bath, first published in 1798. The twelve-plate series depicts different entertainments within the city, including both a concert and dancing, waters being drunk at the Pump Room, and public gaming.

Christopher Anstey, plate ten from The Comforts of Bath. Designed and etched by Rowlandson, with versification by Christopher Anstey, Esq, 1858. British Library, shelfmark 1267.f.21.

Accompanying each print is an extract from Christopher Anstey’s New Bath Guide, first published in 1766. The title of Anstey’s work is fairly misleading. Instead of an instructional piece recommending the latest and most fashionable of Bath’s hotspots, the publication is written in a series of satirical, anapaestic poems, following the lives of the fictional Blunderhead family. In fact, it’s not really a guidebook at all. Here, the combining of both text and print merges the visual and textual, presenting two very similar satiric critiques of Georgian Bath society.

Christopher Anstey, The new Bath guide: or Memoirs of the B-r--d family. In a series of poetical epistles.1766. British Library, shelfmark 11633.c.5.

Looking closely at plate ten of Rowlandson’s The Comforts of Bath, we can see a multitude of activity happening in this concert setting. Whilst there are audience members intently watching the performance, many can be seen having conversations between themselves, staring off into the distance, fidgeting, and even having a light snooze. The role of the audience in Georgian entertainment spaces was vastly different to what we experience today. Whilst we are instructed to turn off the distractions that are mobile phones, and talking through movies is often met with a passive aggressive “shush”, eighteenth-century entertainment etiquette was a little different. Speaking of the experience of the theatregoer, Jim Davis states, ‘[r]efreshments, discussion of the performance in progress, casual conversation, a little ogling and flirting, were all part of the experience’ (Davis, p.520).

Christopher Anstey, plate two from The Comforts of Bath. 1858. British Library, shelfmark 1267.f.21.

The role of the audience member, or spectator, was a topic which many artists like Rowlandson adopted in their work. Found within the British Library collection, George Cruikshank’s Pit, Boxes & Gallery, published in 1834, illustrates a lively theatre audience split across three levels. Like Rowlandson’s The Concert, the print shows a variety of comic characters, all engaged in an array of activities, from conversing and drinking to fighting for space in the upper gallery.

George Cruikshank, Pit boxes & Gallery, from My Sketch Book, 1834, British Library, shelfmark C.59.d.5.

This visualisation of spectatorship, created by artists such as Cruikshank and Rowlandson, often portrays an audience whose full attention is rarely directed at the entertainment in question (Davis, p.520). Consequently, the audience are presented as active spectators as opposed to passive ones, playing a vital role within the experience of Georgian entertainments. This active participation of the audience is therefore instrumental to what we consider Georgian entertainment. It is not just the physical activity of dancing, acting or singing which creates entertainment, but the individuals who both watch and participate in not just the concert halls but also the social theatre of Bath. For is the spa town itself not simply a dramatic stage for the wealthy and fashionable to “perform” their celebrity? Bath therefore acted as a stage which facilitated the gossipy tête-à-têtes of the fashionable elite.

The theatre and concert halls were not the only spaces which society performed spectatorship; the Pump Rooms were a place which people frequented in order to see and be seen. In chapter three of Austen’s Northanger Abbey, the narrator describes the daily rituals of Bath life:

"Every morning now brought its regular duties – shops were to be visited; some new part of the town to be looked at; and the pump-room to be attended, where they paraded up and down for an hour, looking at everybody and speaking to no one." (Northanger Abbey, p.25).

Austen paints a picture of a society which, as Kathryn Sutherland states, is ‘continually watching’.  The Pump Room was not only a place for healing, where curative waters would be taken for those in ill-health, but also a space to be seen performing your correct, societal role. The presentation of oneself within society was also visible through newspaper announcements, evident in Austen’s Persuasion where the arrival of the Elliot’s wealthy cousins, the Dalrymples, are announced in the paper:

"The Bath paper one morning announced the arrival of the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and her daughter, […] for the Dalrymples (in Anne’s opinion, most unfortunately) were cousins of the Elliots; and the agony was how to introduce themselves properly." (Persuasion, p.139).

Seen in both extracts, Austen not only exposes this societal “peacocking”, but also subtly hints at the absurdity of social formalities, for if agony is caused in trying to talk to one’s own relations, it must be near impossible to socialise with anyone else.  

Taking part in the social display of oneself within these public environments, both created and fed into a culture of gossip. To be spoken about, to be known, to have a respected reputation, were all a means to tap into the benefits of the celebrity culture of the time. For in Georgian Bath, gossip was the ultimate form of entertainment. Similar to the role of audiences, gossip was about active and passive spectatorship. Whilst the trading of gossip provided plenty of entertainment for consumption, members of these social classes also stared as the entertainers themselves, both being the subjects of such gossip and through their social appearance on this “stage”. This gossip culture is also an intrinsic feature of Austen’s writings. Catherine Morland’s naivety in Northanger Abbey is apparent when she struggles to know whose gossip to listen to, or in the case of John Thorpe, his lies and trickery. In a bid to thwart Catherine’s plans with the well-mannered Henry and Eleanor Tilney, John spreads misinformation of the Tilney’s whereabouts in order to secure Catherine’s time for himself.

Thus, Bath was a town of both active and passive entertainment. Bath’s amusements existed on the stage and in the audiences of plays and concerts, but also in equal measure in social spaces such as the Pump Room and tea rooms. People delighted in the scripted entertainments of the stage and ballroom, as well as taking part in the unscripted social theatre. Thus, public entertainment spaces in Bath were vital for the facilitation of not only scheduled entertainment but also the social displays of wealth and importance. It would therefore be remiss to define Bath’s public entertainment spaces as simply the sites of formal activities. The popular resort town functioned as a theatrical backdrop for the social circus that was the Georgian elite, ultimately providing a fashionable space to see and be seen.

By Joanne Edwards, Doctoral Fellow with the British Library and National Trust.

 

Sources

Austen, Jane, Northanger Abbey, 1817, (London: Penguin Classics edition, 2011)

Austen, Jane, Persuasion, 1817, (London: Penguin Classics edition, 2011)

Austen, Jane, Northanger Abbey, 1817, (London: Penguin Classics edition, 2011)

Austen, Jane, Jane Austen’s Letters, ed. by Deirdre Le Faye (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011)

Davis, Jim, ‘Looking and Being Looked At’, Theatre Journal, 2017, 69. 4, pp. 515-53

Sutherland, Kathryn, ‘Jane Austen and social judgement’, Discovering Literature: Romantics & Victorians, <www.bl.uk>