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Summaries
Theo Clemens With our gratitude to the censor. The informational value of traces of precensorship in Low Countries Catholic printed works
This contribution is about the traces of more than 400 years of precensorship practices in the Roman Catholic Church and their value as a bookhistorically relevant source for everyone who is interested in the production as well as in the distribution and the consumption of products of the printing press that are related to religion and Church. After a more general demonstration of the usefulness of the usual components of the traces of precensorship, the approbation is described formally as a text and a signature. It is an extraneous text in a text - like an introduction by someone else than the author - that contains an evaluative content, even when it is if it were abbreviated to an absolute minimum. Moreover, mostly its author signs his text mentioning place and date of his assessment. Especially this signature part of an approbation, reduced to the first four letters of the name, the eight digits of the date and again the first four letters of the place, could be a highly relevant bibliographical tool. Such a tool could work as a genetic code, that can create order in the chaos of often reissued texts as the Imitation of Christ or other popular religious books. At least as far as prayer books are concerned, the tool would prove to be more important than the title. Therefore, the approbation should be a standard part of cataloguing work. To demonstrate this point a first draft of an approbation register will be placed on the website of the Ruusbroec Society (University of Antwerp) as a supplement to this article.
W.C.M. Wüstefeld Books, letters, charters and documents. The Van Sypesteyn collection
Sypesteyn Castle in Loosdrecht is a small castle with a fine collection of the arts and applied arts. It is a so-called house-museum situated in a beautiful garden in Loosdrecht, southeast of Amsterdam, and northwest of Utrecht. It is relatively unknown, as the collections are not well publicized. In 1902 the Dutch nobleman ‘jonkheer’ Catharinus Henri Cornelis Ascanius Van Sypesteyn (1857-1937) established the Van Sypesteyn Foundation. In this, Van Sypesteyn, an enthusiastic private collector, wished to honour the Van Sypesteyn family, of which he was the last male descendant. By rebuilding the former Sypesteyn castle, he also created a museum to display his private and family collections to the public.
Although the Van Sypesteyn family claims to originate from the mediaeval noble house of the same name, this cannot be documented. The family line of the last Van Sypesteyn can be traced back to the early sixteenth century. As well-to-do merchants, the family adopted aristocratic manners during the seventeenth century. And like many other patrician families of that time, they spent great fortunes on stately homes as well as on the arts.
The earliest collecting habits in the family are best illustrated by Cornelis Ascanius iv (1694-1744), mayor of Haarlem. He owned a considerable collection of paintings, coins, books, manuscripts and letters.
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Cornelis Ascanius iv represented the typical eighteenth-century collector-connoisseur, his collecting and involvement in other cultural activities demonstrating excellent taste and good judgment. His son, Cornelis Ascanius v (1722-1783), was also an important patron of the arts. This co-founder of the well-known Teyler Foundation in Haarlem, which promoted the arts and sciences by means of a public museum, was deeply influenced by the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment. Upon the deaths of these collectioners, in 1744 and 1783, large auctions were organized, but many important items were rebought and preserved in the family until 1825. In that year the collections of letters, alba amicorum and charters were sold at Sotheby's in London. This paper offers an overview of the history of the former collections.
IJnte Botke en Gerda C. Huisman The publisher makes the man. The printed works (1698-1716) of Wibrandus de Geest, painter, writer and actor
Wibrandus de Geest, grandson of the famous Frisian portrait painter Wybrand de Geest, was known as a painter, an actor and a writer. He represents the fourth generation of the De Geest family who for over a century contributed to the cultural life in the city of Leeuwarden, residence of the Frisian stadholders. None of Wibrandus's paintings survive, however, nor are his performances as an actor described. Only his printed work, consisting of books on art and sculpture, plays, and poetry, offers the possibility to grasp some understanding of his education and erudition, his artistic ambitions and those of his relatives, and the people they associated with. Wibrandus de Geest's most influential book is Het kabinet der statuen, illustrating a large selection of classical statues in Rome and explaining their importance for contemporary art and artists.
Gerrit Verhoeven A nobleman on Grand Tour. Microhistory based on the travel journey of Corneille van den Branden, lord of Reet (ca. 1713-1715)
In this article some Dutch and Brabantine travel journals are used to reveal the early modern reading habits during a Grand Tour. Reading was a common practice among travellers and served a functional goal. During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries those reading habits seem to change. Travellers read more and more guidebooks and travelogues. Oral and visual information gained in strength, complementing bookish wisdom. From a rather passive reading strategy, where reading served to affirm or to amplify fixed opinions, travellers evolved a more active, critical reading culture. While travellers in the seventeenth century seemed to use their reading-matters to trace the fixed itineraries or to visit the traditional destinations, eighteenth-century travellers apparently read to compose an individual or personal travel plan.
Lesley Monfils Willem Bilderdijk's début, published in seperate sheets: Mijn verlustiging (1779). A bibliographical oddity
Mijn verlustiging (‘My enjoyment’), a collection of erotic verse by the Dutch poet Willem Bilderdijk (1756-1831), was first published anonymously in 1779 as a private octavo edition in an estimated print run of fifteen copies. In 1781 a second revised and expanded edition of this poetical début was published commercially, still without the author's name.
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The private ‘edition’ of Mijn verlustiging is remarkable for the fact that it does not come as a well described edition in a strictly bibliographical sense. Presumably, a corpus of poems was printed on separate sheets in a print run of fifteen copies. From this corpus Bilderdijk compiled at least fourteen individual volumes of verse, varying in size from 26 to 44 folia, each of them sharing at least two folia of preliminaries, including the title page. At a closer look, these volumes divide into five groups according to their extent and the order of the contents. Thus, at present thirteen copies of the first ‘edition’ of Mijn verlustiging (Amsterdam, 1779) are known, preserved in libraries in The Netherlands, Belgium and France. Moreover, a considerable amount of separate folia belonging to the corpus has survived, presumably distributed individually by Bilderdijk amongst acquaintances.
Since this research was done as part of the compilation of an analytical bibliography of the works of Willem Bilderdijk (to be published this year in commemoration of the poet's 250th birthday), the question arose how to describe this ‘proto edition’ of Mijn verlustiging in an accurate but still comprehensible way. To describe the five groups as five variant states or issues of one ‘ideal (though not extant) copy’ would be defendable, but it would be a forced decision at the same time, especially since some of the sheets consist of variant states from the same type themselves. This would result in an awkward description of one ‘ideal copy’ represented by individual copies/states, some of them comprising states within states. Therefore, it has been decided to take each (group of) sheets as a bibliographical unit, resulting in fifteen separately numbered descriptions which, taken as a whole, form the 1779 ‘edition’ of Mijn verlustiging. Accordingly, the collation of the thirteen individual volumes will be given in an appendix.
In total 482 folia have been found amongst the thirteen volumes of Mijn verlustiging, while 23 separate folia of the corpus have been located so far. From contemporary sources a fourteenth volume, not yet found, is known to have existed. This was sent to the classical scholar Meinard Tydeman by Bilderdijk's fellow poet Rhijnvis Feith acting as an intermediary. Tydeman's meticulous annotations of this volume have survived, indicating that it consisted of at most 38 folia and differing in content from the copies of that length known so far. Furthermore, from internal evidence a hypothetical fifteenth volume can be inferred. These findings suggest that the total output of Mijn verlustiging (1779) consisted of 15 × 44 = 660 folia (= 82,5 sheets). The fact that the best part of a complete edition has been preserved, underscores the fact that Willem Bilderdijk was one of the most collected authors of his generation.
Louis Saalmink By promotion of its distribution. The popularity of the Dutch poets for children Hieronymus van Alphen, J.J.A. Goeverneur and J.P. Heije
In the fourth quarter of the eighteenth century Hieronymus van Alphen was the first Dutch poet writing especially for children. His poems for children were often reprinted in editions with or without illustrations. From 1835 on J.J.A. Goeverneur and J.P. Heije started to publish their poetry for children. Their work was often reprinted too and Goeverneur had a huge production of translations and adaptations as well. In 1858 P.A. de Génestet published a paper about poetry for children, in which he criticized Van Alphen as being too old-fashioned and not childlike enough. Later on it was understood that Van Alphen's poetry should not be judged by the standards of the second half of the nineteenth century. Furthermore it can be shown that the work of Goeverneur and Heije also had its imperfections. The books of all three ended up in the remaindershops but Van Alphen's poetry was available well into the twentieth century, longer than Goeverneur's and Heije's.
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Louis Ph. Sloos Poetry and novels for a soldier-king. The library of Louis Napoleon
During his reign as king of Holland, 1806-1810, Louis Napoleon (Ajaccio 1778-Livorno 1846), brother of the Napoleon Bonaparte, disposed of a residential library in his Royal Palace in Amsterdam. Based on the original handwritten catalogue, 235 surviving volumes from this library, literature on the collection and even library furniture, it is possible to reconstruc this library. It consisted of c. 1650 books, plans, maps and portfolios with plates. Poetry, novels, and miscellaneous works form the second largest section. Remarkably, the language of the catalogue is Dutch, and the books in Dutch were placed in the first of the fourteen bookcases. From Louis' erudition, the contents and arrangement of his library, the Dutch books he took with him after his abdication, the books he wrote himself (including a large amount of poetry), and the private library he collected after 1810, we conclude that king Louis greatly appreciated his Amsterdam library which he considered as having more than a purely formal function.
Harry van der Laan Publishing in the nineteenth century. On the deliveries from Dutch publishers to the bookstore Van Benthem and Jutting in 1809, 1850 and 1890
In the nineteenth century Dutch publishing evolved into a concentrated and specialized branch within the booktrade. While at first most booksellers were also publishers, in 1880 the portion of bookseller-publishers declined to approximately one third of all booksellers. About 15% of these publishers were responsible for the output of more then half of the titles released in that year. Next to the bibliographic approach this development can also be shown by analyzing the backend of the booktrade: the way the retail of books evolved. The transactions in 1809, 1850 and 1890 between Dutch publishers and the bookshop Van Benthem and Jutting in Middelburg - the main regional bookshop and the only one whose administration, covering the whole nineteenth century, survived- clearly show an even stronger pattern of specialization within the Dutch publishing industry.
By adding up the worth of each delivery a vivid image emerges of the scale of publishing. The total number of correspondents and cities that took part in the network of book trade with Van Benthem and Jutting expanded. In the first half of the century the medium-sized publishers grew in number and in the second half mostly very small publishers joined his network. The most significant development, however, was that in the course of the nineteenth century the dominance of publishers who delivered goods worth more than f 200 to Van Benthem and Jutting grew strongly. In 1890 therefore about 5% of all booksellers represented almost 84% of the value of deliveries to Van Benthem and Jutting. The market for books and journals became dominated by a relatively small group of publishers and the rich variety of competing bookseller-publishers that had populated cities around 1850 made way for a small group of larger firms that were responsible for the main output of the Dutch booktrade.
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Ton Bolland From retailer to publisher. The publishing list of Henricus Höveker 1833-1843
This article sketches the life and times of the Amsterdam bookseller and publisher Henricus Höveker (1807-1889). The emphasis lies on the first ten years of the firm, which was founded in 1833. As a member of the Dutch Reformed Church and, between 1836 and 1840, of the Amsterdam Christian Separatist Congregation, Höveker published a significant number of works relating to these two religious movements. Several well-known contemporary Dutch authors linked to the two movements, such as H.P. Scholte, J. ter Borg, W. Bilderdijk, H. de Cock and A.M.C. van Halle, were published by him. In 1837 he also started the journal De reformatie (The Reformation), an important periodical in Dutch Reformed circles.
At some point Höveker was apparently confronted with censorship, preventing him from publishing the Dutch translation of Abraham Capadoce's famous Conversion (Neuchâtel 1837).
Jos A.A.M. Biemans The Dutch church historian Willem Moll (1812-1879) as a collector of Middle Dutch Manuscripts. On codicochirurgy and the recenstruction of form
Book-historical research has found that the well-known Dutch church historian professor Willem Moll (1812-1879) divided up some of the medieval manuscripts that he had acquired at auctions into new entities. Each of these booklets received its own binding. Therefore it is difficult, not to say impossible, to trace these manuscripts in the auction catalogues. These insights formed the startingpoint in reconstructing the original manuscripts, for the greater part by using palaeographical and codicological evidence. The archeology of the medieval book once again turns out to be a fascinating discipline.
Sjoerd van Faassen P.N. van Eyck and the design of his prose collection Opgang (1918)
P.N. van Eyck (1887-1954) was both a poet and a critic. In 1910 he became involved with the bibliophile publishing house De Zilverdistel. Van Eyck prided himself on his broad knowledge in the area of book design. However, his ‘knowledge’ was disputed by contemporaries such as Jan van Krimpen. Van Eyck was closely involved with the design of his prose collection Opgang (1918), which was published by the Rotterdam publisher W.L. & J. Brusse, famous for their beautiful editions. Comparing the final results of the book with other contemporary publications by Brusse, one wonders whether Van Eyck's interventions added much to the design of the book. Another matter are the principles which guided Van Eyck in his book designing activities. On the basis of his correspondence and other writings we can conclude that he hardly expresses any views on the subject. The rather obscure typographical instructions in his correspondence with Brusse were often confusing to the publisher. Clearly, as far as the design of the book is concerned, Opgang is different from other Brusse publications, but it is not clear to what extent this was the result of Van Eyck's rather than Brusse's involvement.
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