The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (1921-2011)

home page with links (the download button is for free pdfs of each volume)

This may be the book with the most limited interest I've posted but couldn't resist.  The 21 volumes of this monumental dictionary took 90 years to compile - the story was covered by the BBC.  Every volume is available as a free download in case you want to try your hand at translating Gilgamesh or the seemingly endless Babylonian charm and spell texts.  (The "Assyrian" of the title is really what's now called Akkadian as explained in the volume 1 introduction.)  The authors followed the OED and included detailed examples of usage though in brief excerpts that can seem almost like a modernist poem, a rough shadow of Pound's Cantos perhaps.

     I could not be in Babylon to take the loyalty oath
         my soldiers drove the king of Mitanni from Nuhassi
     PN took away three "hand" oxen
         I dispatched the ten talents of copper on my own

Koren-bloemen

Constantijn Huygens  - Koren-bloemen (1672)

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A recent piece in the New York Times about an experimental book designer had her choose this as one of her favorite books.  "Every typographic experiment — what you think now is new — has already been done."  Which sounds fantastic - a kind of Tristram Shandy of book design.  The actual book, though, doesn't live up to that.  Yes, there are parallel columns and marginal text and footnotes and so on but not in profusion or any particularly imaginative way.  And 1672 seems pretty late to claim originality for any of this (though maybe I'm wrong about that).

Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) was a Dutch diplomat, poet and composer, probably better known now as the father of scientist Christiaan Huygens (the Huygens Principle, the centripetal force formula and many many others).  Very little of the elder Huygens' work has been translated into English (his early poetry was apparently French and Latin but when working in England he wrote in Dutch).  He wrote an early description of a Rembrandt painting and was close friends with Descartes.

Explanatory Notes of a Pack of Cavalier Playing Cards

Edmund Goldsmid - Explanatory Notes of a Pack of Cavalier Playing Cards (1886)

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Playing cards would not have occurred to me as a vehicle for political satire but this pamphlet describes one instance.  The reproduced cards are an attack--or at least slightly oh so slightly barbed remarks--on Cromwell and the Commonwealth, each with an illustration and caption.  The pamphlet explains the references, many being quite obscure so far after the events.  The main failing is that it has no background on the cards - when were they created and by whom?  Were there others like this?  Were they widely used?  Though the author identifies the cards as satire but I'd consider them more almost-straightforward political commentary.  There's little if any exaggeration to them and not much attempt at humor.  Or maybe I'm more accustomed to written satire and don't quite get this.

Edmund Goldsmid (1849-1890?) was a writer and bibliographer, probably Scottish.  His numerous works include Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry, Some Political Satires of the Seventeenth Century, The Political Songs of England and others.  He edited an astonishing number of reprints of old texts, so many in fact that different bibliographies list different works.  Some of the more interesting sounding editorial work includes History of the Devils of Loudun, Maistre's Journey Around My Room, The Massacre of Glencoe, The Secret Correspondence of Sir Robert Cecil with James VI. King of Scotland, and a major edition of Hakluyt's Principal Navigations.

And how could I omit the reprinted Lucina sine concubitu: a treatise humbly addressed to the Royal Society, in which it is proved, by most incontestable evidence, drawn from reason and practice, that a woman may conceive and be brought to bed, without any commerce with man?  This was actually a hoax written by a John Hill in the 18th century when rejected by the Royal Society for membership (at least according to a library record).

For such a prolific writer I can find little information about him - this isn't the first time I wish author notes weren't such a recent development.  I'm not even entirely sure about his dates.  1849 comes up in several sources.  1890 appears in only one but it seems to make him quite young for such a long list of works though as far as I can find none are dated after that.  He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an FSA which isn't a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries according to a helpful library assistant there who suggested maybe it means Society of Arts.  (I never heard back from the RHS but that was a long shot.)

The Book-Lover's Enchiridion

Alexander Ireland - The Book-Lover's Enchiridion (1882)

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"My object has been to present, in chronological order, the summed-up testimonies of the most notable Book-Lovers on the subject of Books, the the Habit and Love of Reading."  Starting with Solomon and Cicero and running up to then-current Stevenson, Andrew Lang and Austin Dobson, this book is certainly worth browsing if it sounds at all as if you'd like to browse it.  There are plenty of unfamiliar names and the majority are British, Scottish or Irish among the ones I recognize.  Still, it really is for just browsing since so many selections are about how wise reading can make you which gets a bit repetitious and is also provably not true (at least in and of itself).

The direct link is to an expanded fourth edition.  There was a fifth edition but at a quick glance it seemed much the same and this linked copy is the most readable.

Alexander Ireland (1810-1894) was a Scottish-born writer and journalist.  He wrote an early biography of Emerson and works about Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt and Scott.  He helped organize the Manchester Free Library.

The British Letter Writers

Robert Cochrane - The British Letter Writers (1882)

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From the editor who gave us the book in the last post is his follow up devoted to letters, which interested readers more than today even before the advent of email and texting.  (Simon Garfield's 2013 To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing is a nice overview and as a bonus has some wonderful WW2 letters from a British soldier to his wife that had been previously unpublished.)  This book has two sections, one of "familiar and domestic" and the other "historical, literary and descriptive".  The familiar names are because of some reason other than the letters, excepting Lord Chesterfield and possibly Lady Montagu.  The only real complaint I suppose is that the writers are generally represented by only a letter or two so they're pretty brief encounters.

The English Essayists

Robert Cochrane - The English Essayists (1880)

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An anthology starting with Francis Bacon and Ben Jonson going up to Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin.  Solid choices though the double-column format may make reading a bit tricky.  Essay titles can be amusing in their own right:  "Meditation Upon a Broomstick" (Swift), "The Talent of Secrecy" (Cowley), "The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers" (Lamb), "The Nobleness and Loveliness of Colour" (Ruskin).

Cochrane (dates unknown) was a literature specialist for the Chambers publishing company in Edinburgh and was an expert on the Border.  His other works include The British Letter Writers, Treasury of Modern Biography, Heroes of Invention and Discovery and The English Explorers.

Five Hundred Books for the Young

George E. Hardy - Five Hundred Books for the Young (1892)

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If there are any regular readers of this blog you will have noticed my weakness for reading lists.  Partly it's just finding new books but also a peculiar fascination with canon formation and changes in tastes.  Walter Scott, for instance, was once regarded as a major artist but now has mostly slipped into what might be called a liminal canon where works are read for historical interest or for pleasure (mostly in Scott's case for fans of historical fiction).

This particular book is an annotated list of titles appropriate for school libraries and according to the introduction at least partly compiled on what the young readers actually read rather than entirely a top-down selection.

It's divided by subject and then by level but I can't quite get these to fit current American school divisions.  "Sixth-Reader Grades" doesn't quite seem to be our current sixth grade since the books seem a bit more complex - though maybe it's basically the same and children were more accomplished readers then.  In history, for instance, there are Parkman's The Jesuits in North America, Creasy's Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, Irving's Knickerbocker's History of New York, a Life of John James Audubon and Roche's The Story of the Filibusters (which it's pretty safe to say is an imperialist adventure).

Rather than being simply a list there are annotations that provide some description for books now often forgotten and not always clear by their title.  Little Folks in Feather and Furs, for instance, is about animals while Frank Stockton's Personally Conducted is a travel book about Europe.  Surprising, to me at least, is that most of the fiction titles are still familiar (Verne, Dickens, Stowe, Cooper) even if Bulwer-Lytton and G.A. Henty are more specialized today.

George E. Hardy (1859-1897) was a native of New York City and later principal of Grammar School No. 82 (at age 26 the youngest person chosen for that position - no idea if that record was ever broken).  In 1894 he became chair of the English department at the College of the City of New York.  He served as president of the New York State Teachers' Association.