F

Faber (Robert)

Oxford University Press, Oxford

Lives in print : publishing the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

The publication of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in September 2004 will represent not just a monument of modern collective scholarship but also the culmination of one of most complex academic publication ventures of recent times. To bring a work consisting of 50 000 entries, spanning sixty printed volumes, from inception to publication in just twelve years is an extraordinary testament to the efforts and commitment of not only thousands of scholars and contributors but also the Oxford University Press. As a result, while the two previous papers have focused on the scholarly contribution the Dictionary will make, this paper will focus specifically on the role of the Press in bringing the Dictionary to print.

The Dictionary has been committed to publicising its progress throughout the past twelve years not only through individual contact with contributors but also through its quarterly newsletters, its website and, more recently, regular seminars on biography. Obviously, attention has been particularly focused on the individuals whose biographies will be included, but as it approaches publication, there has been increasing interest in the history of the project itself. This paper, then, is a response to this, recognising that, to book historians, the history of the project is as interesting a subject as those members of the book trade whose biographies will appear in its pages.

The paper will be divided into three sections, one focused on 1992 (the year the project began), the second on 2004 (the year of publication) and the third on the future of the project. The first section will describe the Press’s role at the start of the project, looking particularly at some of the initial strategic decisions about publication taken at that time. The second section will explore how these initial decisions — especially concerning electronic publishing — came to be updated and revised as 2004 approached, and will explain the rationale behind the form (in print and online) that the Dictionary will take. Some insights into the marketing of the Dictionary in advance of publication and the anticipated readership will also be given. The third and final section will outline OUP’s future plans for the project, including the maintenance of an archive for future book historians, after 2004.

There will also be an opportunity for the audience to have a ‘sneak preview’ of how the Dictionary will look in its printed and online form.

Robert Faber has been the Project Director for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography since its inception in 1992.

Fairbanks (Mark)

University of Nottingham, UK

"At Any Price ?" Lawrence and Bullen, H.G. Wells and certain personal matters.

In 1897 H.G. Wells drew up a contract with the firm of Lawrence and Bullen for the publication of a volume of his collected essays. However, despite the tightly worded agreement drawn up by James Brand Pinker, who acted as Wells’s agent in the transaction, the printing and publication of the book was marred by a series of disputes between the author and his publishers. Yet despite A.H. Bullen’s dogmatism about aspects of the books contents and appearance (George Gissing, when asked to negotiate an agreement between the warring parties, confided to Wells that the publisher was ‘a trifle positive in his judgements.’), the firm was peculiarly flexible on the issue of price. Wells objected to the title being sold at 6s, and the price was accordingly dropped to 3s 6d. This might seem like a minor point, but when the rights to Certain Personal Matters changed hands in 1901, the issue of Lawrence and Bullen’s pricing policy was raised again in a postscript T. Fisher Unwin added to his cheaper edition of the work. Despite the lower price the firm had eventually decided on after Wells’s objection, Unwin’s postscript still appears to mock the earlier edition of Certain Personal Matters for being unaffordable.

I would suggest that affordability mattered less to publishers like Lawrence and Bullen for whom book production was primarily a social activity. The common ground that Wells and Unwin had, alternately, was that they shared a concern about achieving as wide a sale as possible. Yet although Lawrence and Bullen did not strive after democratic credentials they could not be described as consistently elitist. My proposed paper uses the disputes over Certain Personal Matters to focus on pricing issues in the late Victorian book industry and to thereby suggest the ambivalence of Lawrence and Bullen’s practice, drawing on my recently completed PhD on Lawrence and Bullen to do so.

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Nottingham in the UK, where I have recently submitted my thesis for examination. My research interests lie largely in the area of late 18th century British publishing, literature and culture. I have delivered papers at the last two annual S.H.A.R.P. conferences.

Feola (Vittoria)

Cambridge university, UK, et université libre de Bruxelles, Belgique

Elias Ashmole's library / La bibliothèque d'Elias Ashmole.

Abstract

Elias Ashmole (1617-92) has remained famous for founding the eponymous museum at Oxford in 1683. While scholars are familiar with Ashmole’s manuscript collection, nobody ever refers to his books. The aim of my paper is to present the reconstruction of Ashmole’s library, as it was both at the time of his death, and as it is today, given that two thirds are still extant in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. My paper, therefore, will provide a critical description of a major European archival resource for the history of the book. I will consider the means by which Ashmole acquired his texts and how he meant them to be preserved and used by posterity. Moreover, this will enable me to argue that his main contribution to the Ashmolean Museum was indeed a fine collection of texts and pictures, which he destined to the Ashmolean, and which today are in the Bodleian despite his will. The texts were both in manuscript and printed forms; the pictures were portraits of people and, most importantly, drawings of British antiquities, which Ashmole commissioned to several London painters. Thus, the reconstruction of Ashmole’s library aims to contribute to the history of the book, in that it will uncover the production, transmission, uses, and preservation of texts about all branches of knowledge. Furthermore, it relates to issues of early modern patronage. Finally, it suggests a new perspective from which to consider the role of visual evidence in the transmission and preservation of knowledge.

Résumé

Elias Ashmole (1617-92) est resté célèbre pour avoir fondé le musée éponyme d’Oxford en 1683. On connaît bien sa collection de manuscrits, cependant ses livres sont rarement mentionnés. Le but de ma contribution est de reconstruire la bibliothèque d’Ashmole, comme elle était d’une part au moment de sa mort, d’autre part aujourd’hui, puisqu’il en reste les deux tiers à la Bibliothèque Bodléienne à Oxford. Elle fournira une description critique d’une source archivistique européenne fondamentale pour l’histoire du livre. Je vais considérer les moyens par lesquels Ashmole acquit sa collection, et comment il souhaitait qu’on la conserve et l’utilise après sa mort. En outre, je démontrerai que sa contribution la plus importante à son musée consistait en fait en une remarquable collection de textes et d’images, initialement destinée au musée, et qui se trouve actuellement à la Bibliothèque Bodléienne, malgré son testament. Les textes sont des manuscrits et des livres imprimés; les images sont des portraits et, surtout, des dessins d’antiquités britanniques, qu’Ashmole avait commissionnés à plusieurs peintres de Londres. Ainsi, la reconstruction de la bibliothèque d’Ashmole contribuera à l’histoire du livre, puisqu’elle dévoilera la production, la transmission, les emplois et la préservation de textes touchant à toutes les connaissances humaines. En outre, elle présentera une discussion du système de mécénat à l’époque moderne. Finalement, elle suggérera une perspective nouvelle pour l’analyse du rôle des images comme témoignage historique dans la transmission et la préservation du savoir.

Ferro (Emanuela)

Bibliothèque Berio, Genova

Savoir et merveilles. La bibliothèque de Demetrio Canevari, médecin gênois entre nouvelles sciences et tradition

Finkelstein (David L.)

Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh

Rewriting Africa : the revising of British exploration narratives, 1850-1880.

Nineteenth-century British colonial policy and imperial aspirations regarding Africa were shaped in great part by the works of African explorers such as David Livingstone, John Hanning Speke and Henry Morton Stanley. Funded by the Royal Geographical Society, the British government and even the mass media, these individuals mapped out the African interior, inspired missionary and commercial ventures in the area, and established the template by which the subcontinent and its people were viewed, understood and judged.

But their published words were not always their own. I have uncovered evidence that during a crucial period in the mid- to late nineteenth century, works of African explorers were systematically ‘edited’, revised, even ghost-written by British publishers. The result was often a substantial altering of content and emphasis to create an account consistent with contemporary concerns and interests. The cultural and editorial reshaping of these texts is not often acknowledged or reflected in past studies on the subject. This paper examines the publishing history of works by David Livingstone, John Hanning Speke and Henry Morton Stanley during a crucial period in British colonial history. It will offer insight into how contemporary cultural and social values were fed into the production process to reshape narratives of exploration, reformulate and mobilise official activities and influence subsequent British views of ‘The Dark Continent’.

David Finkelstein is Professor of Media and Print Culture at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh. He has published widely in the area of media history and print culture. Recent works include The House of Blackwood: Author-Publisher Relations in the Victorian Era (2002), and as co-editor, The Book History Reader (2002), Nineteenth-Century Media and the Construction of Identities (2000) and Negotiating India in the Nineteenth-Century Media (2000).

Fiorilla (Marco)

Biblioteca Lancisiana, Rome, Italy

The Lancisiana library.

The Lancisiana Library was founded in the years 1711-1714 by Giovanni Maria Lancisi. Housed in the S. Spirito Hospital in Rome, its very structure and organization mirrors the scientific and medical culture of its founder. Lancisi meant to offer to the young apprentice, either physician or surgeon, the means foa a rational medical education, based on "plenty of patients" and a good choice of books. The comparison between the Library and some of Lancisi's works show his ideas about the relationship between the sciences - chemistry, natural history, mathematics and mechanics - and medicine, as well as the close relationship between medicine and surgery.