Collage of peritexts, including the printer’s statement, a cataloger’s notes, and a Public Library of the City of Boston paper punch.
From the front matter of The Human Hair: Its Structure, Growth, Diseases, and Their Treatment by Hermann Beigel (1869). Original from Harvard University. Digitized May 23, 2007.
Arithmetic.
From the back matter of American Historical Tales for Youth by Francis Lister Hawks (1801). Original from the New York Public Library. Digitized June 12, 2007.
Endpapers used for writing, blotting, and test scribbles. Also, clips of the digitization equipment.
From Poetry for Children, ed. J. Aikin (1805). Original from Oxford University. Digitized September 11, 2007.
A student’s marginalia: “read it” … “all the page.”
From p. 47 of Ritchie’s First Steps in Latin by Francis Ritchie and Frederick C. Staples (1909). Original from the New York Public Library. Digitized July 22, 2008.
Title page scarred with cataloging marginalia.
From The Scar by Ruby Mildred Ayers (1921). Original from the New York Public Library. Digitized January 5, 2007.
Two inscriptions, one much more subdued than the other.
From the front matter of My Uncle Benjamin by Claude Tiller, trans. Adele Szold Seltzer, ills. Emil Preetorius (1917). Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized May 5, 2008.
A reader comments on the transition of the text to film.
From the table of contents to Kid Scanlan by Harry Charles Witwer (1920). Original from Harvard University. Digitized July 14, 2008.
“As suggested by the title page, either an amateur stage producer or a harsh critic decided that Carroll’s text would read better if three very specific acts were omitted. … [This] version of Alice in Wonderland is not unlike a personalized rewrite, perhaps even an interesting new take on the classic story, should we consider the meaningful consequences of the reader’s cuts and edits.”
Submitted by C. T. Douglas, of Dr. Terry Harpold’s University of Florida course Hypermedia: Futures of Reading.
Throughout Alice in Wonderland in Five Acts by Lewis Carroll (adapted, 1897). Original from Harvard University. Digitized March 14, 2006.
“If my Latin Professor found my textbook looking like this I would be in trouble. Some of the marginalia is obviously translations, but other parts are references to other lines.”
Submitted by Krista Dukes, of Dr. Terry Harpold’s University of Florida course Hypermedia: Futures of Reading.
From De Vita Caesarum, v. 1-2, by Suetonius, with intro. and notes by John Howell Wescott and and Edwin Moore Rankin (1918). Original from the University of California. Digitized February 28, 2008.
“My first find was a book full of one reader’s angry and sometimes humorous marginalia. The first instance, a sarcastic, scarring comment on the inside cover, had me laughing, but as I proceeded through the book, I realized that whoever this reader was, they were not through having a one-to-one with Mr. Steinhardt. What fascinates me about this find is not only that readers often feel so emotionally engaged with a text that they feel the need to mark it up (though the author is certainly not going to respond), but also the notion that such a text would have an afterlife on Google Books for all to witness. It’s as though this angry reader’s personal experience with the book now haunts the text forever in its digital afterlife, its sins written on its pages in fiery strokes of ink!”
Submitted by C. T. Douglas, of Dr. Terry Harpold’s University of Florida course Hypermedia: Futures of Reading.
Throughout Ten Sex Talks to Girls by Irving David Steinhardt (1914). Original from the University of Virginia. Digitized May 24, 2008.
“It’s hard to tell whether someone hand-wrote this in, or whether it is actually printed on every copy of the text because the quality of the writing is hard to measure.”
Submitted by Danny Ennis, of Dr. Terry Harpold’s University of Florida course Hypermedia: Futures of Reading.
From page 405-406 of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1897). Original from Harvard University. Digitized September 27, 2005.
A lone scribble.
From the back matter of The Holocaust: or, The Witch of Monzie by George Blair (1845). Original from Harvard University. Digitized September 7, 2007.
Reader’s comment at the end of the text.
From p. 307 of A Colonial Witch: Being a Study of the Black Art in the Colony of Connecticut by Frank Samuel Child (1897). Original from Harvard University. Digitized November 9, 2007.
A stamped and written name—Oscar.
From the back matter of The Farmer’s Library by Leonard Elijah Lathrop (1825). Original from Harvard University. Digitized May 20, 2008.
Obscured note.
From A Catalogue of the Library of the Athenæum, Liverpool by George Burrell (1820). Original from Oxford University. Digitized May 8, 2007.
