Untold lives blog

There is something romantic and tragic about iron gall ink. It has allowed the most beautiful words to take form. The best and the worst words. Dull and incidental household inventories; execution warrants for kings; orders for wars; scientific discoveries; declarations of love. And some of the most incredible poems, prose, songs and stories known to man.

And yet iron gall ink is slowly destroying itself and the paper on which it sits. Words are literally eating themselves into oblivion. Even the ink's composition and ingredients are a result of irritation and death. A sting; a bite; a reaction; a tiny extinction.

Example of iron gall ink damage and subsequent 20th century repair on Add MS 38599 c. early 17th century.

I recently attended an Iron Gall Ink Study Day with our brilliant Conservation Department. Three of our conservators have made a study of the ink and their knowledge and research on the subject is amazing. The following are a few images from the day and some manuscripts which show iron gall ink damage.

Example of iron gall ink damage on a vellum manuscript. 

Iron gall ink is made from tannin (most often taken from oak marble galls), vitriol (iron sulphate), gum and water. The galls are a tree's reaction to the eggs laid by tiny wasps. The galls serve to protect the little wasps as they develop. One of the galls I picked up had the body of the wasp lying next to it. It must have emerged from the hole in the gall and expired almost immediately. Allegedly, the richest tannin was produced when the body of the wasp was trapped inside. The best galls were apparently from Aleppo as they have three times as much tannin as British galls (at only 17%).

Examples of oak marble galls.

The way in which iron gall ink was applied also relates to levels of damage. If applied with a brush, the ink is less likely to eat through the page, whereas applied with a metal nib, the ink bites through.

Same iron gall ink but applied with a brush (left) and a metal nib (right).

Similarly, the composition and recipe of the ink affects just how much damage it inflicts. A balanced recipe is more likely to be stable than one which contains larger proportions of gallotannic acid or iron sulphate. Here's a link to just one recipe for the ink. There were hundreds if not thousands of recipes in use at any one time.

Ingredients in iron gall ink (left) and the colour of the iron sulphate and gallotannic acid when mixed together (right).

Why, then, if the damage was evident, was iron gall ink in constant use until relatively recently? It was probably because paper (and indeed vellum) were of good quality up until the mass production of paper in the eighteenth century. Once the paper quality decreased, the effect of iron gall ink was particularly noticeable. Indeed, the most damaged manuscripts I have seen date from the nineteenth century. Wilkie Collins was a particular horror as he scribbled out his lines constantly. The paper on which he wrote was incredibly thin. Much of his manuscripts flake in places where he has crossed out. 

Add MS 41060, Drafts of Basil and Mr Wray's Cash-Box by Wilkie Collins.

The ink's path of destruction moves in three dimension. It creeps through entire text blocks consuming the innards of volumes. Until recently, nobody knew that it was both the tannin and the iron sulphate which were damaging. Our Conservation Team are constantly looking at ways to stabilise, treat and better understand iron gall ink. But even then, they say that there is no stopping time: iron gall ink will eventually destroy the prose, poems, letters and warrants. Vitriolic words indeed.

Alexandra Ault, Curator, Manuscripts 1601-1850.

To find out more about our Conservation Department their blog is here and their web pages are here. 

The British Library holds a vast collection of Sir Francis Younghusband’s papers.  Younghusband is perhaps chiefly remembered for his role in the British invasion of Tibet in 1903-1904, but his military career was only one aspect of a fascinating character, He was a writer, explorer, mystic, and, from the evidence of one file amongst his papers, perhaps an amateur drama critic as well.

Portrait of Francis Younghusband - India Office Private Papers Mss.Eur. F197/646 (13) Images Online 

The file is titled ‘Shakespeare in India’.  It contains two undated versions of an essay (one typescript, one handwritten) which was composed in Westerham, Kent, where Younghusband and his wife lived between 1921 and 1937 after his retirement.
 

India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F197/505

The essay begins with an anecdote about a teenage Indian Maharaja known to Younghusband who regularly slipped out of his palace to go and see productions of Shakespeare in the local bazaar. Younghusband then sets down his thoughts about the interpretation and reception of Shakespeare in the sub-continent, even ranking the plays in terms of popularity:
“The most popular is Othello. There is a larger number of translations of this play than of any other. Othello is an Oriental figure; he is heroic, and he is a lover. Hence the popularity of the play among Indians. The next in favour is The Merchant of Venice. Shylock reminds Indians of their own money-lenders and they enjoy seeing him outwitted … Third in order of popularity is Romeo and Juliet. Indians love it because of its intensity of passion. Hamlet is not so generally popular as these three or even As You Like It and The Tempest. The historical plays the Indians do not care for …” .

From W. Harvey, The Works of Shakspeare (1825) BL flickr

Younghusband identifies seven plays which are worthy of being recognized as great, as distinct from merely popular, works: Othello, King Lear, Hamlet, The Tempest, Cymbeline, Measure for Measure, and finally Romeo and Juliet . He believes that Indians like Shakespeare especially for
   "... his magic use of words, his gorgeous imagery, his love of nature and of humanity ... He creates heroes, and Indians love the heroic ... He shows delicacy of touch in handling the relations  between men and women, and Indians love to keep that relation sacred. He praises home and home affections, and Indians love their homes and believe in the virtue of domestic  affections ...".
 
There is, however, one aspect of the western writer's work which Indians compare unfavourably to their own national epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata:
"Indians love to feel lifted out of themselves to a higher, lovelier spiritual plane ... And in that light, they note a deficiency or inadequacy in Shakespeare ... There is in [the plays] none of that intensity of joy which mystics know ... They think his realism is not real enough. He has probed deep but not deep enough. If he had pierced deeper into the nature of things he would have nearer to the true reality - to that most real which is also the most ideal".

  
Ramayana, by Sahib Din. Battle between the armies of Rama and the King of Lanka. Udaipur, 1649-53 British Library Add. MS 15297 (1), f.91 BL Online Gallery 

 
If this story has made you keen to know more about Younghusband , the enquiry desk staff in the Asian & African Studies Reading Room on the third floor will be delighted to assist!
 
Hedley Sutton & Karen Waddell
Asian & African Studies Reference Services  

Further reading:
Papers of Sir Francis Younghusband – India Office Private Papers Mss Eur F197.
Baptismal certificate for Francis Younghusband born 1863 in Murree, India  -  IOR/N/1/107 f.52.
Ranjee Gurdarsing Sahani,  Shakespeare through Eastern eyes (London, 1932) - T 13070.
Patrick French, Younghusband: the last great imperial adventurer (London, 1994) - ORW.1995.a.1939.
Francis Younghusband, The British invasion of Tibet (abridged edition London, 1999) – Asian & African Studies Reading Room OII951.5.
Poonam Trivedi & Dennis Bartholomeusz (eds), India’s Shakespeare  (Newark, N.J., 2005)  – YC.2006.a.16549.
Douglas A. Brooks (ed), Shakespeare and Asia  (Lewiston, 2010) – YC.2011.a.12555. 

Visit the British Library’s stunning exhibition Shakespeare in ten acts    

Today is Edward Lear’s 204th Birthday.  To celebrate, I’ve chosen to look at a letter from Lear to the MP and later prime minister, Sir William Ewart Gladstone and another to William Bevan, British Vice-Consul in San Remo.

The letter to Gladstone was written in October 1863 on a printed subscription list and advertisement for Lear’s publication Views in the Seven Ionian Islands.

Letter from Edward Lear to William Ewart Gladstone Add MS 44401. 

Views in the Seven Ionian Islands was a series of lithographs drawn and published by Lear in December 1863. Lear produced a list of the noteworthy subscribers and used their names to further advertise the project. Among the many names were Lear's good friends Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue and Frances, Countess Waldegrave.

 Verso of a letter from Edward Lear to William Ewart Gladstone Add MS 44401. 

In the letter, Lear asked Gladstone if he would consider subscribing to the Ionian Views:

"I hope that the enclosed circular of a work I am about to publish on the Ionian Islands may interest you sufficiently to induce you to subscribe for a copy of it. I had lived there so long, that I may say without impropriety that few artists can have drawn the beautiful scenery there as much and as carefully as I."

Lithograph 'View from the Village of Galaro - Zante' in Views in the Seven Ionian Islands, drawn and published by Edward Lear, 1863. British Library 1782.d.16. 

Lithograph 'Town and Harbour of Caïo - Paxo' in Views in the Seven Ionian Islands, drawn and published by Edward Lear, 1863. British Library 1782.d.16. 

The letter to Gladstone could not be more different from another letter in the British Library Manuscript Collections which is addressed to William Bevan, the British Vice-Consul who had moved to San Remo and lived near Lear. The letter contains Lear's  poem How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear which was apparently composed with the help of Bevan's eldest daughter. Lear has also included a caricature of himself and his cat Foss.

Letter from Edward Lear to Archdeacon Bevan 145 January 1879, Add MS 61891 ff.104-9. 

This drawing must surely illustrate the following verse in the poem:

He has many friends, lay men and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat. 

 The letter beneath the poem reads:

I disclose you a Pome, which you may or may Knott send to the Lady who says "How pleasant to know Mr Lear,  It may be sung to the air "how cheerful along the Gay Mead". 

Lear stated that his poem could be set to the music of the hymn How Cheerful along the Gay Mead. Here is a link to the score in the Levy Sheet Music Collection if anyone fancies a sing-along with Lear on his birthday! 

Alexandra Ault, Curator, Manuscripts and Archives 1601-1850.

At the end of British Science Week I'm using arguably the British Library's most famous resident as a gateway into some of our manuscript collections. In case you hadn't guessed, I'm talking about Sir Isaac Newton, who died on this day in 1727.

The large statue of Newton, which sits outside the British Library, was made by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi in 1995. Rachel Huddart has written a brilliant blog about the statue here.

Statue of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, 1995, in the Piazza of the British Library.

The statue was based on an extremely rare colour print and watercolour of Newton by William Blake which is now in the Tate Gallery. So rare, in fact that only two versions of this print exist.

Newton by William Blake, 1795- circa 1805, colour print, ink and watercolour on paper,  © Tate  N05058 [image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 ]

One of the star items in the manuscripts collection at the British Library is William Blake's notebook which contains drafts of his poems as well as many drawings.

Folio 12 from The notebook of William Blake (The Rossetti Manuscrtipt), c irca 1787 - 1847, pen and black ink with pencil. Add MS 49460.

In folio 12, Blake has written part of the poem 'You don't believe' along the left-hand edge. The poem makes reference to Newton in the second verse:

Reason says 'Miracle': Newton says 'Doubt'.

Here, Blake's belief in miracles can be seen in contrast to what Andrew M. Cooper calls Newton's 'self-excluding observational stance'.

Newton came to London in 1696 to oversee the Royal Mint. The British Library also owns significant material relating to the Mint including account books and diaries.

Detail of a page from the account book of Thomas Simon, chief engraver to the Royal Mint (1660-1665) Add MS 45190.

Newton was also President of the Royal Society between 1703-1727. The British Library has important groups of manuscripts relating to the Society including the Thomas Birch and Hans Sloane Collections.

Volumes from the Birch Collection relating to the Royal Society. Add MS 4300-4323, British Library.

Dr William Croon's account of the weight of a carp, 1663, detail from Add MS 4432, f. 1, Royal Society Papers, Thomas Birch Collection.

The British Library has extensive scientific collections across all departments. Take some time to look at our contemporary pages, browse the Science blog as well as explore the earlier collections in the Manuscripts and Archives catalogue.

Alexandra Ault, Curator, Manuscripts and Archives 1601-1850

Today is the anniversary of Edward Lear's death in 1888. Everything about Lear delights and surprises. From his limericks and stories to his ornithological watercolours and topographical landscape paintings, his work gently tugs at the very souls of children and adults alike.

I first came across Lear as the author of The Owl and the Pussycat and as a small child I had a porridge spoon which I named 'The Runcible Spoon'.

'The Owl and the Pussy-Cat', in A Book of Nonsense . . . with all the original pictures and verses, by Edward Lear. Published by George Routledge & Sons, London, 1910. British Library 12812.bb.26 13.

As an adult I remember being surprised to see a pen and ink landscape drawing by Lear as I'd had no idea that he was a topographical artist. This led me to delight in further watercolours, drawings and vast oil paintings. Some of the drawings are so immediate you can almost feel Lear sketching and making notes on the colours in the view before him.

Howatke by Edward Lear, 1867. Watercolour, graphite, pen and brown ink. Yale Centre for British Art, Gift of Donald C. Gallup. B1997.7.99.

Others views are so grand that they could rival the apocalyptical paintings by John Martin. 

Kangchenjunga from Darjeeling by Edward Lear, 1879. Oil on canvas. Yale Centre for British Art, Gift of Michael D. Coe, B2009.18.

The British Library owns a number of Lear's manuscripts including that for The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipplepopple, Add MS 47462.

In the story Lear states "There was a family of two old guinea pigs and seven young guinea pigs . . . the guinea pigs todddled about the gardens, and ate lettuce and Cheshire cheese". When the seven young guinea pigs were sent away to see the world, the "old guinea pigs said, 'Have a care that you eat your lettuces, should you find any, not greedily, but calmly". I love Lear's use of language here as he portrays animals with such sensitivity and humour.

I’m particularly obsessed with the manuscript sketch of the guinea pigs and it’s wonderful to be able to compare the ink drawing with the published illustration. The manuscript shows only the seven little guinea pigs, some of whom are running so fast their feet fail to touch the ground. The published illustration shows the older guinea pigs as well.

‘The History of the Seven Families’ from A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear, this edition published by George Routledge & Sons: London, 1910. British Library 12812.bb.26., 180.

Manuscript illustration for 'The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipplepopple' by Edward Lear, 1871, pen and black ink, British Library Add MS 47462. f. 37.

Not only do I love Lear, I also adore his pet cat, Foss who died just three months before him. Lear loved Foss so much that when the cat died he had a grave made for him in his garden.  Foss first arrived as a tiny kitten in Lear's household in 1873. He was evidently a lively cat who was caught shredding Lear's letters and stealing slices of toast from visitors.

'Foss Couchant' from 'The Heraldic Blazons of Foss'. Illustration taken from Nonsense Songs & Stories by Edward Lear. Published by Frederick Warne & Co, London and New York, 1898. Author's own copy.

I also own a cat called Foss, named in honour of Edward Lear's pet. Like his namesake, the 21st century Foss also shreds post and newspapers. While he doesn't care for toast he has been known to attack ham sandwiches.

Foss, 2015. Photograph author's own.

 Alexandra Ault, Curator, Manuscripts and Archives 1601-1850, British Library.

On what would have been Rudyard Kipling’s 150th birthday #OnThisDay, I’m writing about one of his most famous stories and an old favorite of mine, The Cat that Walks by Himself, from the Just So Stories first published in 1902.

The British Library owns the manuscript printer's copy in Kipling’s hand and the printer’s proof corrected by him of the Just So Stories and it is through these that I will explore the spaces between script and print, writing and correcting, and private and public. 

Autograph manuscript printer’s copy of the Cat the Walked by Himself in the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, 1902, Add MS 59840 f. 120.

The manuscript for The Cat that Walks by Himself shows how Kipling developed the scene of the woman creating fire and magic. That Kipling was changing the order and emphasis of the words shows that even in what was a late draft, he continued to make amendments. 

Kipling develops a scene of untamed animals in a wet, damp, green and wild forest which he contrasts with the clean, domestic interior of the cave made warm by the woman casting magic and creating fire.

“She picked out a nice dry cave . . . and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the cave . . . and she said, ‘Wipe your feet dear . . . and now we’ll keep house.”

“That night Best Beloved, they ate wild sheep roasted on the hot stones . . . the Woman sat up, combing her hair . . . and she threw some wood on the fire and she made a Magic. She made the First Singing Magic in the world. "

“Out in the wet wild world all the wild animals gathered together where they could see the light of the fire a long way off.”

Such contrast reminds me of the delightful poem Romance by Robert Louis Stevenson, a writer who influenced Kipling’s work. In this poem, first published in 1885, Stevenson similarly places a scene of a domestic and well-kept interior in proximity to nature, forests and rivers.

Views of swept floors, warm fires and orderly interiors in Stevenson's poem call to mind Kipling’s description of the cave together with the similar juxtapositions of male and female, domestic and natural, and interior and exterior. 

Kipling designed the illustrations for Just So Stories which are included in the printer’s manuscript copy. Here, in the original illustration for the Cat that Walks by Himself it is possible to see Kipling working at speed as the ink is often unevenly applied.

Illustration for The Cat that Walks by Himself in the autograph printer’s copy of the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, pen and black ink, 1902, Add MS 59840 f. 118.

Detail from the illustration for The Cat that Walks by Himself in the autograph printer’s copy of the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, pen and black ink, 1902, Add MS 59840 f. 118.

The British Library also owns the first and second printer’s proofs for the Just So Stories. These proofs would have been one of the first times Kipling saw the stories and illustrations in printed form.

First and Second printer’s proofs for the Just So Stories, corrected by Rudyard Kipling, showing pages from The Cat that Walked by Himself, Add MS 55863.

One of the things I love about this printed proof is that it shows the writing process at a different stage from manuscript and published volume. Kipling is correcting the printed proof in pen and ink and instructing the printer to make amendments before publication. It is exciting to see the moment when an idea, sketch or sentence is solidified into the story we know today. This was the first time the illustrations would have appeared next to their descriptions, making both word and image function together. In the illustration below it is possible to see how the description supports and makes clear Kipling’s image of the cat and the view of the cave below.

First and Second printer’s proofs for the Just So Stories, corrected by Rudyard Kipling, showing the illustration and description for The Cat that Walked by Himself, Add MS 55863.

It is illuminating to see that Kipling’s well-known stories existed in different formats and that the manuscript and proof were just parts of a wider process, both temporal and physical, which encompassed writing, drawing, printing, correcting, publishing and ultimately dissemination across an empire.

Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling, London, 1902, 12844.a.12.

Alexandra Ault

Curator, Modern Manuscripts and Archives 1601-1850, The British Library

Twitter @AlexandraAult @UntoldLives

#OnThisDay #RudyardKipling #JustSoStories #Cats

The great poet, scholar and controversial pamphleteer John Milton was born #onthisday in 1608.

One of the treasures of the British Library’s Milton holdings is the Bridgewater Manuscript of Comus (Loan MS 76 ), on long term loan from a private collection. Comus is a masque, with music by Henry Lawes, first performed at Ludlow Castle on 29 September 1634 before John Egerton, first Earl of Bridgewater, to celebrate his inauguration as Lord President of Wales. The Library also holds an autograph manuscript of Lawes’s music (Add MS 53723 ), which includes settings for five songs from Comus.

 Add MS 53723, Henry Lawes, f.37v 'Comus' 

The masque is both a warning against licentiousness and a celebration of chastity, thought by some scholars to have been intended to distance the Egerton family from the Castlehaven scandal, in which the Countess of Bridgewater’s brother-in-law was executed for sexual crimes in 1631, or to emphasize a message of chastity in light of the Countesses fears that in 1632 a male servant had bewitched her youngest daughter, Alice. At the first performance of the masque, the roles of the Lady and her brothers were played by three of the Egerton children: Alice (15), John (11) and Thomas (9).

In the masque, the Lady, alone in the woods, is tricked and kidnapped by Comus, the son of Bacchus and Circe. The Lady, magically bound, tries to resist Comus’s attempts to seduce her into intemperance by making her drink a potion. She is rescued by her two brothers and the Attendant Spirit of the wood, who rush Comus’s palace and smash the glass to the floor. They summon Sabrina, a goddess of chastity, who lifts the binding spell from the Lady. Order is restored and the scene changes to Ludlow, where there are country dances and the children are presented to their parents with words of praise for ‘their faith, their patience, and their truth’ and their triumph over ‘sensual folly, and intemperance’.

There are five early versions of the text of Comus or A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle: the Bridgewater MS, the Trinity MS (an autograph manuscript with many revisions, thought to have been Milton’s working copy), and print versions published by Lawes in 1637, and Milton in 1645 and 1673. The Bridgewater MS was previously believed to have been an acting copy for the performance at Ludlow. It is now thought to have been a presentation copy for the Egerton family, with its variants possibly recording adaptations of the text for the first performance. Among its variants, the Bridgewater MS omits several key speeches, among them Comus’s famous carpe diem speech, ‘List Lady be not coy […] you are but young yet’, which criticizes virginity and sexualises the Lady; and the passage where the Lady is thronged by memories of fantasies of ‘calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, / And airy tongues, that syllable men’s names’. Perhaps the text was edited to be sensitive to the family scandal, and indeed to a 15 year old girl performing before her parents.

There are numerous other noteworthy items in the Library’s extensive Milton collection. Our printed copies of Paradise Lost include two first issues of the first edition of 1667 (C.14.a.9. and Ashley 1183); two issues of Jacob Tonson’s fourth edition of 1688 – the lavish, illustrated folio that helped secure Milton’s place in the canon (1486.m.4. and 643.m.10.(1.) ); a 1751 copy with manuscript notes by Charles Lamb (C.61.a.5.); first editions of the poem as illustrated by John Martin (1827, 643.m.18,19.) and Gustav Doré (1866, 1871.f.14.); and translations of the poem into numerous languages, the earliest being a 1682 German translation by E G Von Berge (11626.b.31.).

Plate from Jacob Tonson's fourth edition of Milton's Pardise Lost, 1788. British Library 643.m.10. 

'Satan on his Throne' by John Martin,from The Paradise Lost of John Milton with illustrations designed and engraved by John Martin, 1827, 643.m.18.

We also have several copies of the 1645 Poems  and first editions of his poetry, including a copy of Justa Edouardo King naufrago (1638) – the collection in which ‘Lycidas’ first appeared – containing manuscript corrections to Milton’s poem, possibly in his own hand (C.21.c.42.).

Frontispiece and title page from Poems by John Milton, 1645, E.1126.

The Library has many first editions of Milton’s extensive prose works, including five pamphlets – Of Reformation (1641, E.208.(3.)), The Reason of Church-Government (1641, E.137.(9.)), An Apology against a Pamphlet (1642, E.147.(22.)), Areopagitica (1644, C.55.c.22.(9.)) and Pro populo anglicano defensio (1651, C.114.b.37.))  – bearing the inscription ‘Ex dono Authoris’ (from the gift of the author) on the title page, and with corrections to Areopagitica and Of Reformation in a contemporary hand.

Title page from Pro populo anglicano defensio, 1651, C.114.b.37.).

The Library also has two non-Miltonic works owned and annotated by the poet: a Greek text, Ἀρατου Σολεως Φαινομενα και Διοσημεια (1559, C.60.l.7. ), and a 1612 King James’s Bible (Add MS 32310) in which Milton recorded the births and deaths of family members.

Title page from Ἀρατου Σολεως Φαινομενα και Διοσημεια, 1559, C.60.l.7. 

As well as the Bridgewater MS, the Library’s Archive and Manuscript collection also boasts the original agreement between John Milton and the printer Samuel Symmons for the sale of Paradise Lost, dated 27 April 1667, with the signature and seal of the Poet (Add MS 18861); and one of his commonplace books, containing extensive notes on divorce (a subject Milton controversially published in favour of), as well as notes on ethics, economics, politics and literature (Add MS 36354) .

Page from John Milton's Commonplace Book, Add MS 36354 55v. 

Dr Puck Fletcher, Web Content Developer - Shakespeare Discovering Literature.

For tourists and locals alike, St Paul’s Cathedral is a key coordinate on London’s cultural map. This venerable bone-grey landmark was the venue for the famously ill-fated royal wedding of Charles and Diana, for Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II’s Jubilee celebrations and the funerals of three national treasures: Nelson, Wellington and Churchill.

Daniel Havell after John Gendall, South-East View of St Paul’s Cathedral, published London, 1818, aquatint and etching with hand-colouring, 424 x 528 mm, British Library, London, Maps.K.Top.23.35.w.

J Mérignot after Augustus Pugin, Funeral Procession of the late Lord Viscount Nelson, from the Admiralty to St Paul’s, London, published London 1806, aquatint and etching with hand-colouring, 412 x 502 mm, British Library, London, Maps.K.Top.23.35.s.

It was 318 years ago today that St Paul’s Cathedral re-opened to Londoners after a major revamp. The Great Fire of 1666 reduced the existing medieval Church to cinders, and it was decided that a new building should replace it. Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), England’s foremost baroque architect, was appointed to the task.

Sir Christopher Wren, Design for the Cupola of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, 1623-1732, pen and brown ink over pencil, 213 x 245 mm, British Museum, London.

When the new St Paul’s was consecrated for use on 2nd December 1697, critics both praised and disapproved of its architect’s vision. One commentator proclaimed upon witnessing the edifice that ‘without, within, below, above, the eye is filled with unrestrained delight’, whilst another denounced it as worryingly Continental: ‘There was an air of Popery about the gilded capitals, the heavy arches...They were un-familiar, un-English’.

This was a criticism very much of its time. Britain, in the mid to late seventeenth century, was seized by anti-Catholic sentiment. Following the turmoil of the Restoration, rumours of ‘Popish plots’ abounded. Only 9 years prior to the opening of St Paul’s the Scotch Catholic King James II had been deposed for his faith. Wren’s architectural style, the baroque, was seen by the staunchly Protestant as too Italianate and thus too Catholic. For some, the new Cathedral just wasn’t austere or Anglican enough. Daniel Defoe, on the other hand, criticised Wren for the ‘Protestant plainness’ of his design and wondered why he hadn’t incorporated a ‘circular Piazza’ in the style of St Peter’s at the Vatican.

St Paul’s opened on a Thanksgiving day, to mark the very recent signing of a treaty between Protestant allied nations and France. Despite the optimistic inaugural ceremonies, the British monarch – the unequivocally Protestant William of Orange – was unable to attend. His ministers suspected Jacobite agents loyal to James II to be lurking in the crowds with murderous intent.

Johann Sebastian Müller, A North-West View of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, published London 1753, etching and engraving, 260 x 403 mm, British Library, London, Maps.K.Top.23.35.q.

The British Library houses much material related to St Paul’s Cathedral and to Sir Christopher Wren. The Cathedral is depicted in prints and drawings aplenty in the King’s Topographical Collection, and there are original church designs by the architect as well as a rare copy of his radical proposals for the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire (Maps.K.Top.20.19.3.).

To commemorate the anniversary of the Cathedral’s opening, I have chosen a picture of St Paul’s which, at first glance, can’t readily be seen. Its image has been skilfully painted onto the fore-edge of a book, and only comes into view when the pages of the text block are fanned in a certain way.

The Holy Bible, ed. Thomas Wilson and the Revered Clement Crutwell, 3 vols, (Bath: R. Crutwell, 1785), C.188.c.17.

 The Holy Bible, ed. Thomas Wilson and the Revered Clement Crutwell, 3 vols, (Bath: R. Crutwell, 1785), C.188.c.17.

This book is one part of a three-volume luxury edition of the Holy Bible, published in 1785 (C.188.c.17.). Each volume is embellished with a fore-edge painting; the other two show Solomon’s Temple and Arley Hall in Lancashire. Arley was the seat of John Johnson, a coal-mining landowner, who presented the decorated Bibles as a wedding gift to his daughter-in-law, Mary, in 1818. An inscription in one of the volumes reveals John’s personal message to Mary as he wished her ‘his most affectionate regards’ for ‘Peace, Comfort and Happiness’ in married life.

The artist who painted this remarkable miniaturised St Paul’s was Bartholomew Frye, a German bookbinder who settled in England in the 1790s. Frye would have clamped the book in a vice with its pages fanned, rendered the view in watercolour, and once dry brushed a veil of gilt over the scene to conceal the image underneath. The book was also tooled with hazelnut calf leather, gilt garlands and Greek key patterns for extra adornment.

 Many more books with hidden fore-edge paintings can be found at the British Library; you can look them up here in the Database of Bookbindings.

Alice Rylance-Watson, Research Curator, Transforming Topography