As London’s parks, squares and gardens come back to life after a dreary winter it seems timely to remember and celebrate Thomas Hill, the Londoner responsible for the first popular gardening books printed in the English language. By London Library Head of Bibliographic Services Dunia Garcia-Ontiveros, adapted from an article originally written forHistory Today.

Born around 1528, Hill appears to have been more of a literary entrepreneur than a true scholar. He himself confessed to have been ‘rudely taughte’ but he evidently knew enough Italian and Latin to select and translate the works of many classical authors. These translations formed the basis of Hill’s work and while some have accused him of not contributing new knowledge to the subjects he wrote on he did at least have enough of an understanding of these disciplines to choose his sources carefully, the necessary skill to render them into clear English and sufficient honesty to acknowledge in his book those whose works he compiled. He was also shrewd enough to pick popular subjects that would prove commercial successes: physiognomy, astrology, medicine, mathematics, almanacs, conjuring tricks, practical jokes, natural and supernatural phenomena and, of course, gardening.

His A Briefe Treatyse of Gardening was first printed without date probably around 1558 and was enormously popular, running to nine editions. Later editions were published under a different title, which spoke of the book’s success, The Profitable Arte of Gardening. It had been augmented by three appendices: The Mervailous Government, Propertie, and Benefite of Bees, With the Rare Secretes of the Honnie and Wax,  The Yerely Coniectures Meete for Husbandmen and aTreatise of the Arte of Graffing and Planting of Trees. The London Library edition was printed in the capital in 1593 by Edward Allde, who at the time had his premises ‘in the Fore Street without Cripplegate at the Golden Cup’.

Thomas Hill’s star was rising when his life was cut relatively short in 1574. His second gardening book, The Gardeners Labyrinth:Containing a Discourse of the Gardeners Life, in the Yearly Travels to be Bestowed on his Plot of Earth, for the Use of a Garden … was printed posthumously in 1577.

Hill’s book lists herbs and vegetables giving first the ‘ordering, care and secrets’ and then ‘the physicke helpes’ or medicinal properties of each: ‘… parcely thrown into fish-ponds doth revive and strengthen the sick fish’, melon seeds ‘eaten or drunk doe cause urine, and purge the lungs and kidneis’. He also offers tips for getting rid of pests such as moles, characterised as ‘a disquiet and grief to gardeners’.

This second work includes many woodcuts, unlike his first book, making it much more expensive to produce and therefore increasing its retail price considerably, which must be a sign of how much Hill’s popularity had grown even after his death.  It appears that his status had risen so much that he had even outgrown his name: on the title page Thomas Hill has grown into Dydymus (Greek for Thomas and literally meaning ‘twin’) Mountaine, a rather ridiculous pseudonym that must have nevertheless sounded grand and impressive to a 16thcentury book buyer.  It would be fascinating to know whether this was done in accordance with Hill’s wishes or whether it was the printer’s idea for attracting a wealthier clientele. Either because of or in spite of the ‘mountaine’ effect, or rather because of the quality of the text and charming depictions of Elizabethan gardens, Hill’s second gardening book proved an even greater success than the first one and was reprinted many times. The London Library copy is dated 1586 and is the work of John Wolfe who had his workshop in Distaff Lane, near St. Paul’s.

When Hill died he left many completed manuscripts behind that were never published as well as some unfinished projects. One of the latter was a translation of Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner’s The Newe Jewell of Health: Wherein is Contayned the Most Excellent Secretes of Phisicke and Philosophie. The translation was completed by his friend, the surgeon George Baker, and The London Library holds a copy of the beautifully illustrated first edition printed by Henrie Denham at the sign of the Star in Paternoster Row in 1576.

Whether simple or sumptuous in design, book boxes give essential protection to many items in The London Library’s collections, including some of our rarest, quirkiest and most valuable volumes. Our Head of Collection Care Judith Finnamore explains how she and her Conservation team go about their work.

The benefits of boxes

Boxes can provide an effective barrier against some of the enemies of paper. Exposure to light causes chemical reactions in paper, leading it to discolour and turn brittle. If you’ve ever left a newspaper on a sunny windowsill over weeks or months, you’ll have some idea of what this looks like. Dust can also be detrimental, endangering books by attracting insect life and encouraging mould growth. By giving a book a box, we help safeguard it against these kinds of damage.

Some boxes are designed to lend support additional support to books. Vellum bindings are particularly sensitive to fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity, and as a result can contract or become distorted. Traditionally such covers would have been held in place by metal clasps or some kind of tie, but as these in themselves can raise preservation concerns, we turn to boxes as an effective and conservation-friendly alternative. Where distortion has already occurred, a book box can at least hold the covers in place, acting against further shifts and preventing the book from splaying wide open as it is handled.

And then there are those boxes which make a book just that bit easier to find. Some of our miniature books are so tiny that they would risk being overlooked or inadvertently pushed to the back of a shelf. Giving them a larger box, with a foam or card insert to make sure the book can be held snuggly within, makes shelving these tiny tomes so much easier and dramatically reduces the likelihood of loss or damage.

A few boxes in our collection are presentation pieces, and could even be considered works of art in their own right. The Library’s Kelmscott Press edition of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer is housed within a beautiful red leather clamshell case, lined in suede, with a special hidden compartment to house correspondence from the bindery. The box echoes the theatricality of the volume inside, which was one of only 48 copies to be bound in fine pig skin and silver clasps.

Box-making at the London Library

In The London Library’s Conservation Studio we produce a variety of customised boxes and wrappers which, while they lack the elaborate finish of the Kelmscott case, are just as effective in preserving our book collections. We eschew expensive leathers and metallic trappings in favour of more modest materials, primarily acid-free card, book-binding thread and archival-quality polyester film. The most common type of box we make is the phase box: a folding card structure, free from sharp edges or damaging adhesives.

Making up the boxes is a skilled process, which demands patience and close attention to detail. Each book needs to be measured up very carefully. It’s essential that each completed box offers the best possible fit for the book and holds it securely in position. A box which is too roomy could result in significant wear and tear, as the book would be able to shift around inside. To help us come up with the right figures, we use a wooden book measure, which looks and works a bit like a Clarks foot measuring gauge!

Once we’re confident that we’ve come up with the right dimensions, it’s time to transfer them to the acid-free card. We need to calculate the relative length of each fold and cutting line, using a handy template to help us achieve this. Whoever is responsible for cutting and scoring the card needs a steady hand, and there are several fiddly flaps around which to manoeuvre. Having cut out the shape, we make our folds, tuck in the flaps and – ta-da! – we have a brand new phase book, tailor-made for the book in hand.

Given the benefits of boxes, you may wonder why we don’t provide enclosures for all of our books. First, it is a time-consuming process, taking on average about 15 to 20 minutes per box. There are also aesthetic concerns. The eclectic bindings on show in the stacks are part of The London Library’s charm. Many were designed to attract book buyers, and still exert a powerful pull on members browsing the shelves.

Not to be defeated, our Conservator has recently been developing new ideas to protect our books from wear while keeping their historic spines on view. One recent box design pairs an archival-quality card sleeve with a polyester film wrap, enabling us to defend our books from dust and abrasion while preserving their spines for all to see. We’re hoping to roll out more of these innovative book boxes in future.

There is still some way to go. We would like to see many more of our books benefit from protective boxes, particularly those which we’ve temporarily secured with cotton bands. Work is ongoing, and our indefatigable Conservation team are making good progress towards this goal. Who would have thought that humble cardboard boxes could make such a significant contribution to the care of our collections? Yet, it is thanks to these simple home-made structures that we are able to preserve the Library’s most vulnerable volumes for the benefit of generations to come.

Hundreds of bibles, translated into dozens of languages, populate some of the shelves of The London Library. Among these is a remarkable collection of early English versions with a copy of the King James Bible, published in May of 1611, at its heart. In the latest article adapted from a series recently published in History Today, Dunia Garcia-Ontiveros, Head of Bibliographic Services at The London Library, explores these unique volumes.

The King James Bible, which in 2011 celebrated its 400th anniversary, is part of a long chain of English translations of the Scriptures where every new version owes a debt to its predecessors. The first link in the chain was forged by William Tyndale 80 years before James I commissioned his Authorised Version.

The Oxford-educated religious reformer, who was inspired by Erasmus and Luther, was forced to flee England in 1525. He was a gifted linguist who translated the New Testament from the original Greek into accessible English. By 1534 he had settled in Antwerp where he was betrayed by a friend and arrested before he could complete his translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. He was incarcerated for sixteen months and in October 1536 he was publicly executed in Vilvoorde Castle, near Brussels.

In 1535, just as Tyndale was printing his final revision of the New Testament in Antwerp, Miles Coverdale was in the same city printing his complete English Bible. Coverdale was an Augustinian friar and a Cambridge man. Like Tyndale, his reformist views forced him into exile. He did not know enough Greek and Hebrew to translate the original texts and instead he worked from German and Latin versions, while consulting Tyndale’s translations at the same time. Back in England big changes were taking place. Cranmer and Cromwell’s influence was growing and, consequently, Henry VIII was more inclined to fulfil the promise he had made five years earlier to provide ‘learned men’ with a translation of the New Testament. In this new climate Coverdale dedicated his Bible to the king and was able to return safely to London.

Tyndale’s unpublished translations of the Old Testament were finally printed in ‘Matthew’s’ Bible of 1537. John Rogers, chaplain of the English House in Antwerp, had managed to rescue the manuscripts after Tyndale’s arrest. He printed them together with Tyndale’s Pentateuch and New Testament. For the remaining books of the Old Testament he used Coverdale’s translation. As Tyndale’s translations were still banned the title page bore the fictitious name of Thomas Mathew. The resulting book, published for the merchants Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch is the closest thing there is to a complete Tyndale Bible. Ironically, this was the first English Bible to receive a royal license and Cromwell wasted no time in distributing copies to every parish. It was soon apparent that not enough copies had been printed to supply all 8,500 churches and since the king still had some reservations as to some of the marginal notes a new version was needed. Interestingly, the London Library’s copy of ‘Matthew’s’ Bible was printed by a Thomas Raynalde in London in 1549, two years after Henry’s death.

Henry VIII’s Great Bible of 1539 was edited by Coverdale, who revised ‘Matthew’s’ Bible rather than his own version, and it was again published by Grafton and Whitchurch.  No new versions were produced during the short reigns of Edward VI and Mary Tudor. John Roger’s execution, ordered by Mary in 1555, must have served as a powerful deterrent for anyone contemplating Biblical translations on English soil.

A group of English Protestants, which included the dean of Durham, William Whittingham, had fled Mary’s regime to settle in Calvinist Geneva where they prepared a new version, printed in 1560. Coverdale, who had returned to England after Henry’s death and served as Bishop of Exeter until the accession of Mary to the throne, was forced into again into exile in 1555. He spent some time in Denmark and Germany and joined the Geneva translators in October 1558, only a month before Mary’s death. The Geneva Bible became the most popular version of the Scripture and was still in regular use even after the publication of the King James Bible. Given its proliferation, it is not surprising that the London Library holds several early editions, the earliest being Christopher Barker’s folio edition of 1576. In 1575 Barker had obtained a patent to print the Bible in England for the first time and after publishing one edition in 1576 he obtained a press, which he used to print the first folio edition in Roman type. The next year he bought the exclusive rights to print all English Bibles and passed the monopoly onto his descendants. The London Library copy of the smaller 1586 edition is the last produced by the founder of the printing dynasty. In 1587 a very wealthy Christopher retired to his country house and left the business in charge of his deputies who were responsible for the 1589 and 1599 editions also held by the Library.

The Library’s copy of the 1605 edition is the work of Christopher’s son, Robert, who while busy printing the new Authorized Version in 1611 was still satisfying demand for Geneva Bibles with a new folio edition also held at the Library.

After Mary’s death in 1558 the Geneva Bible was openly used in parish churches but Queen Elizabeth’s bishops thought that its extensive marginal notes were too heavily influenced by Calvinist doctrine. Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, assumed responsibility for a new version. The first folio edition of the Bishops’ Bible of 1568 was produced in London by the queen’s printer, Richard Jugge. In 1569 Jugge printed a second, quarto, edition and the Library holds a copy of its New Testament. Although this was meant to be Elizabeth’s ‘Great Bible’ it did not receive royal sanction until 1574 and the Library’s copy of the 1575 edition finally contains the words ‘set foorth by aucthoritie’ as well ‘God save the Queene’. In any case, the text did not compare to that of the Geneva Bible and although copies were printed for official use in parish churches across the land, the ‘Calvinist version’ was retained for private use in most protestant households.

The Catholic alternative to these protestant Bibles was produced once again by religious exiles, this time settled in Douai and Rheims, where dissenting outposts of Oxford University had been established by the scholar William Allen. These English Catholics accepted the inevitability of an English translation and undertook to offer a vernacular version that would at least conform to Catholic doctrine. The New Testament was translated by George Martin, a reader of Divinity, who worked mostly from the Vulgate but was also influenced by existing English versions. It was first printed in 1582 in Rheims, with the Old Testament being issued in two parts in Douai over 1609 and 1610. The Library holds copies of them all.

While the most direct influences of the Authorized Version of 1611 were the Geneva and the Bishops’ bibles, King James’ translators were not squeamish about consulting every English translation available, including the Rheims-Douai version, and borrowing many phrases from it. The team of around fifty scholars who worked on the Bible between 1604 and 1608 produced a version of such durability that it remains the strongest link in the chain of translations to this day.

In the latest article adapted from a series recently published in History Today, Dunia Garcia-Ontiveros, Head of Bibliographic Services at The London Library, reveals the remarkable and dramatic provenance behind a small volume contained in the Library’s collections, rescued from its watery resting place inside the wreck of cargo steamer S.S. Halcyon, which was mined and sunk in April 1916.

A small, watermarked volume entitled The planter’s manual : an English, Dutch, Malay and Keh Chinese vocabulary compiled by G. Fraser Melbourn and printed in Deli-Sumatra in 1894 has one of the most dramatic provenances of the one million books housed at the London Library. Its compiler was a tobacco planter who, upon ‘arriving in Deli, badly felt the want of a book from which I could pick up Malay – that is the Malay that is really spoken, in other words, every-day Malay’. To supply this deficiency he spent ‘many happy hours’ over several years preparing the ‘little work’, which he begged the reader not to judge if they should be in a ‘critical mood’. He chose to include also words in the Keh Chinese dialect as he believed it to be ‘by far the prettiest of the various dialects and with a little appreciation the easiest learnt.’

A letter written by one S. Hyde Turner (co-author of the alphabet bookZoological concoction,  London, 1902) to accompany his gift of the book to the London Library in 1919 tells us that that G. Fraser Melbourn ‘came to England in 1897 and died here some 20 years ago’ i.e. around 1899. The use of the word ‘came’ instead of ‘returned’ is intriguing and would seem to indicate that Melbourn was not born in Britain.

Melbourn’s choice of terms for his vocabulary is very revealing and evocative; a selection taken from the list of words beginning with the letter ‘s’ transports us to the hot and humid world of the plantation and its back-braking toil: ‘swamp, swear, sweat, sweep … ‘.

The book that was written in such a damp environment was destined for even wetter surroundings

Turner’s letter, written on stationery from the Junior Athenaeum Club, explains the book’s condition. In it he tells us that ‘the Germans are to blame’ for its water damage as the book was on board the cargo steamer S.S. Halcyon when she was mined and sunk only three and half miles off Folkestone Pier while travelling from Bordeaux to London on 7 April 1916. She was almost brand new, having been built the year before by the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company for the General Steam Navigation Company in London. Turner does not tell us what a Victorian plantation owner’s manual, designed to be used in Sumatra, was doing on a cargo steamer crossing the English channel in during the First World War, although it is possible that the English seamen found some of its Dutch vocabulary useful on the continent, but he does say that ‘the book spent about 6 months in the bed of the Channel …’.

The Halcyon is still rusting away under some 12 metres of water and exactly how the book came to be rescued six months after going down with the ship is unknown. The ghostly marks left on its pages by the Channel waters are consistent with the book having been only partially wet and it is likely that in the moments before sinking the crew placed the ship’s books and documents in waterproof bags in the hope that they could later retrieve them from the relatively shallow waters. Had they not done so the only surviving copy of this book would be the one kept at the British Library.

The Bard’s Fourth Folio – Shakespeare at 450

Shakespeare, W. Mr William Shakespear’s Comedies, histories & tragedies…Unto which is added, Seven plays, never before printed in folio…1685.

In the week that we celebrate the 450th anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare, we take a glimpse into The London Library’s most precious volumes housed in the Safe and the Library’s Fourth Folio volume of ‘Shakespear’s Plays’ from 1685. This is just one example of our many treasures that remind us of the beauty of the physical book and the symbolic significance of the Folio format in relation to discussions of authorship, cultural prestige and the origins of the literary book trade.

From the earliest days of printing, the folio format (large tall volumes) was reserved for prestigious volumes, works of reference and for the collected writings of important authors. In the 17th century, plays of the English Renaissance theatre were printed as collected editions in folio. However, plays written for the public theatre were generally viewed as trivial works of popular entertainment and not taken seriously as literature, and during Shakespeare’s lifetime stage plays were not considered worthy of being collected into folios, instead printed as quartos. Of the plays now accepted as either wholly or partly by Shakespeare, eighteen have survived only because the First Folio was published. The First Folio of 1623 published 7 years after Shakespeare’s death – Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories & Tragedies – was not only the first collected edition of Shakespeare, it was the first folio book ever published in England that was devoted exclusively to plays. It has been called “incomparably the most important work in the English language.” (Pforzheimer).

The First Folio contains 36 plays, 18 of which were printed for the first time and was compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell (fellow actors in Shakespeare’s company), and arranged into comedies, histories and tragedies. The Folio is no more a definitive text than the quartos; many of the plays in the folio omit lines that can be found in quarto versions, and include misprints and textual corruption.

The Second Folio appeared in 1632 and The Third Folio was issued in 1663. To the second impression of the Third Folio (1664) seven plays were added, including Pericles, Prince of Tyre and six others not now considered authentically Shakespearean: Locrine, The London Prodigal, The Puritan, Sir John Oldcastle, Thomas Lord Cromwell, and A Yorkshire Tragedy.

The Fourth Folio appeared in 1685. The Library’s copy was bought at a Red Cross sale in 1916 by Philip Arthur Cohen, a Library member, who donated this and many other valuable volumes over the course of many years. Like the Third, it contains 43 plays and served as the base for the series of eighteenth-century editions of Shakespeare’s plays. Nicholas Rowe used the Fourth Folio text as the foundation of his 1709 edition, and subsequent editors—Pope, Theobald, etc.—both adapted and reacted to Rowe’s text in their own editions.

The London Library houses over 700 works by Shakespeare, with volumes on the open shelves for browsing and borrowing dating from 1728.  There are more than 4,000 writings about Shakespeare.