Tag Archives: The Beginning progress and end of man

T is for Turn-Up Book

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By Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

I recently collaborated with Jacquelyn Sundberg, outreach librarian in special collections at McGill University, on a blog post about turn-up books:

T is for Turn-up Book

This post pans back from the focus on “The Beginning, Progress and End of Man” as 17th and 18th century religious turn-ups by putting them in the context of printing history. I wrote the text and Jacquelyn enlivened it with a video (for which she did the voiceover); there is also a making activity at the end where one can make one’s own turn-up book!

First impressions: Seeing the Sayer etched edition of The Beginning, Progress and End of Man circa 1767 

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By Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

In this blog post I recount a modest adventure in research that involved travelling back to one of my favorite cities, discovering a “new” library (Wellcome Collection) and visiting an old library (the British Library). To my joy they are both on the same street in London! The purpose of my trip was to look at and engage with an early harlequinade published by Robert Sayer on Sept 15, 1767 and based on the 4-part “Beginning, Progress and End of man” first published in 1650 by Bernard Alsop and held in the British Library. This trip came about due to an email from the noted collector of movable books, Ian Alcock.  He informed me that my comment in Interactive Books (2018) stated that while the turn-up was listed in Sayer and Bennett’s catalogue of 1775 as number one there was no known copy (based on classic research by Percy Muir 1969 and more recent work by Eric Johnson 2009). Mr. Alcock informed me otherwise.

The Beginning, Progress and End of Man is important in relation to the history of the turn-up book format. The work is listed in the catalog (ca. 1767) of London publisher, print, and mapmaker Robert Sayer with the title Adam and Eve, though no known surviving copy exists (Muir 1969, 210; Johnson 2009, xviii). As a result, as soon as I had some time while still on the ‘right side of the pond’ I popped over to London to check it out at The Wellcome. My project was to examine the Sayer edition, the Alsop edition if possible, and look again at Sayer and Bennett’s Catalogue of 1775 to see again the entry for the turn-up.

My questions are:

  • What is the relation between the 1650 edition in the BL and this?
  • What is the effect of the kind of illustrations used in both?
  • Was the Sayer edition ever published?
  • Are there other etched versions of the turn-up published before the Sayer edition?

Since access to the Alsop edition was not possible due to the lasting consequences of the cyber-attack the British Library suffered last fall, I am using images on the images page of my website that I obtained previously from them (see https://sites.psu.edu/play/image-gallery/1650-british/)

I was able however to look at the Sayer and Bennett catalogue and two Sayer harlequinades bound together.

Sayer and Bennett’s Catalogue of 1775 (title page and interior)The Sayer and Bennett catalogue of 1775 title pageThe Sayer and Bennett catalogue of 1775 interior page

Other Sayer harlequinadesView of spine of two Sayer harlequinades bound together.Interior two page spread of the Sayer harlequinades

My focus here is on the first two questions since to my knowledge the Sayer edition is the first etched edition. As I have discussed elsewhere, I have previously focused on early editions with woodcuts and comparing them with one another. The 1650 text printed by B. Alsop was enlarged into a five-part turn-up and both the words and images reworked by E. Alsop in 1654. There is a 1688/89 edition at The Bodleian Library and an undated 17th century edition held at the Penn State University Libraries (2018, 2023). Regarding the four-part turn-up, there are numerous editions published in America using the title Metamorphosis, or a transformation of pictures: with poetical explanations for the amusement of children. I do not know if the Sayer version is the earliest engraved text but know there are ones published shortly after (e.g. Martin 1802).

Since I am not an expert in early printing techniques my focus is impressionistic: how my perception of a familiar text changes with the mode of illustration. The four-part Sayer version is working from the same basic text as Alsop but with engraved illustrations and new verse; the premise and order of episodes are the same. There is a similarity between the Alsop and Sayer turn-ups materially. Both are uncoloured and there are strict limitations in terms of interactivity. The Alsop 1650 text is attached to a page in a volume of the Thomason tracts. It has uncut flaps so the two sections can only be moved as blocks of paper.

The limitations of the Sayer 1767 edition are different. It is presented as two uncut sheets so has not been assembled. The lines for cutting the images into two are present occurring in the mid sections of the characters. I was able to view the two sheets side by side or one above the other but not able to engage with the turn-up movement at all. In neither case do we know who the author of the verse is or the illustrator. First encountering the artifacts, I experienced a “shock” of the unfamiliar, when a familiar text turns into a new one due to the engraved illustrations. These remediate the bimodal text. Below I briefly describe the text based on my notes and share my general impressions and questions.  In a later blog post I will focus on comparing the Adam and Eve/Mermaid images since this is what I have worked on before with the Alsop editions.

Images of the Alsop edition:

Alsop edition, Adam view

Alsop edition, Eve view

Images of the Sayer edition

Two pages side by side of the Sayer edition.

Close up of the Adam view from the Sayer edition.

 

Part one: Brief description with ponderings

The turn-up is not cut and held in two separate folders. The artifacts have no titles; one is catalogued under a short description “Adam holding a flower; a lion; a youth holding a sword; a rich man with money in his hands. Engraving, 1767,” and the other under “Eve combined with a mermaid; a griffon combined with an eagle holding an infant between its claws; a purse combined with a heart; a skeleton holding an hourglass and an arrow. Engraving, ca. 1757.”

The Wellcome Library has all the images available freely and I have downloaded them. Here are the links. They are listed separately:

For Adam https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dsa4r8n7
For Eve https://wellcomecollection.org/works/t9c35jc2/images?id=g4hgbvwv

The digital images are very helpful, but as always seeing and engaging with the artifact as opposed to the image is a completely different experience.  As I described and transcribed the text I had many questions. Was the turn-up never cut? Was it an imperfect copy -since there are some blurring and mistakes and lines visible?  Was the turn-up ever printed? If so, why are there apparently no other copies?

These are a few of my observations.

While the artifact has no title, the date of publication is specific: “Publish’d according to Act of Parliament Sept 15th, 1767.” This accords with the undated entry in the 1775 Sayer and Bennett catalogue (see image above).

In terms of the tactile experience, the paper is aged to light tan. It is smooth to touch and feels thickish, substantial. It is difficult to judge the size of the images — I estimate 6 ½” x 3″ per section? The first thing that strikes me visually is the apparently large size of the figures; is it because they are uncut? In the verse the directions “turn up” or “turn down” are inserted into the quatrain either in the last line for the first or in the second line for the second. Underneath is the “moral.”

Looking across both sheets I observe that each of the human figures are elegantly posed and ready to move: on the first sheet the fit Adam has one hand on his hip, holds a flower out in the other, with foot slightly raised as if he is to take a dance step; the young man holding a sword is in a position ready to fence, and the mature man holds a money bag in one hand while gazing down at a money bag for a larger amount cradled like an infant in his other arm.

On the second sheet the well-endowed Eve has well-developed upper body muscles and a powerful, coiling tail, and the skeleton is posed in a cross-feet dance position. Compared to the woodcut versions, all the humanoid figures are elegant and presented in theatrical poses. The images are not caricatures. I am struck by the sophisticated presentation of the adult male figures for they both stand gracefully in relaxed but telling poses. The pose of the skeleton elegantly mirrors that of Adam.

The animal figures are in motion: the lion-man is walking gazing at the viewer, and the eagle is in midflight holding a baby by its claws and is in profile. The emblematic objects, the top of the heart and the heart are oversized and could be balloons while the head of the lion-man looks like a costume in a pantomime. The mermaid would be an effective transformation trick.

These aspects and the implied motion in the stances of all the figures makes me think of a pantomime performance — a harlequinade. Was there a stage harlequinade called Adam & Eve & etc.?

One key similarity with the woodcut editions is there is no figure of Eve. This is fascinating to me. Since I have done some work with conservators with reproduction woodblocks of the Deacon edition at the Bodleian, I realized when I did the printing exercise that there was no Eve block. There are only two: Adam and the mermaid (see https://sites.psu.edu/learningasplaying/2018/02/16/mermaid-at-the-centre/). Realizing this was revolutionary to my understanding of the text. Here I am in a quandary. Again, there is no Eve, just Adam and the mermaid. How was she formed by the etched illustrations? How was the Sayer turn-up assembled? The only clue is looking at the mid-body lines on both sheets indicating where they were to be cut. Focusing on how the turn-up might have been assembled and tackling the mystery of the absent Eve will be the aim of a follow-up blog.

[To be continued]

Material matters: Back to The Beginning, Progress and End of Man

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Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

This blog returns to the 17th century turn-up book, The Beginning, Progress and End Of Man held in Penn State Library Special Collections. I have long been fascinated by it for several reasons: its design as an interactive object, its broad range of implied reader-viewer-player including adult and child, semiliterate and literate, and its status as cheap print like the ballads, broadsides and chapbooks discussed by Tessa Watt (1991). I have focused on the design affordances and the visual-textual interactive engagements they invite. What fascinates me is the playful possibilities of the bi-modal text since an interactor may lift the flaps up and down according to the directions or against the “grain” of the conventional words. An interactor may also play with the accordion folds and arrange the panels differently.

What I never really considered was the paper and its qualities. My first engagements were in restricted conditions such as being attached to a large volume (1650,1688/9). Many times I work with paper facsimiles or digital copies. I have been able to learn about the interactivity-which is marvelous. But I never really thought about the substrate and how this impacts the interactivity.  After COVID closures finished and we are working with the items again, I am re-encountering the turn-up anew.

I have been reading up a bit on papermaking (Hunter, 1947), and fortunate to have engaged in a paper making session with Bill Minter. I also listen to lectures by experts, most recently by Professor Timothy Barrett of the Center for the Book at the University of  Iowa. In his fascinating lecture, he talked about the qualities of 15th century paper and also about paper that was not considered “good” quality. During the chat session after his lecture, he discussed the importance of all hand-made paper and how non-quality paper expanded the readership of different classes and ages. Emboldened by Dr. Barrett’s lecture, I had a question about 17th century cheap paper and was fortunate to have a zoom session with him. I asked about 17th century paper and I wondered if the affordances of the substrate provide fluidity to the strip and turnable flaps. I also explained I was intrigued by the color (which appears light tan) and what that might signify. Is this due to its age? Was this paper more durable? Was it whitened somehow when published? Or was it always not white?

I also consulted Philip Gaskell’s A New Introduction to Bibliography, 2nd edition (1972), where he talks about English hand-made paper. He writes that there was little English-made white paper in the mid-17th century so it was imported from abroad. Up to 1670, the paper English mills produced was brown and connected to the fact that English people wore mainly wool so there was a lack of linen rags (Gaskell, 60).

On the EBBA project site, there is an article called “Other Common Papers: Papermaking and Ballad Sheet Sizes” by Gerald Egan and Eric Nebeker (2007). They refer to Alfred Shorter who describes how “coarser rags, netting, cordage, canvas, bagging, and other materials of flax and hemp [were used] in the manufacture of brown and other common papers” (1971, 14; emphasis added). Egan and Nebeker continue, “Brown papers were used, as today, for wrapping objects and for other non-print purposes.” At the end they speculate about what paper was used for the cheapest of print products, broadsides: “To meet the needs of the lowest end of the print market, the broadside ballad market, papermakers probably used some combination of linen and the ‘coarser rags, netting, cordage, canvas, bagging, and other materials of flax and hemp’ that Shorter describes, in order to produce the cheapest “white” paper that was suitable for print.”

I have looked at Beginning, Progress and End of Man using a light and magnifier and noticed chain lines wires lines. It would be fascinating to examine the turn-up more closely to see if we can determine the paper’s original colour, make-up, and composition.

Picture of the center of Beginning, Progress, and End of Man turn-up book as seen through a magnifying glass.

References

  1. Egan, Gerald and Eric Nebeker (2007). “Other Common Papers: Papermaking and Ballad Sheet Sizes.” https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/page/papermaking
  2. Gaskell, Philip. A New Introduction to Bibliography 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972.
  3. Hunter, Dard. Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft. New York: Dover, 1978.
  4. Shorter, Alfred Henry. Paper Making in the British Isles: An Historical and Geographical Study. Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1971.
  5. Watt, Tessa. Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991.

 

Practicing on the Washington Press: printing two blocks of the Beginning, Progress and End of Man (1688/89) based on photographs of the version at the Bodleian library; or the trouble with Eve

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Jacqui Reid-Walsh

On February 11, 2022, I had a dynamic practice printing session with Bill Minter, Senior Book Conservator, at the Conservation Center of the Penn State University Libraries. We worked with images of a couple of blocks that I commissioned several years ago based on the Bodleian copy of the Beginning, Progress and End of Man.

Figure 1: Two printings of the lion block.

Bill first worked with the splendid lion block, quickly achieving a clear image of the lion (figure 1). Then we played with making impressions of the Eve/mermaid. Interestingly, looking at the Eve die block, it seems to have little definition in the top half of the figure – her face seems to have no etched lines and so looks indistinct (figure 2).

Figure 2: Impression of Eve/mermaid

Bill printed several impressions and experimented with adjusting the amount of ink and different kinds of pressure. There were small changes in the image, but there seemed to be a problem with the die because some low areas were not printing. This was corrected by adding a simple piece of tape to raise the paper on the tympan – printers call this “makeready.” This revealed fine details on the die that were previously not visible. He also experimented with using different types of paper: regular paper, Japanese paper, and then “Stonehenge” paper made by the Rising Paper Co. which is 100% cotton and used for printmaking. The final version splendidly shows the fine details (figures 3a, 3b)! After all of the use, though, Eve fell off the wooden block! Bill corrected some of the trouble by re-attaching the die with a solid layer of the double-sided tape and put her back together again (figure 4).

Figure 3a and 3b: The Eve/mermaid impressions on different paper.

Figure 4: Making adjustments to the image block.

One photo shows me pulling the handle of the Washington Press, an elegant machine (figure 5). Bill used the tympan and frisket. When I asked about the history of the press, he said it was built in 1839 just before the manufacturer (R. Hoe & Company) started to use their name across the front in about 1841-42.

Figure 5: Jacqui working the iron handpress.

The aim of this exercise was to see if we could do a project based on photographing the entire Beginning, Progress and the End of Man we have at Penn State. To my knowledge this is one of three versions housed in American academic libraries (the other two being Harvard and Princeton) and notably they are free-standing and therefore manipulatable objects. The one I worked with in England at the Bodleian Library is glued to the gutter of a large volume owned by the 17th-century collector Anthony Wood. My dream is to have the entire object photographed and blocks made of the entire set of images in the 5 panels.

Printing the entire turn-up book on rag paper on a hand press we could reconstruct how the images were printed and so understand the clarity and dynamism of the images. Significantly, using rag paper would demonstrate how the material of the turn-up enables the interactive design to be engaged with fully. In this way, we can gain insights in the how the 17th and 18th century interactors engaged with the turn-up book making, unmaking, and remaking the transformations. Perhaps this ease of manipulation was one reason why it was popular for hundreds of years on both sides of the Atlantic.

Is Paper Key to Interactivity?

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Jacqui Reid-Walsh

After languishing for a year and a half away from Special Collections at Penn State, I have been privileged to once again been able to schedule times through the fall semester to work with “my” cart of movable books again. Seeing them, touching them, and sitting with them has allowed me to connect with my passion for researching early movable books and to ask new questions. When I am sitting with the books, I feel like Rip Van Winkle who is slowly awaking from a deep stupor.

One turn-up book has transfixed me for a while: The Beginning, Progress and End of Man circa 1650. During the time away from libraries, I had only been looking at photographs of the turn-up. While important memory aids, they only give minimal information.  Previously, I had worked mainly with the paper facsimile.  Importantly, unlike a digital image, this allows an interactor to learn about the kinds of transformations in the turn-up through being able to engage with the object. However, the interactor seems to be the sole engine of the effects since the modern paper is stiff and inert.

What is important about encountering the original turn-up again is that I am able to work with both the original and the facsimile. To my joy I have been able to place the original and the facsimile beside each other so that I can touch the paper and examine the flaps of both. The different experiences I have had with the facsimile and the original has led me to explore the history of handmade paper in the West.

While an obvious subject to conservators and curators, studying the substrate of early movable books is a new angle for me since previously I focused on the affordances of the interactive components. My new approach takes my questions about affordances to the level of the material: what kind of paper is the early turn-up composed of? How does the material effect the movable components? How am I affected by engaging with the original versus a facsimile? What can I learn from studying the paper through touch or from sparingly using a light box to see any marks in the paper?

I am learning about paper in several ways: by consulting specialists like paper conservators, engaging with suggested key readings, and participating in an occasional paper-making session.  I am pleased that two conservators have agreed to consult with me: Katie Smith from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature at the University of Florida and Bill Minter from the Penn State University Libraries. This project is in its infancy but each new revelation is challenging me.

So, what have I learned so far?

The durability of the earlier artifacts stems from the strength of the rag paper. I wonder if the qualities of the rag paper and its innate affordances enable the transformations created with simple flaps that turn up and turn down to be so effective.

When I carefully touch the flaps, the paper feels soft and buttery. When I gently move the flaps, they are light and pliable and move beautifully. When I lift a flap up or down, it holds its place (so needs no weight). The transformations and mistransformations hold still so they can be engaged with. Similarly, when I turn the flaps back, they lightly stick together so two sets come down together! Since the paper seems to be an active agent, the impression of incipient or latent action in the woodblock figures is emphasized. The characters almost move on their own — the paper figures seem to possess their own vitality and enact the traditional “stages of man” life story stated by the words. The impression is that the paper and the human interactor are equal collaborators in creating the animation effect. This is the opposite effect to engaging with the facsimile.

Further questions stem from the qualities of the linen paper. For instance, could this be connected with the timeline of the harlequinade turn-up books? Could it be that the phenomenon of the turn-up book being later 17th and 18th century — then petering out — is linked to the change in paper and the shift to machine made paper?

Another stage in my project!