Saturday with Gutenberg

"One saith this booke is too long: another, too short: the third, of due length; and for fine phrase and style, the like [of] that booke was not made a great while. It is all lies, said another; the booke is starke naught."
000000000Choice of Change; 1585. 4to., sign. N. i.

There are quite a few books about books – collecting and organizing them – on Gutenberg. This, I’m sure, as the people who scan books for the project all are booklovers and many of them probably collect old books. “Bibliomania; or Book-Madness, A Bibliographical Romance” by Thomas Frognall Dibdin is an extensive book with as much to read in the footnotes as in the text. And at least for me, it is essential to read the footnotes to understand what it all is about.

Transcriber's Notes
Thomas Frognall Dibdin's Bibliomania was originally published in 1809 and was re-issued in several editions, including one published by Chatto & Windus in 1876. This e-book was prepared from a reprint of the 1876 edition, published by Thoemmes Press and Kinokuniya Company Ltd. in 1997. Where the reprint was unclear, the transcriber consulted the actual 1876 edition. All color images were scanned from the 1876 edition.

I am the firste fole of all the hole navy
To kepe the pompe, the helme, and eke the sayle:
For this is my mynde, this one pleasoure have I—
Of bokes to haue great plenty and aparayle.
I take no wysdome by them: nor yet avayle
Nor them perceyve nat: And then I them despyse.
Thus am I a foole, and all that serue that guyse.
000000Shyp of Folys, &c., Pynson's edit., 1509, fol.


I think this photo was what caught my interest when I first looked at this book. This is a man who knows his own value – and it isn’t the man who wrote the book as I first thought. No, the author has dedicated the book to “The Right Hon. Lord Stanley, K.C.V.O., C.B., M.P.”

The King's Post
Being a volume of historical facts relating tothe Posts, Mail Coaches, Coach Roads,and Railway Mail Services of andconnected with the AncientCity of Bristol from 1580to the presenttime.
BY
R.C. TOMBS, I.S.O.
Ex-Controller of the London Postal Service, and late Surveyor-Postmaster of Bristol;Author of "The London Postal Service of To-day""Visitors' Handbook to General Post Office, London""The Bristol Royal Mail."TO
THE RIGHT HON. LORD STANLEY,
K.C.V.O., C.B., M.P.,
HIS MAJESTY'S POSTMASTER-GENERAL,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
AS A TESTIMONY OF HIGH
APPRECIATION OF HIS DEVOTION
TO THE PUBLIC SERVICE AT
HOME AND ABROAD,
BY
HIS FAITHFUL SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.

I have to admit that I haven’t read much of it – I have this childish habit of looking at the pictures and read a bit here and there when an illustration catch my eye.

Like this snippet about the stamping machine:
Another new feature in Post Office development is the use of Stamping Machines for the rapid obliteration of the postage stamps and for the impression of the day's date on letters. Quite recently a machine of the kind has been introduced into the Bristol Post Office. The machine, which is of modern invention, goes by the name of the "Columbia" Cancelling Machine, and is manufactured by the Columbia Postal Supply Company, of Silver Creek, New York, U.S.A. It is said to be in use in many Post Offices in the large towns of America and other countries. The public will no doubt have noticed the new cancelling marks on the postage stamps, as the die and long horizontal lines are very striking. The cancelling and date marking operation is performed at the rate of 400 or 500 letters per minute. The motor power of the machine is electricity.

Another kind of books I can’t resist are those with instructions for children (or in this case teachers) how to make things.
This book by Virginia McGaw from 1901 has plenty of instructions for everything from cord construction

to paper and wood construction

and basketry

The last chapter is about the school garden – both for country and city children

More about gardening and construction can be found in “The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming” by Ellen Eddy Shaw from 1911. It is a story about children who form a garden club. There are suggestions for appropriate works for both girls and boys – forget about treating all kids as kids, not boys and girls.

Boys build the coldframes while the girls make envelopes to put the seeds in.