Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 15

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Summaries

Thijs Porck & Henk Porck, ‘Hoemen alle boucken bewaren sal om eewelic te duerene’ [‘How one shall preserve all books to last eternally’]. Eight guidelines for book conservation dating from 1527

As early as the Middle Ages, the preservation of books must have been a point of concern. Then, as well as now, bad storage conditions and carelessness had their effects on manuscripts and this must not have gone unnoticed to the medieval eye. To date, precious little is known about the medieval knowledge of potential threats to books and the kind of precautions medieval ‘bibliophiles’ took to overcome these threats. The little knowledge we do have stems from short manuscript colophons and notices in monastic rules, but these do not deal with the issues in any detail.

The (re-)discovery of an early sixteenth-century text with the ambitious title ‘hoemen alle boucken bewaren sal om eewelic te duerene’ [‘how one shall preserve all books to last eternally’] offers an opportunity to improve our understanding. The text survives in a manuscript from the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (National Library of the Netherlands) and includes eight specific regulations for the preservation of books.

This paper is a first attempt to clarify and interpret these eight rules in view of current knowledge in the field of book conservation. After a short introduction, the above mentioned text is treated within its manuscript context. Subsequently, the contents of the eight ‘guidelines for conservation’ are analyzed: how should they be interpreted, which physical features of the medieval book are elucidated and to what extent are they in agreement with the present-day guidelines for book conservation? An edition of the text is included at the end of the paper. For those interested in the history of the book, this study is an introduction into the problem of conservation; for those involved in the preservation of books, it provides an impression of the insights already present c. 500 years ago.

Johan Oosterman: The reader is always right. On nearly first hand reception of two early editions (Elckerlijc and Anna Bijns)

More often than known early printed books are covered with notes of early users. But despite stress on the study of reception of older literature, these traces of early users were seldom studied. Systematic inventories lack to a large extent and a more thorough overview is still to be written. Nevertheless the study of particular cases will help us to gain insight in the response of early readers. This paper discusses two cases from sixteenth century Antwerp. The first is one of the editions of the Dutch Elckerlijc (Everyman), printed around 1500 by Govaert Bac. It bears the traces of an early reader who was eager to improve the rhyme of this play. On the one hand his interventions show a great concern with the form of this text, while schol-

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ars very often presumed a sheer interest in its content. On the other hand it is clear many of the interventions show his misunderstanding of the peculiarities of the poetics of the late fifteenth century playwright. The second case includes two volumes with the poetry of Anna Bijns, a fierce anti-Lutheran catholic author. These poems were mainly written in the years 1521-1529 but after the iconoclasm of August 1566 an inhabitant of Antwerp gave expression to his great fear, and his sarcasm about the Calvinist iconoclasts.

Both cases show clearly that among the initial readers of literature we find a greater diversity in response than one might presume without the availability of such a tangible evidence of reception.

Kees Boterbloem, ‘Met een beschaafder Penne...’: De compositie van Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige reysen. Een geval van een vroegmoderne spookschrijver

In deze bijdrage wordt het auteurschap onderzocht van het boek Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige reysen, dat in 1676 bij de uitgeverscompagnons Jacob van Meurs en Johannes van Someren in Amsterdam verscheen. Dit zeer succesvolle boek (waarvan vele Nederlandse edities verschenen en dat snel vertaald werd in het Duits, Frans en Engels), een verslag van drie langdurige overzeese reizen, pretendeerde door ene Jan Janszoon Struys te zijn geschreven, maar bewijsstukken beschikbaar in Nederlandse archieven tonen aan dat het onwaarschijnlijk is dat de Noord-Hollandse zeilmaker Struys zelf dit werk heeft geschreven. Desalniettemin is het duidelijk dat vele van de avonturen die Struys in het boek beleeft niet uit de lucht gegrepen waren, maar gebaseerd op echte voorvallen uit het leven van Jan Struys.

De vragen die het artikel derhalve tracht te beantwoorden zijn wie de waarschijnlijke auteur van het boek is geweest, waarom zijn naam niet kon worden geadverteerd, en hoe het boek zo is gecomponeerd. Ofschoon het artikel betoogt dat er verscheidene kandidaten voor het schrijverschap aannemelijk lijken te zijn, zijn er zeer veel gegronde redenen om het werk toe te schrijven aan de toentertijd befaamde auteur Olfert Dapper, wiens pen een tijdlang scheen stilgevallen te zijn rond de tijd van de publicatie van Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige reysen.

De kwestie van de ontstaansgeschiedenis van het boek draagt bij tot onze kennis van de geschiedenis van het boek in Nederland in het algemeen, speciaal wat betreft het inzicht in het ondernemerschap en de operatie van de Nederlandse uitgeverswereld in de tweede helft van de zeventiende eeuw, toen de Republiek fungeerde als het centrum van de ‘République des Lettres’. Voorts besteedt het artikel aandacht aan de rol van patronagesystemen in de Gouden Eeuw, zonder welke Drie aanmerkelijke en seer rampspoedige reysen nooit zou zijn gepubliceerd.

Djoeke van Netten, University printers in the seventeenth century Dutch Republic

The first universities which were founded in the Dutch Republic at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century almost immediately appointed an official university printer. This article investigates their position and activities from a comparative point of view. This is a rare perspective since most of what is written about university printers forms part of the broader history of universities and aims at individual persons or institutions. The research is based on published archival materials and an analysis of the titles collected under the heading ‘academic texts’ in the Short Title Catalogue Netherlands (stcn). Academic texts are printed texts which originated in an academic context. Usually, these texts were orally

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presented or defended before or after they were printed (theses, dissertations, orations). The university printers received an agreed annual salary or a compensation per printed sheet. Only in a few cases did they hold a monopoly for printing academie texts, and never for the printing of books by professors. There are many differences between the university printers in the Dutch Republic, particularly between large, internationally well-established publishing houses such as Plantin, Elzevier, and Blaeu, for whom printing for a university was a welcome supplement to their other activities, and the relatively small printing houses in the Northern provinces and Brabant, which were largely dependent on the production for the institution for their survival. In all cases, the university printer was an indispensable intermediary in the production of academie output and therefore in the production of knowledge.

Goran Proot, Traces left by users on Jesuit theatre programmes in the Provincia Flandro-Belgica (1575-1773)

This article deals with the traces left by users (e.g., notes, remarks, corrections, numbers,...) on theatre programmes, that were distributed for the public of the theatrical productions by the pupils in the Jesuit colleges in the Provincia Flandro-Belgica (more or less nowadays Flanders, before 1773). The introduction gives a sketch of the colleges in this Jesuit province, the meaning of theatre within the school system and the importance of the printed theatre programmes for our knowledge of the theatrical performances. These traces on programmes are very divers. When they are inquired systematically, they can provide more information about the intensity of the theatrical practice at the colleges. First, the characteristics of the printed programmes are depicted and the evolution of the genre over a period of more than 150 years is discussed. It is made clear why only a few of the eldest programmes have survived, and how their specific use has made them to overcome the centuries. Second, handwritten messages from Jesuits to colleagues on the programmes are examined. This exercice calls into question the common hypotheses that the senders of programmes are to be identified as the authors of the anonymous school plays. Third, specific notes and numbers on the programmes help to reconstruct incomplete collections of theatre programmes that were brought together in the colleges of the Jesuits. By doing so, we become a clearer idea of the largeness of the different programmes that ever may have been produced, but from which the largest part has not survived.

Karen L. Bowen, De beeldvorming van de marskramer. Over visuele voorstellingen van marskramers en straatzangers in Nederland (1600-1850)

In de Nederlanden waren in de zeventiende eeuw visuele voorstellingen van marskramers en straatzangers in het algemeen erg negatief. Ze waren bedriegers met vaak waardeloze spulletjes. Tegen het begin van de negentiende eeuw was dit beeld, minstens in prentvorm, aanzienlijk aangepast en vaak gekoppeld aan een nieuwe boodschap dat zulk werk uitgevoerd op een eerlijke en ijverige manier, arme mensen de kans gaf hun dagelijks brood op een nette manier te verdienen. Maar hoe passen afbeeldingen van kramers met teksten, prenten en liederen in dit verhaal?

Dit artikel laat zien hoe voorstellingen van tekstverkopers in het algemeen positief waren, zelfs in de zeventiende eeuw toen de standaard beeldvorming veeleer negatief was. Afbeeldingen van liedjeszangers waren echter eerder negatief. Na een latere evolutie van het negatieve beeld van kramers werden liedjeszangers soms ook neutraler of zelfs positief geassocieerd met ontspannende activiteiten. Besproken wordt

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ook in hoeverre zulke afbeeldingen een ‘realistisch’ beeld geven van kramers met papieren goederen in de Nederlanden in de periode 1600-1850. Betoogd wordt dat de beste manier om een waar beeld van deze mensen en hun activiteiten te krijgen wordt gevormd door studies waarin verschillende soorten bronnen met elkaar vergeleken worden.

Erik Geleijns, Not printed in The Hague. Eighteenth-century books with The Hague as a false impressum

False imprints are a common phenomenon in the eighteenth century: some 400 books from that century can be identified that have the name of The Hague or a Hague printer in their imprints, but were, for a number of reasons, printed elsewhere. In many cases, they are forbidden French books that appeared with a false imprint to circumvent the censor. In a large number of cases, it is possible to recognize false Hague imprints on the basis of characteristic compositorial practices in the books that were identified by R.A. Sayce in 1966.

Among these are many books published under a permission tacite, a special kind of permission issued by the French censor that would allow a book to be published without formal consent. For prospective buyers, the false imprint worked as a kind of quality seal.

This is supported by two catalogues of books offered for sale by the Hague bookseller Nicolaas van Daalen, which suggest that both seller and customer knew the value of books with false imprints. Among the most controversial works published with a Hague imprint is Telliamed, a utilitarian work which foreshadows the work of the geologist James Hutton.

A small number of names account for a large number of false imprints. It is not clear to what extent the printers Gosse, Neaulme and Paupie were involved in the evidently French books that bear their names. On the other hand, the identification of false imprints is often made easy by the appearance of the names of deceased printers. The phenomenon is not restricted to French books: there are a few English and German books with false Hague imprints. The importance of recognizing false imprints hardly needs stressing, and further (bio-bibliographical) research is recommended.

Jan Gielkens, The Dutch translations of Walter Scott's Ivanhoe 1824-2006

The Netherlands were, in 1817, one of the first countries to translate a book by Walter Scott, only two years after France and Germany. The real fame came in 1824, when Ivanhoe - written and published in 1819 - was the first of Scott's historie novels to be translated into Dutch, many more were to follow. This article gives, for the first time, an overview of the publication history of the Dutch translations and adaptations of the famous novel until the present day, almost two hunderd in total, including complete translations, abridged versions, children's versions, movie tie-ins, comics, etc. Publishers tried over the years to adapt their books to new tasts and audiences, thus creating an interesting and diverse library of versions of a novel that was and is a popular classic as well as a classical popular book.

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Piet Buijnsters, The book collector Mr. Ferdinand Casper Koch (1873-1957)

Bibliophily in the Netherlands means bibliophily in the shade. The reason for this is ‘that curious passion for anonymity’ of which an English reviewer made fun in The book collector. This article just lifts a corner of the veil of Mr. Ferdinand Casper Koch (1873-1959), a very rich person of private means from Rotterdam. Quietly he brought together a fabulous collection of old traveller's diaries, topographical books, books on uniforms and other military subjects. Not until many years after his death this collection was auctioned by the Hamburg firm of Hauswedell & Nolte in the presence of the entire Dutch antiquarian world.

But afterwards, other parts of this rich collection turned up out of the blue, which immediately could be recognised by his ex libris: an owl. In this way long after his death the almost unknown collector F.C. Koch kept the world of bibliophiles in suspense: actio in distans.

Willemijn Lindhout, Stronger together? Literary publishers in conglomerates. A comparative case study of the long-term works and poetry lists of Querido and Meulenhoff, 1986-2006

In the last decades of the 20th century Dutch publishing houses went through a major transition. Whereas in the 1980s most publishers still functioned as family companies, by the year 2000 about 75 procent of all Dutch publishers had been incorporated in one of the three dominating conglomerates. This development met with severe criticism and was subject to debate on the question to what extent these conglomerates influenced, manipulated, or even threatened the general quality, artistic independence, and multiformity of literary production in the Netherlands. On the other hand, the facilities offered by these conglomerates help publishers of literature to cut down on expenses and thus enhance their chances of economic survival. From this perspective the integration of publishing houses can be regarded as an inevitable response to the intensified cooperation between booksellers.

In order to assess the actual impact of the integration of literary publishing houses within large groups, this article presents a comparative case study of the long-term works and poetry lists of respectively Querido and Meulenhoff for the period 1986-2006. wpg Publishers, a business group that specialises in books and magazines on culture and education, acquired Querido. Meulenhoff was taken over by pcm Publishers whose primary focus is on newspapers. While wpg allows its publishers to operate autonomously, pcm invested in Meulenhoff and other literary publishers in order to become less dependent on the instability of the advertising market. The analysis of the poetry list and long-term works of Querido shows a high decree of continuity, whereas Meulenhoff's output shows remarkable fluctuations from 1996 onwards. Notably the share of translated poetry declined drastically. My interviews with editors who witnessed the changes in the 1990s also suggest that this development was due to direct interference with Meulenhoff by pcm. Consequentially, Meulenhoff lost its independent position, and employees no longer had a voice in what they still considered to be their own publishing house. On top of this, rumours about possible mergers caused even more unrest and resulted in the leave of both employees and authors.

In contrast, Querido still publishes the works of authors of the 1960's and 1970's; and its Dutch list prominently consists of poetry. Even though this publisher does not put out as many best-selling authors and lacks a strong market position, yet the conglomerate did not interfere in Querido's literary policy.

The conclusion has to be that large conglomerates can have both a positive and a negative effect on literary publishers. In the case of Meulenhoff, little remained of the original publishing house since the

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takeover by pcm. On the other hand, the future of Querido would have been very uncertain without the support of wpg. The business strategy of the conglomerate therefore seems to be crucial to the quality and multiformity of literature.

Steven Van Impe, Systematic research of provenance marks: Pronto

The first section of this article takes a closer look at provenance marks and the study of provenance marks, here defined as any mark in or on a copy of a book that inform us about its previous owners. Although historians have been interested in the consumption of books for a few decades, provenance research has been very limited. Some useful, but limited examples are presented. An overview is presented of provenance digitisation projects in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the Low Counties.

The second section of the article introduces Pronto, a provenance ontology. Pronto is a data model for recording provenance marks in an automated database. Pronto has a flexible and layered structure, making it possible to include fewer or more detail, depending on available resources. The data model can be implemented in any database system, and two examples are included: a form-based database, and an xml database. The article concludes with an ontological scheme.