The Early Roxburghe Club 18121835

Shayne Husbands

Description

A new narrative of the formative years of the Roxburghe Club and early nineteenth-century antiquarian culture and its relationship to the emergent popularity and status of English vernacular literature.

The Roxburghe Club, founded in 1812, has an unbroken publishing history from 1814 to the present day. The Early Roxburghe Club 1812–1835 offers a new narrative for the formative years of the Roxburghe Club, for the ‘bibliomania’ of the Romantic period and for early nineteenth-century antiquarian culture and its relationship to the emergent popularity and status of English vernacular literature. By examining in detail the make-up and membership of the club, including its social and political affinities, this revised history of the first two decades of its existence offers both an alternative view of the early club and its significant contribution to the move between antiquarian and scholarly areas of influence in the study of English literature.

List of Figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Chapter 1. The Persistence Of Myth; Chapter 2: Scandal, Libel And Satire; Chapter 3. The Roxburghe Club and the Politics of Class; Chapter 4: Politics, Religion, Money; Chapter 5. Club Members And Their Book Collections; Chapter 6. The Passion For Print; Chapter 7. The Literary Works Of The Roxburghe Club Members; Chapter 8. The Club Editions; Chapter 9: The Legacies Of The Club; Conclusion; Appendix 1: The Club Membership 1812– 1835 177; Appendix 2: Roxburghe Club Editions 1812– 1835; Bibliography; Index.

Sujets

• 19th century
• Modern history
• Literary criticism
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 21 août 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9781783086924
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Early Roxburghe Club 1812–1835
The Early Roxburghe Club 1812–1835
Book Club Pioneers and the Advancement of English Literature
Shayne Husbands
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2017
by ANTHEM PRESS
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or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
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Copyright © Shayne Husbands 2017

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

A catalog record for this book has been requested.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-690-0 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-690-4 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.
CONTENTS
List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. The Persistence of Myth

2. Scandal, Libel and Satire

3. The Roxburghe Club and the Politics of Class

4. Politics, Religion, Money

5. Club Members and Their Book Collections

6. The Passion for Print

7. The Literary Works of the Roxburghe Club Members

8. The Club Editions

9. The Legacies of the Club

Conclusion

Appendix 1: The Club Membership 1812–1835
Appendix 2: Roxburghe Club Editions 1812–1835
Bibliography
Index
FIGURES
0.1 Thomas Frognall Dibdin by Henry Meyer after Henry Edridge. © National Portrait Gallery, London
1.1 Sir William Bolland by James Lonsdale. © National Portrait Gallery, London
6.1 The dedication pages from Volume I of Johnson’s Typographia
7.1 The Society of Antiquarians by Cruikshank. Reproduced by kind permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London
8.1 Caltha Poetarum . Reproduced by kind permission of the Bodleian Libraries, the University of Oxford, Roxburghe Club 2, 3rd Title Page
8.2 A Roxburghe Garland , ‘L’Envoy’. Reproduced by kind permission of the Bodleian Libraries, the University of Oxford, Roxburghe Club 12, p. 17
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My sincere gratitude is owed to Professor Helen Phillips for her unfailingly erudite guidance and support over what has proved to be a very long haul. I am indebted to her for her immense kindness and encouragement. Many thanks are also due to many other members of the School of English, Communication and Philosophy (ENCAP) at Cardiff University including Dr Rob Gossedge and Professor Ann Heilmann. I am grateful for the financial assistance offered by ENCAP which has contributed to research trips to Oxford, Cambridge and London.
Foremost among the many people outside of Cardiff University to whom I owe thanks are the Roxburghe Club for their generosity in allowing me access to their archive, and with especial thanks to Nicolas Barker and Dr John Martin Robinson for their patience in answering my queries. Thanks are also due to the many archivists and librarians who have assisted me, with especial mention owed to those of the Society of Antiquaries, John Rylands Library and Chatsworth House archives.
INTRODUCTION
The Roxburghe Club, a name well known to book collectors but often unfamiliar outside of their circles, was founded in 1812 and has enjoyed an unbroken record of private publishing to the present day. It was formed against the backdrop of bibliomania, that delirious period during which book prices soared beyond all expectations, creating a financial bubble that would eventually dissolve, taking with it more than one patrician fortune. Antiquarians, a group who were already often ridiculed for their perverse taste in old and forgotten works of literature, now suddenly gained far more ostentatious and objectionable facets to their dusty character by a display of conspicuous wealth and social prominence that confused the comfortable stereotypes. The Roxburghe Club was founded by a group of wealthy bibliophiles, led by the flamboyant bibliophile and bibliographer, Thomas Frognall Dibdin (see Figure 0.1 ). Sharing as they did an interest in the earliest printed books, the group wished to distribute among themselves reproductions of rare volumes published at their own expense. The print runs were normally small, and the volumes were usually made available only to members and occasionally to close friends. The membership is still small, but today the club publishes volumes for its members with an additional limited number for sale to the public. The modern incarnation of the Roxburghe Club is that of a respected printing society publishing highly collectable modern editions and facsimiles of rare and important texts from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth century, with high standards of scholarly editing and luxurious presentation. Posterity has tended, however, to view the early years of the Roxburghe Club and its founder members in a distinctly dismissive manner, sometimes with ridicule, often with belligerence, but seldom with open-minded serious enquiry. If one wishes to examine the Roxburghe Club and its long and complex connection with, and contributions to, the world of literature and the histories of editing and literary studies in Britain, it appears to be necessary to look almost anywhere but in British literary history for answers. The history of the club has been up to now almost entirely played out in the footnotes of books on other topics, which is a testament to the importance of many of the Roxburghe volumes, and yet explicit references to the club’s early years tend to be with an eye to its denigration as a group of gourmandizing, dilettante bibliomaniacs who published unscholarly editions of trivial works, only of value to other collectors as a consequence of their manufactured rarity. The result of what can be seen as this belittling yet surprisingly tenacious creation myth about the club has been to minimize and almost render invisible its serious and significant contributions in the early nineteenth century to the development of English literary studies, the formation of the history and canon of English literature, and also to the evolving practice and theory of editing and facsimile making in this period.

Figure 0.1 Thomas Frognall Dibdin by Henry Meyer after Henry Edridge. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Given the pioneering character of the Roxburghe editions during the club’s first decades and the importance of the debates and discussions undertaken under the club’s aegis at a period of crucial importance for European attitudes towards literature in the vernacular traditions, it may seem surprising that there has not to date been a thorough examination of this period of the club’s history. Perhaps that partly reflects a process of almost self-conscious disassociation between the academic study of the book and its antiquarian past with its taint of emotional rather than analytical response. This prejudice against the world of book collectors, enthusiasts and scholars of the early nineteenth century, perceived as still embedded in an age of romanticism, of antiquarianism, of amateurism and of unscientific approaches to editing by a later nineteenth-century, increasingly institutionalized, academic establishment, is, in the case of the Roxburghe Club’s activities exacerbated by the larger problem posed by the frequently repeated impression – the Roxburghe myth of origins – that the Roxburghe Club represented merely the hobby and extravagance of Regency aristocratic playboys, rather than a significant contribution to literary study and scholarly editing in early nineteenth-century Britain.
This book therefore looks at the period between 1812, when the club was founded, and 1835, when Viscount Clive became its second president, at which time the club began to change its methods and became more consistent and predictable in its organization. This foundational period was a rich and varied one which saw the club change and develop in important ways. It ends in what is in many ways a natural break in the club’s history, not least because thereafter a set of written rules was established rather than a loose set of what were essentially gentleman’s agreements. At this point too, an annual subscription of five guineas was introduced, with the intention of printing club editions as a jointly funded venture rather than as individually financed publications. Hitherto the books had been presented to the club by individual members at their own expense, and also without any interference from a club policy regarding the editing or presentation of the volumes. Consequent upon this creation of club funds it became necessary for the club to be answerable for those monies, and so for the first time a bank account was opened in the club name and a treasurer elected.
The period from 1833 onwards also signals the end of what Seymour de Ricci calls the ‘Dibdinian age’, which he considered culminated with the sale of Richard Heber’s vast collection. 1 Following the massive auctions of Heber’s books the market was saturated and prices were low . The great collectors who had followed Dibdin’s lead were already dead or had ceased in their headlong accumulation of books as a