Meanwhile, in Book News …

I can imagine Petrea announcing the publication of Camelot and Vine like this had it been published in 1781. This from the Norwich Paper of that date.

The past is such a wonderful place to live.

New Collection of Prologues and Epilogues.

  This Day is Published, Price only 1 shilling.
(Embellished with an elegant Representation of Mr KING, speaking the Prologue to the New Comedy, called Dissipation, now performing at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-lane.) The New and Complete English Spouter; or, an Universal Key to Theatrical Knowledge,-- Containing a complete Collection of all the favourite and most esteemed Prologues and Epilogues, which have been written by the distinguished Wits, to accompany approved Tragedies, Comedies, Operas, Farces, Pantomimes, and other species of Theatrical Entertainment worthy of Notice; and spoken by the most celebrated Performers, at the Theatres Royal, Drury-lane, Covent-garden, Haymarket, and on other Stages (public and private) in different Parts of the Kingdom.

   Including a great Variety of Prologues and Epilogues composed on Purpose, and spoken occasionally at several respectable Sporting Clubs, and other Societies of Thespians, by Gentlemen in the Characters of Bucks, Bloods, Choice Spirits, Bravos, Fribbles, etc. Together with that celebrated Piece, called the Picture of a Playhouse; or Bucks have at ye All; and other valuable Pieces, not to be found in any other Collection. The whole interspersed with many Originals, and brought down to the present year, 1781. By Mr PALMER.
London: Printed for Alex. HOGG, No. 16 Paternoster-row, and sold by all other Booksellers in England. N.B. Be careful to ask for "The New English Spouter, by Mr PALMER;" this being the only Work of the Kind, which contains all the new Prologues and Epilogues. 

I love the word "fribbles" and shall drop it into conversations.

You can actually get this book - and its revised and enlarged reprints - but at the moment only on crappy "print on demand," so I'll wait for an original to pop up on Abe.

In the meantime, I highly recommend re-reading Camelot and Vine but in the style of "Bucks, Bloods, Choice Spirits, Bravos, Fribbles, etc."

The Past Is So Much More Fun Than The Present

In random historical events, this, from the British Newspaper Archive:

"1742 March 20^th. London yesterday. A man stood in the pillory at the Royal Exchange for sodomical practices and was severely used by the populace, particularly by an Amazon who tore off most of his cloathes and whipp’t him with rods for a long time which diverted the spectators with some extraordinary discipline."

I'm afraid you'll have to expect more of this kind of thing, as watching the news is so distressing that I spend an unhealthy amount of time trawling through old newspapers for relief.

A Girl Named Beans

Apropos of absolutely nothing, one of my sad diversions (having no life and being Aspy I tend to a fascination with things obscure) is trawling historical documents on line. While most normal folk use the interweb to look at cat pictures or porn, I dive happily down the rabbit hole of completely useless trivia.

This lunchtime I donned rubber gloves and delved into the historical documents relating to the town of Beccles, where I was brought up.

In the notebooks of a Mister Harding, Inspector of Police at Beccles for the year 1859 (recorded in the Feoffees' 'Nuisance Book' for that year - and yes, Petrea, that's pronounced Fifi's Nuisance Book if you want a title for your next novel), I came across a familiar name. I used to go to school with a Maureen Pitchers and it seems her ancestors were somewhat notorious denizens of Puddingmoor (a narrow lane at the foot of the cliff by the river, named after the dungheaps kept there).

I wonder if she knew …

“PITCHERS Commonly called "Rats Pitchers", a thief and low character, lives in Puddingmoor - enlisted in the army in August 1858, nephew of William Pitchers, normally called Low Pitchers from the quantity he can drink. A great drunkard, poacher and suspicious character. He moved to Yarmouth in 1854.

PITCHERS Usually called Tailor Pitchers, nephew of the above and brother to "Rats" a notorious young thief (age about 19) and burglar. Suspected to have been concerned in Mrs Sharpin's robbery. Keeps a girl named Beans, a thief & prostitute. Lives in Puddingmoor.”

I just love the notion of “a girl named Beans” and now I want one myself.

Pimp My Uppity Colonials

It's been a long time since "Pimp My Dante" and I feel the need for some more biblioporn and am lured by the sirens' call to fondle some leather.

This time it's the loving rebinding in period clothing of some tattered and disbound documents pertinent to my friends in the Colonies which I hope they might find diverting.

 Yes, it's all very brown.

I do love a bargain and the interweb is the perfect place to trawl the back rooms and musty corners of the world's bookshops, ready to pounce on any unwary prey that takes my fancy. Disbound or with their covers hanging off and spines broken they can be obtained for astonishingly few groats, and even if you don't re-skin them they make wonderful reading.
In particular I am obsessed (yes, I confess to obsession … sorry, Mum) with collecting old news as it happened and original documents and letters from revolutions and revolts, being pretty revolting myself.

The rather alarming duct tape binding above contains the first appearance in a printed book - as opposed to manuscript or pamphlet - of the American Declaration of Independence (amongst the Parliamentary State Papers for 1776, bound in with the hugely entertaining and divers debates and correspondence leading up to said Declaration and its wake of amusing spuffle, blather and faff from the outraged English Tories).

If, like me, you find duct tape an inappropriate cladding for the most sacred of uppity Colonial documents, read on.

 Here lay the tattered remains of many debates, rants, arguments and handbag fights in both the English Parliament and the Philadelphia Congress.

It is distressing to see such distressed damsels déshabillé and so I sought the aid of Bald Bernard from the Basement in hope of restoring their dignity.

 And now here they sit betwixt first editions of Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Mishima and McCarthy and some beautiful Rivière Brothers bindings that - after some haggling regarding beards and gourds - some fool let me buy for £3.55 a volume, at least a hundred times less than their current value.
Like I say: I do love a bargain.

Anyhoo … Back to Bald Bernard from the Basement …

While I was working in London I used Shepherds' for my bookbinding needs. Not because they were only a few yards from my office on Rochester Row but because they are the current equivalent of Bayntun and Rivière; the best of the best of the best … Sir!

And down in their basement toiled bald Bernard, master of calf and hand-stitching, and his wife Sarah, queen of fine leather mosaic work.

When I returned to Norwich, Bernard and Sarah decided it was time to start their own bindery and by serendipitous chance, concluded that the best place for a bindery would be the UNESCO City of Literature … er … Norwich; home to more fine writers than you can shake a stick at (should you choose to do so).

 And so …

Our damsels are no longer déshabillé but clad in new mottled calf that I am instructed to fondle as often as possible, the natural oils from skin being the the perfect food and preservative for new, deliciously soft calf-bound books. As these are books that I will read and re-read and enjoy for as long as I live, fondling them is not going to be too Herculean a labour.

 For the endpapers we spent some time with marvellous rolls of hand-marbled paper, choosing a style and colour consistent with the 1770s. Bernard is as fussy about period veracity as I am.

 The hand-stitching matches the endpapers and Bernard worked really hard adjusting the raised bands on the spines to align across all the volumes.

 Here, starting in the last column is the first printed and published version of that most sacred of Colonial scriptures, clad no longer in duct tape but in a more fitting and dignified wrapper.

 And here is one of my very favourite documents. In essence it is a bonkers, Trump-style splenetic rant refuting in eye-popping apoplexy the document bound with it (see below).

The British Library's English Short Title Catalogue (they keep tabs on printed material from the 1470s up to 1800) lists three of these still in existence and I am rather chuffed that mine is the copy from the "New Exchange Coffee House Subscription Library" (copperplated over several pages to discourage pilfering).

The New Exchange (now the beautiful and dignified Old Exchange) was the stock exchange of its time, nestled between Threadneedle Street and Cornhill, whose coffee houses were the debating chambers for politicians, scientists and the more enlightened of Enlightenment society.

The New Exchange Coffee House was the grandest and would have seen Edmund Burke and John Dodsley, Charles James Fox and William Pitt (both versions) and on occasion Benjamin Franklin reading, debating and getting caffeinated to the gills.

Riff-raff like stockbrokers were not allowed in and had their own coffee house down the street.

Here's the document from July, 1775 (bound at the back of the above volume) that kicked off the petulant, foot-stamping temper tantrum, which, by the way, makes for hilarious and really quite shocking reading, though you'll have to take my word for that unless you manage to track down one of the other two remaining copies.
James Ranty MacPherson takes particular umbrage at the concept of no taxation without representation, citing that women and (let us say 'persons of colour') together with the poor have no vote and therefore no representation and yet are taxed by the divine right of the monarch. He then goes a leetle bit apeshit and his views are unfortunately those of the Tories (most of whom "owned" millions of square miles of Colonial soil by dint of having simply given it to themselves) and not those of reason. Regrettably his views are also those of today's "one percent" and those of the GOP. What the hell happened to the enlightened views of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams et al? Whither America in the 21st. Century?
…
At the lower left of the above photo, however, Bostonians may find some amusement.
The blustering, indignant and quite frankly chortlesome abuse MacPherson rains on Boston and its inhabitants in his main text would be unpublishable today. It is beyond Trump for sheer ignorant insanity. Pop round for a cuppa and I'll let you read it.

Good old Johnny Hancock really did know how to raise the hackles of the English Tories.
You can gauge the tone of the major part of the book by the paragraph at the top right.
The certain "Illustrious Band" referred to being the Whigs, whose arguments recorded in the Parliamentary Papers were rational, reasonable, occasionally hilariously sarcastic and personal. The Whigs of course sided wholly with the Americans and their perfectly reasonable grievances but unfortunately, as today, the Tories won the vote by lying, cheating (using rotten boroughs and bribery) and bullying and of course calamity ensued.

Here beginneth Colonial Independence.

It's Gruesome … Ew. It's GrewSome More!

Apropos of nothing at all, I've been indulging in a particular passion of mine: the pre-1800 Annual Registers.

In the 1784 volume, after all the political and international events, state papers, book reviews, poetry and general goings-on, I came across this peculiarly gruesome article, which I lay before you for your curious pleasure (or to gross you out).

Doctor Martineau was uncle of the utterly splendid Harriet Martineau and I for one am glad that he felt the need to regale the world with his fat little lady and her 6,631 pints of water.

It is worth clicking on the photos to blow them up to readable size and then trying not to be put off your coffee.

Ew …

There are divers and numerous accounts of a peculiar nature in the Annual Registers - of which I own far too many/not nearly enough (delete where applicable, unless you're Mum who thinks I have enough books … HA).

Bodysnatchers, murder most horrid, guillotining Froggy toffs in the French Revolution, furious - and hugely entertaining - arguments with the uppity Colonials, leading to their independence, witches, madness and wildly inaccurate scientific speculation … and much more.

Look out for more of them in the coming months.