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Ex Libris: Annotating Books from the William A. Clark Memorial Library

A Description: The Importance of Preservation

The Workes of John Boys (1638) is a compilation of the many essays and writings of John Boys. John Boys was an English priest and the dean of Catenbury from 1619 to his death in 1625 (Richardson). This image is the title page of the book and shows a multitude of males figures, John Boys, throughout various stages of his life. The image was created by John Payne as seen in the bottom left corner, and shows many religious symbols such as the cross and what looks to be John Boys praying towards heaven. The main focus on John Boy’s writing was dealing with religion, where he provides his own beliefs or even a response to ideas expressed by others. Being heavily influenced by religion the title page has an abundance of religious symbols, and within each image of the male figure there reads Latin words or phrases such as opportune importune and scriba doctus in regno coelorum.

These phrases can be roughly translated to“timely season” and “scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven" respectively.

While John Boys did live in England, being a priest during this era of the late 1500s and early 1600s would have encouraged him to learn Latin in order to read the bible in old text. The image is quite detailed taking up the entirety of the page and was actually imprinted for Willaim Aspley, who was a publisher in London during the Elizabethan era and worked on much of the first and second folios for Shakespeare’s Plays (Richardson). This book is truly a compilation of John Boys’ papers and essays throughout his life and was put together after his death, since the book was created after 1638. It is incredible at how well maintained the book appears to be after having been printed centuries ago. Additionally, the preservation of this book has provided some useful insight on the mindset of a priest during the early 17th century, and the annotations within the book provide a sense of engagement that even challenges some of the ideas brought about during the period.

On the right you can see that there is an image of a page from the book. The book does not have a lot of written annotations, which leads me to believe that this book was read more leisurely and the owners, the Beaumont Family, wanted to keep it in a somewhat pristine quality. For the most part annotations within the book appear to be printed and most are footnotes explaining certain parts or adding additional information that the reader might have not known. Having these printed annotations and a limited amount of hand written annotations definitely help with the preservation of this book. As stated previously the written annotations seen on this page showed the engagement that the reader had with the book as they continuously started their sentences with “note” followed by their ideas about the difference between multiple ideas and people. This book delves into some heavily religious topics and provides John Boys’ thoughts on certain concepts and teaching of Christrianity. After looking through the book there appears to be hardly any wear or tear, so the owners were definitely digilent about keeping this book legible. The owners could’ve also come back to this book from time to time and read the annotations they had created as a guide to remember what they had read and their thoughts on the matter. By examining these annotations it further provides evidence of how this book was used more for leisure reading as they did not write much within it that did not pertain to the book.

There is a great number of individual written works and the following image is a title page of the aforementioned works. This writing was created by John Boys and follows a very similar trend to the other title page/covers of his books. Many of his works have this fanciful artwork on the page, usually above the title, and there is always the fanciful first letter. The artwork consists of flowers and other plant life with the addition of a crown, presumably alluding to England and their long line of royalty. The first letter that stands out is the I which has some fanciful artwork as well with plant life, but there is the addition of mermaids within the artwork. Once again all of the works that John Boys has created have been related to Christianity, and this follows that trend as well. As a priest he provides valuable insight on the ideas brought about by Christianity, and expressing his beliefs can help others see his perspective on religion and the impact that it has within someone's everyday life. The legibility of the print and condition of the artwork is just amazing as books centuries old could certainly not be in such pristine quality if they were not carefully maintained.

While this book was definitely well maintained this page is the first one within the book to be a full page of handwritten notes. While the written text is legible, the difficulty of trying to read this page is quite high as there is the presence of a writing known as secretary hand. This page was also the first one I discovered to be completely blank, which probably prompted the owner to actually write on the page. This is one of the most heavily written pages within the book. The personal owner of this was the Beaumont family, which during the 1400s had become synonymous with coal mining within England. The family had virtually made their fortune off of the mines that they had acquired, and their wealth had made them interested in art as well as other collections (Howe). This book was within their care, so this writing could very well be from a family member that took an interest in this book. This can easily be explained because, during the 17th century and even going through the 18th century secretary hand had become very common for women in some elite English families to write in (Shammas). Therefore, the writing shown within this page would have most likely been a female of the Beaumont family. At the top the title states Of the lawe and the gospell, and the overall writing is difficult to read as it is written in secretary hand. The Beaumont family did an excellent job at preserving the text and the teaching of John Boyes and the annotations within it can now be seen and understood by many others today.

As this book is a compilation of the writings that John Boys had made throughout his life, there had to be someone that collected and eventually published his works. It is thanks to Henry Vaughan that this book was created and made easily accessible for others to read. Vaughan was a Welsh poet who’s most notable work is Silex Scintillans, which discussed topics such as his life and how he had been spared by god (Yoshinaka). There is this connection to John Boys as they are both Christians, and the collection of his works would help spread this idea of god and religion. Vaughan himself had preserved Boys’ writings early on and it is thanks to Vaughan that many now are able to experience this book because it has been preserved over centuries. While some of Boys’ ideas during the early 17th century might have been overlooked, now people can look back on them quite easily and gain some insight of a priest in England during that time period. It is no small feat to preserve a book for this many centuries, but it is thanks to that huge amount of effort that today anybody can pick up this book and find something interesting.

Works Cited

Howe, E. M. “Coal, Art, and the Beaumonts .” Proquest. History Today; London. Vol. 24. https://bit.ly/3wy9o1m.

Richardson, William. 2004. Boys, John (Bap. 1571, d. 1625), Dean of Canterbury. Vol. 1.Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/3144.

Shammas, Carole. "Acquiring Written Communication Skills as the Vernacular Standardizes: A Case Study of an English Family’s Letters 1560–1700." Huntington Library Quarterly 82, no. 3 (2019): 429-482. doi:10.1353/hlq.2019.0022.

Yoshinaka, Takashi, and Mai Matsumoto. 2021. “Eschatological Alchemy in Henry Vaughan and Andrew Marvell.” The Seventeenth Century 36 (2): 213–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/0268117X.2020.1746925.

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The Workes of John Boys. Manuscript annotations in a copy of the Workes of John Boys, likely made by Henry Vaughan, a contemporary owner whose name is inscribed on the title page. Though a description by the Marchmont Bookshop laid in at the front of the volume asserts that the Henry Vaughan who owned this book was the poet Henry Vaughan the Silurist, that does not appear certain. Annotations consist of marginal notes, manicules and other notations, as well as several longer text passages on blank leaves and at the end of the volume. It is possible that more than 1 roughly contemporary hand is present. Condition: Bound in contemporary mottled calf.
The Workes of John Boys Details 3 Manuscript annotations in a copy of the Workes of John Boys, likely made by Henry Vaughan, a contemporary owner whose name is inscribed on the title page. Though a description by the Marchmont Bookshop laid in at the front of the volume asserts that the Henry Vaughan who owned this book was the poet Henry Vaughan the Silurist, that does not appear certain. Annotations consist of marginal notes, manicules and other notations, as well as several longer text passages on blank leaves and at the end of the volume. It is possible that more than 1 roughly contemporary hand is present. Condition: Bound in contemporary mottled calf.
Sir George Howland Beaumont
Silex Scintillans
The Workes of John Boys Details Manuscript annotations in a copy of the Workes of John Boys, likely made by Henry Vaughan, a contemporary owner whose name is inscribed on the title page. This is page 650 of the book. Though a description by the Marchmont Bookshop laid in at the front of the volume asserts that the Henry Vaughan who owned this book was the poet Henry Vaughan the Silurist, that does not appear certain. Annotations consist of marginal notes, manicules and other notations, as well as several longer text passages on blank leaves and at the end of the volume. It is possible that more than 1 roughly contemporary hand is present. Condition: Bound in contemporary mottled calf.
The Workes of John Boys Details 2 Manuscript annotations in a copy of the Workes of John Boys, likely made by Henry Vaughan, a contemporary owner whose name is inscribed on the title page. Though a description by the Marchmont Bookshop laid in at the front of the volume asserts that the Henry Vaughan who owned this book was the poet Henry Vaughan the Silurist, that does not appear certain. Annotations consist of marginal notes, manicules and other notations, as well as several longer text passages on blank leaves and at the end of the volume. It is possible that more than 1 roughly contemporary hand is present. Condition: Bound in contemporary mottled calf.