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Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 20 (2013)

Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 20

(2013)– [tijdschrift] Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Vorige Volgende

Anders Toftgaard
Princely libraries, the readings of common man and the entry of the book cover into literary studies
Trends in book history research in Denmark

Book history is often claimed to be a new discipline, taking its starting point from the publications of Roger Chartier and Robert Darnton from the 1980s. But it has been in existence in libraries since the nineteenth century, and Chartier and Darnton revitalised a discipline that had been part of library studies and turned it into an academic discipline with more general applications.1

It might be argued that in a Danish context book history takes its beginning with the Danish eighteenth-century antiquarians.2 The Danish word boghistorie first appeared, however, in 1861 when it was suggested as a Danish equivalent of the foreign word bibliography.3 In the first Danish-language introduction to library studies, published in 1912, book history - in a wider sense - was defined as a specific field within the field of library studies. The book was edited by the 25-year-old librarian Svend Dahl (1887-1963), the future national librarian. In his preface to the handbook, the director of The Royal Library H.O. Lange (1863-1943), claimed that ‘Book history, bibliography and library history should be cultivated with special affection by librarians’.4 Later, in an article on book history published in the Scandinavian successor to the handbook, Nordisk leksikon for bogvaesen, Svend Dahl defined book history as follows:

In contrast to literary history which deals with the spiritual content of books and their authors' contribution to the history of thought, the history of books comprises the historical development of the book as a material object, its outer form, its manufacture and equipment, the history of paper and other writing materials, the development of writing, printing and illustration and the history of bookbinding. To this may further be added the various ages' forms of
both book diffusion (book sellers and book auctions) and book collecting (libraries, bibliophily). There is a rich literature on the history of the book, but predominantly on the individual branches of it; the history of the printing press has been treated in particular detail.5

He then goes on citing books that cover the history of the book in a holistic way, among others his own Bogens historie, based upon lectures at the Royal School of Librarianship, published in 1927 and later revised (1957), translated and reprinted (1970). In the preface, Dahl expresses his wish for a holistic approach to the history of the book:

Most of the existing works on the history of the book present its various phases: manuscripts, printing, binding, illustration, the book-trade and libraries separately. In this work I have attempted to present them all in a unified account so that their interrelationship will become apparent and the history of the book will appear in perspective as an essential factor in the history of culture.6

In Dahl's description of the various parts of the history of the book, there is only one important domain of ‘modern’ book history which is not included, and that is the question of reading and literacy. As we will see, this particular field has been addressed in recent years in Danish research in book history.

In the following, I will give an overview of the state of affairs in the field of book history studies in Denmark. Let me start by pointing out that there are excellent bibliographical surveys of the literature on the history of the book in Denmark in the period from 1950 to 2005. In 1992 Ingrid Ilsøe published a survey of literature on the history of the book in Denmark from 1950 to 1990, based upon an earlier article in English covering the period from 1950 to 1985.7 In 2006, Henrik Horstbøll published a survey of the history of the book and libraries in Denmark in the period from 1990 to 2005. It was issued with similar surveys of the other Nordic countries in Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och bibliotekshistoria.8 In the present article I consequently wish to point to current trends in book historical research in Denmark. The article will cover the period from 2005, but in some cases it is useful or necessary to go back to the end of the 1990s. I will focus on research dealing with the history of the book in Denmark in the era of the printed book, and especially on research that consciously addresses the field of book history. Palaeography and medieval studies are not dealt with here and I will not address library history as such. The definition of book history underlying this article is thus narrower than the one formulated by Dahl.

Journals

Henrik Horstbøll published his survey of the history of the book and libraries in Denmark in 2006 in what proved to be the antepenultimate issue of the journal Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och bibliotekshistoria. This journal was founded as Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen in 1914 and published for the last time in 1996. In the new millennium it was briefly resuscitated by a consortium of Scandinavian national libraries under the slightly changed title Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och bibliotekshistoria but it did not last long.

From 1986 to 2004, the journal Grafiana was published by the Danish Museum of the Graphical Industries - now The Media Museum. Instead of publishing journals, the museum now sends out a newsletter by email. It also publishes small books on the history of modern printing in Denmark.9 Bogens verden (The world of the book) was founded in 1906 and its publication was terminated by the end of 2011. Rotunden was a periodical published by the State Library in Århus dedicated to research in its collections which stopped appearing in 2009.

Some book historical journals are, however, still being published. Bogvennen (‘the friend of books’) has been issued by the Association for Book Craftsmanship since 1890. The journal has in recent years published special issues with a certain emphasis on book history.10 The Association for Book Craftsmanship also publishes the quarterly newsletter Nyt for bogvenner,11 and it organises a yearly exhibition of book craftsmanship with a catalogue.

Fund og forskning i Det Kongelige Biblioteks samlinger is the annual research journal published by The Royal Library. Magasin fra Det Kongelige Bibliotek is a quarterly popular journal published by The Royal Library which also prints original research. Bibliotekshistorie is a journal dedicated to library history, published at irregular intervals by Dansk Bibliotekshistorisk Selskab.12 Care and conservation of manuscripts publishes papers from the conferences of the same name; so far twelve volumes have been published.

Institutions

There is no chair in book history at any university in Denmark, but occasionally courses in book history are taught in Danish universities. In 2010 the Royal School of Librarianship changed its name in Danish into Det Informationsvidenskabelige

Akademi, iva (‘Royal School of Library and Information Science’). Part of the research in book history at iva has in recent years been relocated within the field of information studies. The printing presses of the Laboratory of book history have been transferred to the Royal Academy of Arts, and book history is no longer a part of the research profile of iva, but at the Master level students can follow a course in ‘The Book - its history and materiality’. In January 2013 iva merged with the University of Copenhagen.



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Figure 1. An exhibition of the Treasures of The Royal Library staged by Russian artist Andrey Bartenev and edited by Bruno Svindborg and Anders Toftgaard opened in May 2012 in the Montana Hall. Photo: Th. Trane Petersen, The Royal Library


The Royal Library is a key player in the field of the history of the book - sometimes accused of being too attached to traditional bibliography. It holds important historical book collections, it publishes journals in book history and it organises exhibitions and an annual conference dedicated to the history of the book.

 

The Royal Library's director, Erland Kolding Nielsen, is the editor-in-chief of the series Danish Humanist Texts and Studies. Kolding Nielsen is also president of the Association for Book Craftsmanship,13 which was founded in 1888 and traditionally unites the book business with the library world. Recent years have witnessed joint publications by The Royal Library and the association, such as the book Alle tiders tryk about the library's collection of pamphlets and corporate publications.14

The Danish bibliophile association Dansk Bibliofil-Klub was founded in 1942. It publishes books and catalogues of its exhibitions and its members edited the recent catalogue of twentieth-century Danish book collectors.15

International Cooperation

There are long lasting traditions of cooperation between the Scandinavian countries in book history. In 2007 Charlotte Appel and Karen Skovgaard-Petersen initiated a network for Scandinavian book historians. At a conference in the beginning of 2008 they proposed the creation of an internet portal dedicated to the history of the book in Scandinavia,16 for which the Dutch Bibliopolis served as a model.17 At the conference, Marieke van Delft from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague gave an introduction to that website. Since then, both Appel and Skovgaard-Petersen have been appointed to new positions, and the conferences were not followed up, but the network did serve for cooperation on the Oxford Companion to the book.

Instead a Nordic Forum for Book history was created, which organises two annual conferences, and with its 200 members is a lively forum for discussions in book history.18 The main partners in the forum are the universities of Lund and Copenhagen; in fact, the forum is mostly a Danish-Swedish cooperation. It has close ties with Danish and Swedish libraries.

In 2010 Horstbøll and Lundblad edited a volume of Lychnos, the journal published by the Swedish society Lärdomshistoriska samfundet, on book history to which several of the network's members contributed.19 Many of the members of the Nordic Forum for Book history are also members of sharp, the international Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing. In 2012 Simon Frost - who is a member of sharp's executive committee - published the book The business of the novel. Economics, aesthetics and the case of Middlemarch.20

Both Frost and Robert Rix participated in the organisation of the sharp conference ‘Published Words, Public Pages’ which was held at Copenhagen in September 2008.21 They co-edited a collection of essays, Moveable type, mobile nations. Interactions in transnational book history.22 In the book, the contribution of the English-speaking world to the flow of books in smaller countries is explored. At the University of Southern Denmark, Frost was a member of the research group ‘The Gutenberg Parenthesis’, headed by Lars

Ole Sauerberg. Among the results of the group are four book historical articles in a special issue of the journal Orbis litterarum.23 At Aarhus University, in november 2010, the international seminar ‘Media in Transition. The Book as Concept and in Use from Manuscript to Print’ took place.

Several Danish scholars are members of a Nordic network for text editors,24 founded in 1995.25 The network has organised annual conferences on editorial philology and since 1999 it has published its own series. The latest issue, dedicated to the materiality of the book, book history and bibliography, was published in 2009.26 The network has built upon and informed the editions of the works of the great Scandinavian classics published over the last years. Søren Kierkegaard's collected works have been published both in print and online,27 Ludvig Holberg's works are being published in print and online,28 and the works of N.F.S. Grundtvig are being published online.29 Book historians have been working on these editions and their work has yielded several studies.30 Recently Johnny Kondrup published a handbook in textual scholarship, which to a certain extent also serves as an introduction to bibliography.31 Danish scholars also participate in the European Society for Textual Scholarship and have published articles in its journal Variants.32

Book historical research has benefited from a comparative and transnational approach. The ethnologist Jürgen Beyer, who in the years 2008-2010 was an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen, wrote an article on printers' and publishers addresses in eighteenth-century books, including Danish books.33 In January 2012, Wolfgang Undorf defended his doctoral dissertation From Gutenberg to Luther. Transnational print cultures in Scandinavia 1450-1525 at the Humboldt Universität in

Berlin.34 Analysing Scandinavian book history between the catholic late Middle Ages and protestant modern times, Undorf discusses the concept of periphery and concludes that ‘pre-Reformation book culture in Scandinavia didn't differ that much from European book culture at that time’.35 In his conclusion, Undorf seeks to refine Darnton's revised model by creating a model of transnational pre-Reformation print culture. Within the broader Scandinavian scope, the dissertation contains important chapters on institutional and private provenances in Denmark and is a starting point for anyone interested in early modern provenances in Denmark.

Dissertations

The first Danish doctoral dissertation in the discipline of history of the book was submitted and passed in 1923 by librarian Lauritz Nielsen (1881-1947),36 who wrote his dissertation in close connection to his seminal bibliography of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Danish books.37 It was not until the new millennium that book historical dissertations were again submitted.

Ever since the PhD degree was introduced in Denmark in 1993, there have been two different kinds of doctoral dissertations, i.e. the PhD dissertation and what is sometimes called the higher doctoral dissertation. A higher doctoral degree can be obtained by mature researchers after the public defence of a dissertation based upon individual and original research.

The two most important recent contributions to Danish book history are the doctoral dissertations Menigmands medie (1999) by Henrik Horstbøll and Laesning og bog-marked i 1600-tallets Danmark (2001) by Charlotte Appel. They both combine an interest in social cultural history with book history, and they both at the outset declare to have been inspired by Darnton and Chartier.38

Charlotte Appel investigates the history of the book in seventeenth-century Denmark (the Kingdom of Denmark, including the provinces that became Swedish in 1645/1648, but excluding Norway and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein).39 Her main interest is in the relationship between the printed word and the ‘common man’,

and she looks into both the history of reading and that of the book market. Appel analyses the spread of literacy, the actual use of books and the books appearing in inventories made after death, socalled probate records.



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Figure 2. Anon, ABC. København, Mads Vingaard, 1591. Popular books, such as this abc, were printed in large numbers, but have hardly survived. Photo: The Photographic Studio, The Royal Library


Thanks to Lauritz Nielsen the national bibliography of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Danish books is well established; Appel has done a pioneering work on the seventeenth-century Danish book. She thoroughly investigates the authorities' attempts to restrict the spread of ‘evil books’ through censorship and prohibition of import and to promote the spread of ‘good books’. She shows how the number of printing presses quadrupled in the seventeenth century, and discusses to what extent we have access to ephemeral imprints. Dealing with ‘books surviving and books lost’, she argues that ‘even though many ephemeral imprints such as ballads, newsletters and practical manuals have not survived to the present, their existence in seventeenth-century Denmark can be proven’ (948).40 Pointing to the many documented re-issues, Appel argues that even though the nineteenth-century Danish bibliography Bibliotheca Danica only cov-

ers as little as 75% of the actual books printed, we probably know 90% of the book titles that ever existed. (573-4).41 Finally, Appel addresses the question as to whether the books actually reached the common man. She concludes that poor people could buy popular books; analyses of ‘the intended reader’ of various publications reveal that a large number of publications were aimed at the ‘common man’, and her study of inventories after death allows her to conclude that ‘a minimum of between thirty and forty per cent of registered urban households were in possession of books in the last decades of the seventeenth century’ (949). As John T. Lauridsen has pointed out, however, the greater part of the population was without any property.

In his review in Fabula, Christoph Daxelmüller stated that if it were not for the language, the book would have been of outstanding importance internationally: ‘Sie wäre weit über die Grenzen des Landes hinaus von überragender Bedeutung, stünde nicht - trotz einer englischen Zusammenfassung - die Sprache des Dänischen im Wege (...)’.42 However, this barrier has since been overcome. Charlotte Appel was a member of the Steering Comittee of hibolire, The Nordic-Baltic-Russian Network on the History of Books, Libraries and Reading, which existed from 2006 to 2010.43 Together with Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, Appel wrote the article ‘The history of the book in the Nordic countries’ and contributed many entries to the Oxford Companion of the book.44 In 2011 Appel published, with her co-editor Morten Fink-Jensen, the anthology Religious reading in the Lutheran north. Studies in early modern Scandinavian book culture.45 Appel and Fink-Jensen are currently finishing a collaborative research project on the history of education in Denmark.

Henrik Horstbøll published his doctoral dissertation on the culture of popular print in early modern Denmark in 1999.46 The book deals with popular print in a rather long period from the first book printed in Danish (Den danske Rimkrønike, 1495) to the advent of industrialised printing around 1840. Popular print is defined as a medium that addresses the common man in the vernacular (29). The development of different formats is discussed thoroughly, and the format of the book is added to Darnton's model of the communications circuit (316). Horstbøll finds convergences between print format and the function of the medium on the one hand, and between print format and language on the other, and concludes that ‘popular print in Denmark can be recognised by the printed medium's use of the small formats’ (763). The analysis of for-

mat poses the question whether prints in small formats have been less well preserved than prints in larger formats. Horstbøll concludes that we know most of the titles but far from all of the single editions, probably only 50-70%. In the third part of the dissertation he identifies the ‘effective history’ of the popular print, the conceptual communities created by print in general and popular print in particular, analysed through the three master concepts of Cosmos, Chronos, Topos and through the grid of a number of empirically derived genre-groups: ‘pamphlets, instructive and devotional literature, chapbook stories, chronicles and history, and lastly almanacs and housekeeping literature’ (765).

In a certain sense, Horstbøll combines the two domains that Svend Dahl had singled out between literary history and the history of books: ‘the spiritual content of books and their authors' contribution to history of thought’ with ‘the historical development of the book as a material object’.47 The book has inspired similar research in Scandinavia. Since 2009, Henrik Horstbøll has held the only Scandinavian chair in book history, at Lund University. He is a prolific writer and has published individual chapters of the book in revised versions in English and German.48

Several PhD students in departments of Scandinavian studies have worked on book historical dissertations. At the University of Aarhus, Christina Holst Faerch wrote her PhD dissertation on literary works that circulated in manuscript in the first half of the eighteenth century because they could not be printed within the legal framework of the absolutist state.49 She deals in particular with the satiric and erotic writings of pastor Hans Hansen Nordrup (1681-1750), whose works exist in manuscripts in Aarhus and Copenhagen. His pasquils had their own manuscript distribution, but could not be printed because of censorship.50

At the University of Copenhagen, Anne Mette Hansen wrote her PhD dissertation on medieval prayer books and material philology.51 Also, a number of PhD students have worked at the intersection of philology, textual scholarship, sociology of literature

and book history. Jens Bjerring-Hansen wrote his dissertation on Ludvig Holberg and the book, and currently works on a post-doctoral project with regard to the seventeenth-century learned antiquarians at the Danish Society for language and Literature (dls).52 Torben Jelsbak wrote his dissertation on the challenges posed to modern philology by the literary material of the historical avant-gardes (such as montage, typographic poems and artists' books).53

By analysing the popular work Gitte's monologer by the poet Per Højholt (published as books, radio readings, audio and video releases and performed live by Højholt), Klaus Nielsen has tried to devise a method for using material aspects in the study of literature. He also tried to develop a uniform concept of the literary work, common to literary history and book history.54 The title of the dissertation provocatively invites the reader to always judge the book by the cover. Nielsen does not stand alone with this provocation. Tore Rye Andersen recently published an article on the function of dust jackets and paratexts in novels by David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon.55

Using Bourdieu's theory of the literary field and Genette's notion of paratextuality, Anders Juhl Rasmussen wrote his PhD dissertation on a special variant of twentieth-century Danish prose-modernism, tied to the publishing house Arena.56 Together with Thomas Hvid Kromann, Juhl Rasmussen has published an edition of the small leaflets published by Arena, Arena-information.57 Hvid Kromann has published articles on Danish artists' books.58

Book history and literary studies

In 2010 an anthology on book history edited by Jens Bjerring-Hansen and Torben Jelsbak was published in the series Modern Literary Theory, published by Aarhus University Press.59 The publication of the anthology within this series is an eloquent witness of the rise of book history as an academic discipline within literary studies. The editors introduce book history as a tool in literary studies, well aware that it is by no means evident that an introduction to book history should be part of a series on modern literary theory. On the other hand they argue that book history should be consid-

ered a part of the ‘return to history’ of the last 25 years in comparative literature. The editors place the field of book history within an interdisciplinary triangle composed by history, bibliography and literary studies (13-14), but their selection of texts reflects - for good reasons - the part of the immense field of book history which is of particular interest to literary studies and especially literary theory. All seven essays take as their point of departure the books of belles lettres printed in Europe from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.60

A proof of what literary history and book history can do together - and yet another evidence of the new importance assigned to book history in literary studies - is given by the new history of Danish literature published by Gyldendal. The very first chapter, significantly entitled ‘In the beginning was the book’,61 departs from the tradition of starting with runes and pagan oral traditions and begins instead with late medieval book culture in Denmark.62

Bookbindings, provenance, and the history of collections

Although they have not been the subject of doctoral dissertations, bookbindings have also caught the attention of researchers. The history of Danish bookbinding from 1650 to c.1800 was explored in the 1990s in a series of articles by Ingrid Ilsøe.63 Research has been published on medieval bookbindings, as has an interesting contribution on so-called ‘multiple-strand bookmarkers’ from the field of textile research.64 Karsten Christensen, who has done extensive research on sixteenth-century bookbindings, has studied bookbindings in a specific diocese library, and Mikael Kristensen has published a Who's who of Danish bookbinders in the period from 1880 to 2000, taking up a title used by Emil Hannover in the beginning of the twentieth century, ‘kunstfaerdige danske bogbind’.65

As more and more rare books become available online, their role as museum objects in the library is highlighted. This entails an interest in copy-specific information. In recent years provenance research has become more and more important in the research of The Royal Library and other libraries in Denmark. The origin, history and fate of a



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Figure 3. The Italian expatriate scholar Giacomo Castelvetro (1546-1616) lived in Denmark from August 1594 to October 1595. A number of his manuscripts and books are now kept in The Royal Library. Some of the books are heavily annotated, like this copy of a book published in 1568 in Ferrara. Photo: The Photographic Studio, The Royal Library


number of private and public collections have been described in journal articles and anthologies.66

Every Danish work on provenance necessarily draws upon the work of Harald Ilsøe, the official chronicler of The Royal Library, where he has worked as a research librarian and senior researcher.67 Ilsøe has published on most aspects of book history, including printers,68 binders, authors, collectors and auctions. For the celebration of the 200th anniversary of public access to The Royal Library in 1993, he wrote a voluminous book on the treasures of the library.69 In 1999, Ilsøe published a two-volume study of the early foundations of The Royal Library, which serves as a bible for anyone working on its history.70 He later published a select bibliography of Danish book auctions in the period 1661-1811.71 Most recently he has published a lavishly illustrated work on illustrated cloth bindings and book covers in Denmark.72 On the occasion of his eightieth birthday in January 2013, a volume of the journal Fund og forskning i Det Kongelige Biblioteks samlinger was published as a Festschrift to his honour.

At The Royal Library the interest in publishing knowledge about royal ownership marks was originally spurred by the numerous book thefts from the library in the 1970s, which were finally solved in 2003 upon which several persons were convicted.73 A web exhibition on royal identification marks was created as a tool to identify books belonging to The Royal Library, but it is also used as a working resource and has recently been expanded by many private ownership marks.74 In order to determine the extent of the

thefts between 1979 and 1999 the library conducted a total survey of its old collections. Provenances were noted, and these notes are currently being entered by librarians as metadata in the online catalogue.75 Queries are posted on the ‘Can You Help?’-page on cerl's Provenance Information website.76



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Figure 4. Book cover of H. Iversen, Amerikanske Tilstande. En Rapport til unge Nordboer. København 1920, as reproduced in H. Ilsøe, De gamle bogomslag. Photo: The Photographic Studio, The Royal Library


A keen interest has been taken in recent years in virtual reconstructions of the library of Gottorp Castle, which in its time was a rich, princely library.77 It was founded as an institution in 1606 by Duke Johann Adolf (1575-1616) of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp and continued by his successors. In 1713, following the Seven Years' War, the library was captured by the Danish king and then, between 1735 and 1749, transferred to The Royal Library. Many of the great treasures of The Royal Library - among them a copy of the second part of the Gutenberg Bible - stem from this library.



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Figure 5. Super ex libris of Christian Albrecht (1641-1694), duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, bishop of Lübeck, on the binding of The Royal Library's copy of the Gutenberg-bible. Photo: The Photographic Studio, The Royal Library


In his doctoral dissertation Intellectum liberare. Johann Albert Fabricius - en humanist i Europa, Erik Petersen studies the role of the philologist and theologian Johann Albert Fabricius (1668-1736) in the book trade and gives an overview of the manuscripts and annotated books in the Fabricius collection that once belonged to Marquard Gude (1635-1689), who worked as a librarian in the Gottorp library.78 Fabricius' manuscript collection is now in The Royal Library.

The Royal Library also has a collection of ex-libris, parts of which have been cut out of books in the old collections. It is embarrassing to admit that the ex-libris designed by Albrecht Dürer for Willibald Pirckheimer was cut out of one of the incunabula. Previously, the incunabula were believed to contain illustrations by Dürer as well, but this misunderstanding has recently been corrected.79 The collection of ex-libris deserves to be studied.

Frederikshavn Kunstmuseum & Exlibrissamling in Northern Jutland holds an important ex-libris collection which is currently being digitised.80 Cooperation between the two institutions might be fruitful.

Other trends in book historical research

Children's literature is an important aspect of the literary market and of the public libraries in Denmark, and research in children's literature takes place at The Centre for Children's Literature, Aarhus University, headed by Nina Christensen.81 Recent years have witnessed both a new history of children's literature in Denmark and a discussion of the difference between a literary and a book historical approach to children's literature.82

Recently, much attention has been given to typography as a part of book craftsmanship, in particular to the creation of new types for, among others, the publishing house Vandkunsten (Niebuhr Antikva by Allan Daastrup) and the ephemeral newspaper Dagen (designed by e-types) which existed for 40 days in 2002. The same year saw the more successful publication of the new Danish hymn book designed by Carl-H.K. Zakrisson, who chose the Arnhem typeface developed by the Dutch typographer Fred Smeijers. The interest in typography has also given rise to research and exhibitions. Sofie Beier has tried to combine insights from the history of typography and reading research in her study of high-legibility typefaces.83 The typeface Abrams Venetian, which was given to the printer and publisher Poul Kristensen for his exclusive use in 1989, was exhibited at the Media museum in 2012. In the same month a festschrift was published in honor of Poul Kristensen at the occasion of his ninetieth birthday.84 In a facsimile edition of a manuscript of Lex regia, Jesper Düring Jørgensen studied the textual history of the Lex regia, and identified Frederik Rostgaard's typographical inspiration from the French typeface Romain du Roi.85

Caroline Nyvang, who is finishing her PhD dissertation, has recently published on the history of Danish cookery books.86 Research has also been done on censorship. Jesper Jakobsen has written about censorship in eighteenth-century Denmark - providing a useful survey of previous research87 - and Henrik Horstbøll has written about the period of press freedom in Denmark 1770-1773.88

Early European Books and national bibliography

What is really new in book history is the research infra-structure resulting from digitisation. The Royal Library was the first library to enter into a partnership with ProQuest for the mass digitisation of early printed books in the Early European Books (eeb) database; ‘Collection 1’ in eeb consisted of pre-1601 Danish books from its collections. eeb issues annual collections of around 4000 books and will be publishing collections for many years to come. The Royal Library is currently contributing with Danica from the seventeenth century and in the coming years the entire collection of incunabula will be digitised. Recently, the books from Karen Brahe's Library were also made available in the database. One of the many advantages of eeb is that all the copies of an edition in the national library are scanned, which means that all eight copies of the 1514 Parisian edition of Saxo's Gesta Danorum have now been digitised.

The business model implies that the books from The Royal Library are accessible for free in Denmark and at a cost everywhere else in the world. ProQuest holds exclusive rights for ten years to Collection 1, which, in 2010 was criticised by the French national librarian, Bruno Racine, for being a ‘clause d'exclusivité drastique’.89 Of course, those books that are not in The Royal Library are not available in eeb.90 Another bibliographical disadvantage is that - in contrast to Lauritz Nielsen's bibliography - eeb does not give any bibliographical information on books that we know once existed but which are no longer extant.91 Some of these books exist in manuscript copies. It is, therefore, still necessary to use Nielsen's printed bibliography.

Cooperation with ProQuest showed that mass-digitisation is also a question of providing and producing metadata. It has been a welcome occasion for The Royal Library to improve all catalogue records of Danish books from the seventeenth-century while preparing the books for scanning, and it will hopefully eventually lead to the creation of a modern replacement of Bibliotheca Danica.

A recently published catalogue of Scandinavian books in the British Library has shown the weaknesses of Bibliotheca Danica.92 The catalogue only contains a minor part of the total number of records in the catalogues of the corresponding national bibliographies, but they are described in very great detail. The review of the catalogue by Karen Skovgaard-Petersen makes it clear that there are huge differences in the level of bibliographical description in the various national bibliographies.93 Danish sixteenth-century books are well described, but for the later centuries, until 1830, the Bibliotheca Danica remains the fundamental work. Because of the detailed decriptions and the many indices and cross-references, Skovgaard-Petersen finds the catalogue a good starting point for any kind of research on Scandinavian literature, especially for the Danish material.



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Figure 6. ‘Frederik ii's War Book’. København, Lorentz Benedicht, 1578. The book, printed in only one copy, contains seven sections on various aspect of the science of warfare. It is now available through Early European Books. Photo: The Photographic Studio, The Royal Library


The Universal Short Title Catalogue, based in St. Andrews, has created new bibliographies of Latin and vernacular books published in France, of books published in the Low Countries and of books published in the Iberian peninsula and is planning to collect and analyse information on books published in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. This might be a way to proceed in order to create a Scandinavian bibliography.

Books that used to be extremely difficult to access are now available for free from any Danish IP-address. This means that many more people have access to Danish rare books and that the individual researcher has rapid access to (reproductions of) a great number of books. Whereas a researcher interested in the bindings of the Danish sixteenth-century books could until recently order only a limited amount of books per day, he or she is now able to browse through 2600 copies and make a rapid selection of the interesting ones.

eeb has revolutionised research for the relatively few scholars already working on sixteenth-century Danish books, and hopefully it will make many more scholars work on those books - and inspire teaching.

Further perspectives

In Danish - where understatement is generally preferred to hyperbole - it is common to use an idiom which literally translated says ‘none mentioned, none forgotten’. I have mentioned many names and consequently run the risk of forgetting other names for which I apologise. I am also aware that my perspective from The Royal Library in Copenhagen may imply a certain bias.

Much work still remains to be done on provenance in Danish libraries. Walde's article (together with his personal archive in Uppsala) and Ilsøe's work remain important studies on which to build. Recent years have shown, what exciting stories can be told by tracing the history of a manuscript or of a specific copy of a printed book.94 If one considers the size of the collections of manuscripts and rare books, this approach opens up a myriad of possibilities.

One of the desiderata mentioned by Undorf in his doctoral dissertation is a bibliography of books printed before 1525 in Scandinavian collections. His observation that there was a massive import of Dutch books to Scandinavia around 1480 leads to another desideratum: ‘It might be interesting to see whether Dutch archival sources provide any information on what appears to be an expansive era of Dutch printing and its impact on Scandinavia and Northern Europe in general’.95

In 2011, Sune De Souza Schmidt-Madsen's history of the Bonnier publishing houses in Denmark was published, covering the period from 1804, when Gutkind Hirschel cre-

ated a lending library, a book store and a publishing house - and changed his name to Bonnier.96 This kind of publishing history should be continued.

Lauritz Nielsen started working on a history of Danish private libraries, but he only finished the first volume dealing with the seventeenth century. Since some of the great libraries are still virtually untouched, a continuation of this work would be very welcome. Indeed, one of the main sources for the treasures of The Royal Library is the incredibly rich library of Otto Thott (1703-1785). He left virtually no personal documents concerning his library, and other sources for its history are few in Denmark, but it might be worthwhile to look for them abroad; annotated auction catalogues would help as well.97 I hope to be able to proceed in this direction. The University Library's copy of the 12 volume auction catalogue of Thott's library, in which the names of the persons and institutions that bought books at the auction are inscribed, is a tremendous and underexploited resource.98

A proper description of the chapter library of Lund Cathedral is a desideratum in the field of book history in Denmark. Fortunately, Thomas Rydén at the University of Lund is currently working on a project to catalogue its collection of manuscripts. Likewise, Torsten Schlichtkrull has just started working on a history of the Copenhagen University Library after the fire in 1728.

A certain number of major existing manor house libraries are currently being catalogued, and a proper use of these inventories could contribute to our understanding of the learned culture in Denmark through the centuries.

One might also concentrate on one person's impact in the literary field. Peter Zeeberg has shown the way for this kind of studies in his bio-bibliography of the Danish viceroy in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, Heinrich Rantzau (1526-1598), who was a prolific publisher-writer, the owner of a rich library and acted as a patron for scholars.99

Concerning book collections and the book trade, it would be interesting to shed light on the European connections in the book trade before 1800.100 How did collectors in Denmark acquire foreign books?101 By which agents in Europe? What letters from Danish collectors are preserved in foreign libraries?

Henrik Waldkirch (active 1598-1629) was the most important Danish printer of his time. Harald Ilsøe's portrait in his book on Danish printers might be used as a starting

point for an inquiry into his connections at the Frankfurt fair and in Basle. Waldkirch is known to have been a mail carrier for Danish scholars,102 and Dennis E. Rhodes has described how, on 14 March 1592, the Danish physician Gellius Sascerides wrote to the Italian mathematician and astronomer Giovanni Antonio Magini, that ‘if you want to send anything to Tycho Brahe, I think the best idea would be for you to give it to J.B. Ciotti the Venetian printer to take to Conrad Waldkirchius at Frankfurt.’103 The printer Conrad Waldkirch in Basle was Henrik Waldkirch's uncle and there were close ties between the two houses.

Much research has been done into the history of reading in Denmark, but instead of looking for evidence of literacy one might take the books (printed and handwritten) and their readers as a point of departure, in search of marginalia.104 Louis Hjelmslev's copy of fellow linguist Viggo Brøndal's book Ordklasserne (1928) is an interesting object for inquiry into twentieth-century linguistics,105 and Jakob Ulfeldt's marginal notes to his manuscripts on contemporary sixteenth-century Europe might give us an idea about what a Danish nobleman learned about the world during his study abroad.106

Turning to the borrowing records of The Royal Library would be another possibility. The library has 133 volumes of borrowing records covering the period 1778-1935, that have been used by scholars working on, for instance, Kierkegaard and Grundtvig. The borrowing records have been portrayed by Christian Kaatmann as a buried treasure.107

Another possibility would be to analyse reading as it is taking place. Reading room readers often describe the encounter with a long searched for book in the reading room as an emotional event: accelerated heart beats, time standing still, awe or ecstasy. It would be interesting to see a cognitive research project carried out at The Royal Library on the two different reading situations, reading the same rare book in the reading room after having overcome various barriers and at home in front of the screen using the Early European Books website.

The two doctoral dissertations mentioned in this article were written by historians with an interest in cultural history. A significant new trend in book historical research in Denmark, since Horstbøll published his survey in 2005, is the way book history has entered literary studies, and especially Scandinavian studies. With the recently published handbook and the active Nordic network, the ground has been prepared for coming research projects. Apart from the perspectives that I have hinted at here, judging the book by its cover, or rather including the function of dust jackets, book covers and para-texts in literary history, seems a promising endeavour for literary studies.

In 2013 an exhibition on the Art of the Book in Denmark showcasing 50 Danish printed books from 1482 to the present will open at The Royal Library. The centuries old and recently revitalised discipline book history seems to be thriving in Denmark in the field of tension between history, bibliography and literary studies, where traditional bibliography all of a sudden finds itself being the weaker part.


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