A French Perspective on the American Revolution

This recently acquired collection of engravings commemorating the American Revolution was published as Recueil d'estampes representant les differents evenemens de las guerre qui a procure l'independance aux Esta unis de l'Amerique (Paris: Ponce & Godefroy, circa 1784). It depicts scenes of battle, highlighting those where French forces played a role and is the first French book to mention the United States in its title. Pictured here is Liberty being ushered in (carrying the banner of Louis XVI and Charles III) at the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

Ironically, our copy once belonged to Caroline, duchesse de Berry.  Caroline lead her own failed rebellion in 1832 against King Louis-Phillipe in an attempt to place her son on the throne. She was arrested and exiled to her native Italy.

American Cookery - Happy Thanksgiving!

The earliest known recipe combining turkey and cranberries appeared in Amelia Simmons' American Cookery: or, the Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables. And the Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards, and Preserves, and All Kinds of Cakes, From the Imperial Plum to Plain Cake. Adapted to This Country and All Grades of Life.  In this first cookbook written by an American for American consumers, Simmons calls for the use of ingredients specific to North America such as cornmeal from American maize. American Cookery also introduced the use of pearlash, an early non-yeast leavening agent and a precursor to baking powder.

This early edition (Walpole, N.H. : Printed for Elijah Brooks, 1812) provides the following recipes for some traditional Thanksgiving dishes.

To Stuff and roast a Turkey or Fowl

One pound soft wheat bread, three ounces beef suet, three eggs, a little sweet thyme, marjoram, pepper and salt, and some add a gill of wine; fill the bird therewith and sew up, hang down to a steady solid fire, basting frequently with butter and water, and roast until a steam emits from the breast, put one third of a pound of butter into the gravy, dust flour over the bird and baste with the gravy; serve up with boiled onions and cranberry sauce, mangoes, pickles or celery.

Pumpkin

No. 1. One quart stewed and strained, three pints milk, six beaten eggs, sugar, mace, nutmeg and ginger, laid into paste No. 7, or 3, cross and chequer it, and bake in dishes three quarters of an hour.

Ask for NH Imprints, Walpole 1812b to see other early American recipes.

Poems and Heaths of New England

After Emily Dickinson's death, her editors, Mabel Loomis Dodge and T. W. Higginson, selected a sampling of her poetry from the voluminous manuscripts she left behind. In their introduction to Poems by Emily Dickinson (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1890), they described the poet as "a recluse by temperament and habit, literally spending years without setting her foot beyond the doorstep." They graced the cover of the book with a stand of indian pipe flowers stamped in silver. It was an conscious choice meant to convey a specific meaning that helped to establish the popular conception of Emily Dickinson.

This past week we acquired a contemporary description of the indian pipe in the privately printed The Heaths of New England.  Next to a dried specimen of the indian pipe the text, poetical in its own right, states:

Among the dark tall hemlocks this pale herb lifts its flower which is of the same hue as the stem.  Plants which have chlorophyll prepare their food from the crude inorganic elements of the earth and air.  This is therefore a root parasite, living on the juices elaborated by some other plant.

Ask for Val 816 D56L211 to see Dickinson's Poems.

Winnie-the-Pooh

According to the introduction of A.A. Milne's classic story, Winnie-the-Pooh's name was a hand me down from a swan.  Milne writes "...we took the name with us, as we didn't think the swan would want it anymore.  Well, when Edward Bear said that he would like an exciting name all to himself, Christopher Robin said all at once... that he was Winnie-the-Pooh."

Here is Pooh from the first edition (London: Methuen and Co., 1926) dreaming of Heffalumps and honey.  Ask for Sine Illus S44win to see this favorite.

New Woodcuts at the Hood

Do these two woodcuts constitute the earliest printed image of Jerusalem? Recently acquired by the Hood Museum of Art, the prints are dated to around the 1460s. They are the only known surviving fragments of what was a much larger depiction of the cycle of the Passion, originally composed of twelve sheets measuring about 44 by 44 inches. The images and xylographic inscriptions refer to a number of scenes from the Life of Christ, other saints, and pilgrimage routes. The entire arrangement would have likely served as a visual aid on the walls of a church or convent to guide the viewer on a spiritual journey.

The iconography and identification of specific buildings, as well as the spatial representation of the city, are similar to the images and inscriptions published in the Liber chronicarum, also known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, of 1493—a copy of which can be found in Rauner Library. In each case the Dome of the Rock, the Qubbat as-Sakhrah (completed in 691 C.E.), is inaccurately identified as Solomon’s Temple. The woodcuts can be viewed by students and faculty members at the museum, while the early publication is available in Rauner Library.

Pope's Iliad

Dartmouth Special Collections Library recently acquired a first folio edition of Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad. Published serially in six volumes between 1715 and 1720, The Iliad is among Pope's best-known works outside of his own poetry. In its day, these volumes added considerable polish to his reputation as the greatest poet of his age. Today this work offers considerable insight into early eighteenth-century English print culture.

Dartmouth's copy is among 750 printed for an elite subscription list. This edition is significant for its place in the Pope corpus and in his biography. Notable for the beauty and care taken in its printing and illustrations, the commercial success of this publishing venture that made Pope a wealthy man. Proceeds of the folio edition allowed Pope to retire early and take up residence at his storied villa in Twickenham.

Pope was not the first to translate The Iliad into English. Several others, notably George Chapman in the sixteenth century, produced earlier works. Pope's version was well regarded in its day for historical-literary methods he employed. He consulted and cited the work of previous translators and commentators in his "Observations" section that followed each book of the poem. These considerations did not stifle the poetic inspiration that led him to diverge dramatically from the original text. Among his innovations, Pope converted the epic poem into then-fashionable iambic pentameter. The result was a text distinctly his own -- decried by some as idiosyncratic or ill-conceived, celebrated by others, most notably Samuel Johnson, as an unparalleled 'performance.'

Pope's Iliad includes the poem, commentaries, several indices and illustrations including a depiction of the famous shield of Achilles, the shield used in his epic battle against Hector. The Homeric description of this shield wrought by Hephaestus, the Greek god of metalwork, is an example of the ancients' penchant for ekphrasis -- the rendering or referencing of one artwork in another. The etching in the Pope edition at Book 18 participates in this tradition, and is a stunning work in its own right.

One volume appeared each year over the six-year subscription cycle beginning in 1715. Printed by William Bowyer for Bernard Lintot, the first Pope edition sold out in advance of the first printing. In fact, the subscriber list appears in the text itself, a strategy that benefited patron and publisher alike. Pope's contract stipulated that he would receive a fee for each of the folio copies. Copies of the original contract still exist and form the basis for much of what is known about innovations in literary commerce in the eighteenth century. Lintot produced several subsequent editions in smaller versions at price points that enabled those who could not subscribe to the initial printing to purchase their own.

Posted for Mark Melchior.

Florence Nightingale

With the health care debate raging all around us, it seemed like a good idea to mention Florence Nightingale, arguably the most famous nurse of all time. Her experiences in the military hospitals in the Crimea were first published in Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and hospital Administration of the British Army, Founded Chiefly on the Experience of the Late War (London: Harrison and Sons, 1858) in which she graphically illustrates that the chief cause of death during the war was not military action, but rather preventable disease. In the chart shown here, the blue represents death by disease, red is death by wounds, and black all other causes as recorded from April 1854 to March 1855.

Nightingale's observations formed the basis for her seminal work Notes on Nursing: What it is, and What it is Not (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1860). This was the first book of its kind and in it, she advocates for simple, modern rules of nursing and health care for both professionals and the lay person.