It was created by the Rollinger Brothers, Viennese bookbinders, who exhibited this monster album at the 1862 International Exhibition in London to advertise the skills and craftsmanship of their business. 28,000 exhibitors were drawn to this exhibition to promote industry, technology and the arts.
Object caption Object caption?? Object caption Object caption??
St Thomas’ own history as a ‘turbulent priest’ that made the suppression of his cult desirable for Henry VIII and his advisers. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket fiercely espoused the independence of the Church, and his murder in 1170 by soldiers of Henry II made him a martyr and a popular hero. For Henry VIII the lesson was clear – a religious leader who had defied the king and been canonized for it was a dangerous precedent. A Royal Proclamation of 16 November 1538 was issued with the intention that “henceforth ... Thomas Becket shall not be esteemed, named, ... the days used to be festival in his name, shall not be observed, nor the service, office, antiphons, collects, and prayers in his name read, but rased and put out of all the books.” ... As the English Reformation proceeded references to Pope purgatory and indulgences all met a similar textual fate.
Little Book image?
Bibliomania – a passion for collecting and owning books – takes many forms. Many of them involve addition to, or subtraction from, a book.
In all cultures with a written heritage there is evidence of government’s and other authoritarian attempts to control people’s actions and beliefs. Object caption Object caption??
Object caption Object caption??
When it comes to books, one size does not fit all. Guildhall Library’s largest book measures 3 foot 6 inches high by 5 foot 3 inches wide (109 x 160 cm).
Charles Rollinger solved the problem of what to do with the tome after the Exhibition by donating it to the City of London. For years, though, the question of what might be done with this book, which weighs over 700lb (317 kg) and takes eight people to lift, has perplexed Guildhall librarians: In 1941 an exasperated librarian referred to the monster ) album as the ‘most inappropriate gift ever given’ .8cm x1 and suggested that the blank leaves of high quality .2cm e (3 paper be put to ‘some useful war purpose’. wid es Despite this recommendation, inch ok bo y 0.7 st b the book survived the alle igh h ’s sm es war and remains in rary inch l Lib 5 ) hal s 1.2 cm Guildhall Library stores. uild re 60 G easu m 0
Extra-illustration or ‘grangerising’ – adding clippings from other sources, named after the topographical writer and antiquary James Granger – was passionately pursued by hobbyists, with sometimes bizarre results. The historian Seymour de Ricci noted that John Bellingham Inglis, a nineteenth-century scholar and book collector, ‘loved to cut out tiny engravings, coats-of- arms, monograms, etc., and paste them on the first or last leaves of his books, regardless of their being in any way suitable for such a singular use’, his ‘peculiar mania’, as book collectors put it.
Object caption Object caption?? Object caption Object caption??
2
3
4
5
k y5 oo t b igh b rges h ’s la ches rary 6 in Lib ot all 3 fo ildh s Gu sure mea
6
7
8
t3 foo
9
10
cm
es inch
x 09 e (1 wid
1
Temptation to take a pen to a book is often irresistible. Children’s first books, loved and used, are often filled with attempts to master the alphabet or capture their world in a drawing. Yet, to many, adding to books is frowned upon.
From a book the size of a small tree to one the size of a leaf. Small books intended for the pocket did not begin with the twentieth century paperback. In the seventeenth-century the Dutch family of publishers Elsevier produced portable editions of the classics and standard texts in a small but legible typeface. William Pickering’s Diamond classics, a nineteenth-century revival of the idea, remained just about readable by the unaided eye.
Object caption Object caption??
Object caption Object caption??
1
Object caption Object caption??
Object caption Object caption??
Object caption Object caption??
If you would like to see the Big Book, come along to one of our monthly behind-thescenes tours. Object caption Object caption??
984mm 10
m c 0
0 6 1
x 0 9
Floor
For early modern readers (add in rough time period), however, writing and drawing in books was not a crime but an expectation: it made the book your own and enabled the transfer of knowledge. Buyers of early printed books would have been expected to customise their books by, for example, hand colouring the illustrations and filling the spaces left by the printer for capital letters with miniature works of art. The pointing hand – a maniculum – drew attention to a specific word or passage.
Object caption Object caption??