By Jacqueline Reid-Walsh
I am intrigued by books in unusual formats. Interactive or movable books are a good example because they usually only appear to be typical books. I paraphrase Iona and Peter Opie’s comments in their 1975 article “Books that Come to Life” (Times Literary Supplement, Sept 19, 1975: 1055): “mechanical books should look like ordinary books. Their success is to be measured by the ingenuity with which their bookish format conceals unbookish characteristics.” They state how the effect of surprise is central to their effect. In their brief history they discuss the turn-up “The Beginning, Progress and End of Man” printed in London by B. Alsop, for T. Dunster 1650, then housed in the British Museum. They state that “the flaps, the subject matter, and the opening verses of our manuscript metamorphosis are all but identical to those of the seventeenth-century example.”
The small turn-up has enchanted me for a long time. Eleven years ago, I wrote a blog post about looking at the digital facsimile of the “The Beginning, Progress and End of Man” (1650). It concerns our excitement and pride of seeing the first known facsimile beyond images in EEBO of the object. We were most fortunate to obtain permission from The British Library to include images of it on our website in the visual gallery section. In the earlier post, I describe my privilege of seeing the small piece of paper printed on one side only (I have noted the measurements as 17.78 cm by 29.21 cm). Classified as a restricted broadside, it is pasted along the top into a large volume forming part of the Thomason Tracts of English Civil War ephemera. It is housed at the main British Library site, in the St. Pancreas Reading Room. Since the volumes are gigantic (folios) I was set up properly with a map support in order to view them. I also had a magnifying glass and a ruler. Since they are very fragile, a library worker watched me the entire time. It was a bit nerve wracking.
Very recently I had the great pleasure of revisiting the turn-up book in the British Library and starting to rethink it in terms of format. I was thrilled to be able to sit with the turn-up again. Last year I was able to visit see the Robert Sayer etched edition housed in the Wellcome Library. He published the item in around 1767 as his first turn-up book and is included in his catalogue with Bennett in 1775. Sayer called it a turn-up book (please see the blog https://sites.psu.edu/learningasplaying/2024/06/01/first-impressions-seeing-the-sayer-etched-edition/). In 2024 I had hoped to be able to compare both the Alsop publication and the Sayer publication published over 100 years apart. Unfortunately, due to the cyber-attack in fall 2023 no one has been allowed to view the items in this room until very recently. This time I had success!
The context for my re-visiting is a short, intensive engagement with all different kinds of interactive materials in London, and Cambridge (note 1). This has pushed my thinking in different directions but what is in common is that none are in the traditional codex format. Thinking about these items makes me ponder several things: what is a non-codex, is the codex only common in western culture, and what is a book anyway? A useful distinction is provided at this page on the University of Florida Libraries website called History of Text Technologies in a section called “Non-Codex and Accordion Bindings.”
Several types are given: Non-Codex and Accordion Bindings, Scrolls, Quipus, Accordion Folding, Artists’ Books, and Palm Leaf Books. A separate subsection on ephemera (https://guides.lib.fsu.edu/hott/ephemera) includes modern single sheet posters and broadsides. From this wide-ranging group I am using the category of broadside and combining it with accordion folding and adding flaps since these terms describe the turn-up.
Below are a few some of my viewing notes and thoughts based on the two hours I sat with the turn-up part of the famous Thomason collection of printed and ephemeral documents about the Civil War (note 2). It is included in a volume of Thomason Tracts single sheets dated Nov. 27, 1649 – Feb. 29, 1650, call number 669.f.15.(34). In these notes, I am focusing on the materiality.
Looking at the large volume of tracts, I see most are broadsides of a variety of sizes. Most are printed but the occasional item is handwritten. Many are oriented portrait style on the page. Smaller ones measure approximately 10 3/4 by 6 7/8 inches. Others are 14 inches high and 10 inches wide while others are 10 3/4 almost 11 inches wide. Some longer ones like “A Watch for a Wiseman’s Observation” is 16 x 10 1/2. One large tract is of Cromwell on a horse and measures 20 ½ X 15 ½ inches. It is folded into the gutter and when a viewer opens the volume the rearing horse with its rider appear to almost pop up.
Encountering “The Beginning, Progress and End of man” comes immediately after this item in the volume. It is a surprise due to its small size, orientation in the volume, and the religious content. Looking at it, the first impression is that it is a facsimile since it is in perfect condition. The turn-up is oriented landscape format sideways on the page. The page that is the support is 9 inches high and 14 inches wide. The turn-up is under 4 inches high and 11 1/2 inches wide folded. The paper is not browned or stained except in an occasional spot, and the colour is an off white/grey. It is uncut and both flaps seem like they would be of equal size if cut. It is in perfect shape. The printing is clear with no bleeding and under Adam’s feet the date “June 3, 1650” is clearly legible in brownish ink.
The spaces between each figure appear equidistant. Roughly measuring each figure, Adam is 2 3/4 inches; the lion 2 3/8 inches but in motion; the young miser is the smallest and the old miser the largest at 2 and 2 1/2 inches, respectively. In terms of the size of the figures, the miser / skeleton has long, webbed fish-like feet and is the largest.
Adam is printed as a unit over the break; the mermaid is whole under the break. Eve has a different upper body (the mermaid’s) than Adam but her lower part is a male lower torso with large fig leaf. One printing detail struck me anew: I have been wondering about whether Adam and Eve/mermaid have belly buttons. Here, I see that the dot on Eve and the mermaid is higher up on the figure than on Adam. His is below the fold, due to the fold presumably. In a previous blog post about the Sayer printing of Adam and Eve/mermaid as separate sheets, I showed that in each case there are belly buttons. I could not remember if the woodcut versions had them, but this question has now been answered regarding the Alsop print!
Carefully touching the paper, it feels crisp and not flimsy. It is definitely in better condition than the other contemporary woodblock prints, later engraved ones published in the 18th century and the Metamorphosis published through the 19th century. I am intrigued by the quality of the paper – quite sturdy – and wonder if this because it was printed as a broadside? Is the condition due to being pressed between pages of a heavy volume for hundreds of years? And of course, restricted is essential. Due to the pristine condition, at first glance, it could be a facsimile!
It is a privilege to engage with an authentic piece of history created by a person who lived through the war and was impacted by it, and who carefully collected print materials to document the war while it was occurring. It is a tiny segment of a huge eclectic resource.
I am struck by how perfect it is. Since the sheet has not been cut. We do not know if it was ever published. We do not know if it was ever played with. The presentation in the volume is only partly movable in that you can only lift the top block and bottom blocks to the text. We can only imagine the full transformations. Yet the pristine state of the artifact – pale, clean with the date of acquisition written down by Thomason himself – is full of latent action as it waits be played with.
I am fascinated by the “Beginning, Progress and End of man” for several reasons: its potential movability and playability are important to the history of interactive paper media. I am intrigued by the world turned upside down function which educates present day people about 17th century British “cheap” print culture. Its role as the first known English turn-up sheet has given it a status as an ur-text in the field of movable books.
Note 1: As I discuss in subsequent posts, this interest was re-ignited by a recent trip to London and Cambridge where I learned about and engaged with a broad variety of moveable books from different periods (17th century to 21st century), in different materials and modes (paper, and remediated into digital), directed towards different audiences (children, adult) and created in different cultures (British, Japanese). These items were in different formats: only some were typical movable (mechanical) books; most were not.
Note 2: Please see the important work by Professor Jason Peacey and Professor Michael Mendle published in a special issue of the Electronic British Library Journal on the Thomason Tracts, especially Peacey’s “Collecting Revolution: George Thomason and the ‘Thomason Tracts.’”