1 00:00:05,430 --> 00:00:09,350 [Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] Uh uh uh uh. 2 00:00:10,030 --> 00:00:15,400 Arthur. Arthur. Thank you. 3 00:00:15,410 --> 00:00:19,069 Henry. Hey. 4 00:00:19,070 --> 00:00:23,059 Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to, uh, the lecture theatre. 5 00:00:23,060 --> 00:00:26,930 Um, to our second, uh, session of talks on Reading in the Woods. 6 00:00:27,320 --> 00:00:35,209 Um, and on behalf of the Bodleian I'd like to, uh, thank Tom Barron, who has kindly supported this project, uh, financially. 7 00:00:35,210 --> 00:00:43,800 So, um. We've got two speakers, uh, in this session, in the first part of this session, and then there's two later on. 8 00:00:44,100 --> 00:00:49,440 And we have, first of all, Alex Franklin, who is hHead of the Centre for the Study of the Book here at the Bodleian. 9 00:00:50,010 --> 00:00:57,060 And she's going to talk to you about, um, woodcuts and woodblocks from the point of view of a librarian. 10 00:00:57,630 --> 00:01:01,290 And then following Alex, uh, we have Andrew Honey, who is, um, 11 00:01:01,290 --> 00:01:09,750 book conservator for research and teaching in the book conservation team, and he will be, um, talking about first impressions. 12 00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:16,529 And, uh, I'm not sure if there is time for questions at the end. Oh he will be available in the hall after 13 00:01:16,530 --> 00:01:22,979 the talks for informal questions because we don't have time for, for question and answer sessions in, 14 00:01:22,980 --> 00:01:26,550 in this, uh, session. So without further ado, Alex. 15 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:34,590 Thank you so much, Nicole. Um, so after the morning's talks, which were about wood as part of the library fabric, uh, 16 00:01:34,590 --> 00:01:39,330 these afternoon talks are about wood that came into contact with the pages of books, 17 00:01:39,930 --> 00:01:45,460 Um, as a medium for printing. And we'll be talking about woodblocks and the printing impressions made from them. 18 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:48,660 You'll hear a lot more technically about woodblocks in the next session. 19 00:01:48,660 --> 00:01:53,690 So I'm just going to gloss over that. But we have some examples on the table here. For clarity, 20 00:01:53,700 --> 00:02:02,550 I'll try to say woodcut impression when I mean the printed image on the paper, and woodblock when I mean the piece of wood that made the impression. 21 00:02:03,870 --> 00:02:13,350 Some of the oldest surviving printed texts were made from woodblocks, uh, and cutting designs in wood for printing is still practised today. 22 00:02:13,380 --> 00:02:20,460 Uh, for instance, outside and Blackwell Hall, you can visit Debbi Sutcliffe, a member of the Society of Wood Engravers, demonstrating that method. 23 00:02:21,780 --> 00:02:33,300 Um, I will just show you a slide, uh, showing some woodcut impressions as they come across the desk of a Rare Books librarian. 24 00:02:33,510 --> 00:02:40,410 So, uh, on and one part of this slide, we have a page from a book made in Germany in the 15th century, 25 00:02:40,860 --> 00:02:47,310 um, that is fully printed from a wood block but coloured by hand, I should say. 26 00:02:47,820 --> 00:02:57,180 Um, and then we have, um, on the right hand of the slide, a proof for a book cover printed in the 19th century. 27 00:02:57,600 --> 00:03:04,680 Um, and if you look closely, you can see that it's printed from several wood engraved blocks of different colours. 28 00:03:05,160 --> 00:03:12,420 Um, so, uh, uh, ingeniously, the name of the author is cut into the wood. 29 00:03:12,990 --> 00:03:21,420 Crawley. Captain Crawley a pseudonym, I should say. Um, and that shows up, uh, as the page colour, um, not printed. 30 00:03:21,720 --> 00:03:25,500 Uh, and that is the technique of wood cut. 31 00:03:25,500 --> 00:03:30,330 And what involves wood cut and wood engraving. What you cut into the block does not print. 32 00:03:30,660 --> 00:03:37,410 Um, what you leave standing up will print, uh, but in the detail here you can see there are several blocks used. 33 00:03:37,740 --> 00:03:42,960 So from, from a long span of time using wood to print on the page. 34 00:03:44,310 --> 00:03:54,330 Um, and so I'd like you to get an idea in your head of a wood block like one of these, or a more massive one being used to print, 35 00:03:54,330 --> 00:03:58,350 being used to print, possibly the whole page of the book, including the text as it is. 36 00:03:58,350 --> 00:04:02,790 Um, uh, in that early, uh, block book on the left, um, 37 00:04:03,330 --> 00:04:12,230 and then the page being hung up to dry and the wood block being put away, uh, in a drawer for future use. 38 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:16,290 And that's where then the fortunes of these two things diverge. 39 00:04:16,620 --> 00:04:21,659 Uh, on the one hand, we have the, um, the wood cut impression, 40 00:04:21,660 --> 00:04:26,670 which is then going to go into, let's say, a book or some other, uh, published material. 41 00:04:27,030 --> 00:04:33,940 And then on the other hand, we have the wood block. Well, what happened to the impressions? 42 00:04:33,950 --> 00:04:41,500 They were sold. They were read. Then later, with any luck, they survive in libraries and museums, uh, or collections of picture prints. 43 00:04:41,540 --> 00:04:43,580 And we'll get back to those in a few minutes. 44 00:04:44,150 --> 00:04:52,040 Meanwhile, wood blocks, on the other hand, that survive in library or museum collections are those which were put into a drawer one day, 45 00:04:52,460 --> 00:04:57,320 and then at a certain point, decades, maybe centuries later, 46 00:04:57,470 --> 00:05:04,550 it became clear that they would never be taken out to make another print, uh, to make another publication. 47 00:05:04,730 --> 00:05:06,110 Their working days were over. 48 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:16,220 Um, and what would happen to them next if not used as fuel for a stove, which is a perfectly, uh, interesting way to use a piece of wood. 49 00:05:16,580 --> 00:05:23,420 Um, whether they were kept seems to have depended on the prestige of the publication they'd been designed for. 50 00:05:24,020 --> 00:05:28,940 Um, the authors or publishers wish to preserve the research that went into the making of the images. 51 00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:36,820 There are pretty obvious reasons for some museums and libraries having collections of old woodblocks and printing matrices. 52 00:05:36,830 --> 00:05:39,980 Today. I'm just going to rattle through these quite quickly. 53 00:05:40,460 --> 00:05:48,590 Um, so on the slide, I'm showing, uh, screengrabs from three different websites that feature wood blocks. 54 00:05:49,190 --> 00:05:59,090 Um, one is the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, a museum of printing founded within the buildings of a great printing firm. 55 00:05:59,420 --> 00:06:09,020 Uh, so no surprise that in that printing firm, the printing blocks that they use to print their, their great publications were retained. 56 00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:14,779 And thousands of woodblocks from that firm's history of printing are now happily catalogued. 57 00:06:14,780 --> 00:06:18,380 And, um, also many images are available online. 58 00:06:19,610 --> 00:06:27,260 The Society of Antiquaries in London published a journal illustrated with engravings and woodcuts since the 18th century, 59 00:06:27,470 --> 00:06:34,790 and the Society has kept in its library. Thousands of woodblocks are used in the journal, and these are now also shown online. 60 00:06:37,100 --> 00:06:43,280 And just occasionally, um, so there's one where there's a printing actual printing house that's keeping the blocks, 61 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:48,620 another where the organisation itself is the publisher, so they own the woodblocks. 62 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:52,940 Just occasionally there's another way of collecting which is represented, 63 00:06:53,210 --> 00:06:57,830 and that is when printing matrices are deliberately assembled by a collector. 64 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:01,910 Um, and I believe you'll hear a little bit more about this, uh, collection, 65 00:07:01,910 --> 00:07:04,190 this last collection, uh, later on. 66 00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:14,690 Um, these woodblocks in Berlin, which were collected in the late 18th and early 19th century, but they are, uh, 16th century blocks. 67 00:07:15,830 --> 00:07:21,500 Um, these again, also are catalogued, and these these here are displayed online. 68 00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:33,290 The Bodleian does hold over 2000 printing matrices, but the largest number of these are not woodblocks but engraved copper plates, 69 00:07:33,800 --> 00:07:40,370 and most of these, like the collections of the Plantin Museum or the Society of Antiquaries, 70 00:07:40,700 --> 00:07:49,040 are the residue of publication projects that were done in Oxford or have arrived in the Bodleian, um, 71 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:58,580 because the publication was led by one of the donors or benefactors of the uh, of the library who left their collections. 72 00:07:58,910 --> 00:08:07,100 You may have heard recently about the discovery of doodles by William Blake on the back of a couple of copper plates. 73 00:08:07,460 --> 00:08:15,310 Uh, Blake was a hired engraver for a publication directed by the antiquarian, uh, collector and and, uh, 74 00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:21,350 scholar Richard Gough, whose collections eventually came to the Bodleian in 1809, including these copper plates. 75 00:08:21,740 --> 00:08:28,550 Um, and including on the back of them, um seemingly, uh, doodles by William Blake, uh, as an engraver. 76 00:08:29,870 --> 00:08:38,840 Um, again, a slight outlier in this library is a collection of 750 copper plates which were, uh, assembled second hand. 77 00:08:38,870 --> 00:08:42,770 So, in other words, bought up, uh, by a collector in the 18th century. 78 00:08:42,980 --> 00:08:51,020 Um, most of the things that are in the Bodleian are the result of publications that had something to do with Oxford University Press. 79 00:08:52,550 --> 00:08:57,470 The Bodleian, as far as I know at the moment, holds fewer wood blocks than copper plates. 80 00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:05,030 Um, but seeing where these are scattered through the building collections today will give us an idea of some of the reasons why they are here. 81 00:09:06,980 --> 00:09:13,670 In this slide, I'm showing some printing books that have come into the Bodleian collections, uh, since they're in the 20th century. 82 00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:17,570 Um, as part of personal or institutional archives, 83 00:09:18,110 --> 00:09:30,800 Um, on the left are five colour blocks made by Leonard Baskin, and they are posed around one image, uh, for the work Capriccio Poems by Ted Hughes. 84 00:09:31,310 --> 00:09:40,550 Uh, in 1990. And again, this is an example of different, several different blocks coming together to make that multicolour image, colour image on the page. 85 00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:50,280 Um, on the right. I've cheated a bit here. These, uh, there are woodblocks involved in this, but of course, the surface, 86 00:09:50,280 --> 00:09:59,310 the printing surfaces of these anti-slavery society blocks that are in the Anti-Slavery society archive are halftones. 87 00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:03,110 They're halftone blocks, uh, attached to wooden blocks. 88 00:10:03,410 --> 00:10:07,760 Uh, and these were used for the Anti-Slavery society's publications. 89 00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:11,300 The Anti-Slavery society reporter and the Aborigines Friend. 90 00:10:13,690 --> 00:10:25,480 But the library has also deliberately collected a few, uh, wood cut wood blocks as teaching tools to explain how books were made in earlier times. 91 00:10:27,280 --> 00:10:32,919 And a fairly recent example of this is a couple of Chinese printing blocks that were bought 92 00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:38,620 by the previous curator of Chinese collections to enable himself and future curators to show, 93 00:10:38,620 --> 00:10:41,620 as well as tell, how Chinese books were printed. 94 00:10:42,850 --> 00:10:48,549 Well, what do these things tell us? Really? Uh, the exhibition next door that's open next door. 95 00:10:48,550 --> 00:10:56,920 Write Cut Rewrite is brilliant at showing, uh, that literary genius doesn't just sit fully formed in the author's head, 96 00:10:57,250 --> 00:11:02,770 uh, but emerges through many incremental adjustments made along the way. 97 00:11:04,090 --> 00:11:08,829 Similarly, the printed pages of books in the library show, uh, 98 00:11:08,830 --> 00:11:18,100 an arrangement of possibly woodblocks and maybe also metal type letters in one arrangement, but it's not the inevitable one. 99 00:11:18,490 --> 00:11:24,250 There was a moment in the creation of all these books when that arrangement could have been different. 100 00:11:24,730 --> 00:11:31,180 It could have been interrupted, censored, disputed, broken, or accidentally misplaced. 101 00:11:31,180 --> 00:11:39,190 And I haven't been able to, uh, resist showing the Bodleian's copy of a printed edition of Dante's works from 1481, 102 00:11:39,190 --> 00:11:42,340 with the engraved illustration placed upside down. 103 00:11:42,520 --> 00:11:45,730 When you think about the way that the printing was done, 104 00:11:46,060 --> 00:11:48,310 Uh, it's easy to see how this could happen. 105 00:11:49,270 --> 00:11:58,690 Um, so thinking about wood as a material, wood has certain affordances, the ones that make it good for carving images in the first place. 106 00:11:59,020 --> 00:12:05,919 It can be cut, jointed together, nailed, glued, but it can also be eaten by woodworm. 107 00:12:05,920 --> 00:12:11,620 And it can crack and break, uh, through environmental, uh, stresses or pressure. 108 00:12:12,730 --> 00:12:19,930 And here's where we go back to that fork in the path of destiny between the, the woodblock and the impressions taken from it. 109 00:12:20,230 --> 00:12:24,730 If one woodblock could make thousands of impressions, 110 00:12:24,730 --> 00:12:31,870 it might seem obvious that those impressions stand a better chance of preservation than the block itself. 111 00:12:33,070 --> 00:12:35,410 But there is a note of caution here. 112 00:12:35,860 --> 00:12:45,070 Um, we should remember that woodcut impressions adorn some of the most highly illustrated materials in the centuries of early printed, 113 00:12:45,430 --> 00:12:53,500 but also some of the most ephemeral materials playing cards, broadsides, single sheet, 114 00:12:53,950 --> 00:13:02,140 uh, even a paper book cover, things which survive in very small numbers. 115 00:13:02,590 --> 00:13:09,550 Uh, so that possibly we don't have all of the impressions, uh, that that were ever made. 116 00:13:10,660 --> 00:13:13,959 What a treasure to find they are when we do find them 117 00:13:13,960 --> 00:13:23,980 preserved. Bibliographers have made discoveries about the dates of publication, the printers behind publications based on matching woodcut impressions. 118 00:13:24,310 --> 00:13:31,470 And also by finding those little changes I mentioned: Wormholes, cracks, missing borders. 119 00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:40,330 All of those are clues to the bibliographer as to what part of the journey we are on with this particular woodblock. 120 00:13:42,190 --> 00:13:48,880 Comparing woodcut impressions to make identify, but make identification of those coming from the same woodblock, 121 00:13:49,180 --> 00:13:58,030 or to notice changes taking place indicating wear and damage on the block over time has always been a very laborious business. 122 00:13:58,450 --> 00:14:02,770 Uh, there were great achievements in the first half of the 20th century. 123 00:14:03,190 --> 00:14:08,230 Um, with R.B. McKerrow's description and analysis of printers devices in England and Scotland. 124 00:14:08,740 --> 00:14:15,490 Um and Edward Hartnett's monograph on English woodcuts, uh, both published by the Bibliographical Society. 125 00:14:16,750 --> 00:14:25,120 But personal communication has was always and still is really the key to sharing information about woodcut impressions. 126 00:14:25,120 --> 00:14:29,950 And woodblocks are very small, and I think typical example which I'm showing on this slide, 127 00:14:30,190 --> 00:14:37,300 is a letter written in 1950 from the then provost of Oriel College to Bob Lee's librarian, J.N.L.M. Myers. 128 00:14:37,960 --> 00:14:46,150 The provost encloses some woodcut impressions, and he writes, here are pulls from the six woodblocks which I bought in 1920. 129 00:14:46,390 --> 00:14:52,180 And then he goes on to say on the next page that another correspondent has told him 130 00:14:52,360 --> 00:14:57,280 of a similar image to one of these in the chat book collection of the British Museum. 131 00:14:57,670 --> 00:15:03,430 So this is how research is taking place. By letter, by hearsay, by by word of mouth. 132 00:15:04,060 --> 00:15:12,040 The 1998 publication of Ruth Boesky and Elizabeth Ingram's Guide to English Illustrated Books, 1536 to 1603, 133 00:15:12,450 --> 00:15:19,469 was certainly boosted by the vast microfilming project, uh, which uh, has of English printed books, 134 00:15:19,470 --> 00:15:26,730 which has become the resource Early English books online for people, for people who use, uh, books from that period. 135 00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:29,880 Uh, it is uh, it's a vast resource. 136 00:15:30,390 --> 00:15:37,680 And in recent decades, bibliographers and cataloguers in several countries have worked brilliantly to identify and to list, uh, 137 00:15:37,680 --> 00:15:45,420 woodcut impressions in particular periods and genres of printed material, always seeking to share digital images as well. 138 00:15:47,340 --> 00:15:55,410 In the 20 tens, the Bodleian Library was lucky to be involved in another great technological boost to this important bibliographical method, 139 00:15:56,010 --> 00:16:02,700 with Giles Bergels' invention of the Image Match tool applying computer automated visual matching, 140 00:16:02,700 --> 00:16:07,410 developed by the Oxford Department of Engineering to the analysis of woodcut impressions. 141 00:16:08,010 --> 00:16:12,720 Giles was working on a project describing the Bodleian's collections of British broadside ballads. 142 00:16:13,060 --> 00:16:15,990 We see two of them on that slide right now. 143 00:16:16,470 --> 00:16:27,600 These are single sheet items, and the image matching was focussed on the, uh, 17th and 18th century, uh, ballads. 144 00:16:28,590 --> 00:16:35,760 So looking at these two, let me just ask if you see anything similar? 145 00:16:39,900 --> 00:16:50,850 The consensus is 'yes'. And where is that similarity most located on the sheets? If anybody can shout out. 146 00:16:51,450 --> 00:16:57,410 Illustrations of the illustration of a male figure and of the female. 147 00:16:57,420 --> 00:17:05,100 Yes. So there's a man and a woman, and they seem to appear on both of these ballads, which are completely different. 148 00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:09,090 Title song and everything are otherwise different. 149 00:17:09,090 --> 00:17:13,170 But the man and the woman both, beth. Show there. Um, 150 00:17:13,890 --> 00:17:18,299 so the question that automated image match was designed to answer was how to efficiently 151 00:17:18,300 --> 00:17:23,310 match and discover all such multiple impressions across thousands of different broadsides? 152 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:31,110 It's fun to play and mix and match with these, but there's a serious bibliographical advantage to finding impressions made from the same woodblock. 153 00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:35,630 So when you get a new toy, you want to play with it. 154 00:17:36,350 --> 00:17:42,320 And just by chance, one of the first, uh, broadsides that we tested with Image Match had this, uh, image, 155 00:17:42,770 --> 00:17:45,890 and that the man wearing the hat there on the left. 156 00:17:47,120 --> 00:17:56,959 Um, looking more closely at that impression, uh, for the purpose of conducting, uh, an automated image search, 157 00:17:56,960 --> 00:18:05,420 which was purely just put the mouse over and, um, drag and select, uh, we suddenly were confronted with a different question. 158 00:18:06,140 --> 00:18:14,630 Um, why is this hat so big? So that was that was really the the kind of question we had about this. 159 00:18:15,260 --> 00:18:17,479 Um, here he is again, 160 00:18:17,480 --> 00:18:28,790 and here are the matching, the matches of his whole body, uh, himself with his hat on, with his big, big hat, um, with some wormholes in the hat. 161 00:18:29,990 --> 00:18:33,440 Um, but what we found when we looked to match, 162 00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:43,930 just the hat, was that it does appear on another man, a different man altogether, um, an entirely different man. 163 00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:48,730 And, um, that just multiplied the questions that we had. 164 00:18:52,420 --> 00:18:59,080 Here is a man with a hat, seemingly a similar hat that seems to be still attached to his head. 165 00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:08,570 Here is a similar, but perhaps not the same man with a hat that has a little white line between the head and the hat. 166 00:19:09,320 --> 00:19:15,250 Um. And here is a man with a hat that lives obviously. 167 00:19:15,550 --> 00:19:19,780 Uh, a costume is obviously an imposter wearing somebody else's hat. 168 00:19:20,470 --> 00:19:25,410 Um, so this was the kind of thing we found, and this was the kind of thing that, uh, 169 00:19:25,420 --> 00:19:30,460 makes us think about, as I say, the affordances of what wood, what would wood, as a material do. 170 00:19:32,890 --> 00:19:40,570 The other question for a librarian, though, in looking at this item, is how to communicate that to users of the collection? 171 00:19:40,570 --> 00:19:45,420 What words can we use in a library catalogue to begin to describe this? 172 00:19:45,430 --> 00:19:47,050 Um, it's not easy. 173 00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:57,520 Uh, in truth, without the image match tool it would be very difficult to, uh, even come up with these matches, um, much less to, to tell, uh, users about them. 174 00:19:58,900 --> 00:20:06,820 Um, so the, the tool which we have in place doesn't yet talk about woodblocks, but it, 175 00:20:06,850 --> 00:20:14,140 uh, is a lib guide to printed images and printing service surfaces in the Bodleian library. 176 00:20:14,470 --> 00:20:21,100 Um, and it's mainly got here, um, the hand lists of copper plates. 177 00:20:21,340 --> 00:20:28,399 And, uh, on this slide, I'm showing both the online lib guide and, uh, one page from the written hands 178 00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:36,520 list, hand list, literally a written list that resides in the library and is accessible only to people in the library. 179 00:20:36,700 --> 00:20:39,940 And then again, only people to people who know about that list. 180 00:20:40,360 --> 00:20:47,860 Um, that is the kind of descriptive, uh, gap we're trying to fill, um, with, with work in the library. 181 00:20:48,250 --> 00:20:52,120 And I'd like to describe what it was like to fall into that gap. 182 00:20:52,330 --> 00:20:58,240 Now, um, by talking about, um, another group of woodcuts found in the public library, 183 00:20:58,390 --> 00:21:03,730 the largest group, I think, known so far, which is, uh, something over 70 184 00:21:05,730 --> 00:21:10,150 Of them. Um. Thomas Hearne was sub librarian. 185 00:21:10,170 --> 00:21:13,050 This is not Thomas Hearne or anybody like that. 186 00:21:13,260 --> 00:21:18,690 Thomas Hearne was Sub librarian of the Bodleian in the latter years of the 17th, and the early years of the 18th century. 187 00:21:18,690 --> 00:21:24,810 And he was also an antiquarian scholar who published works by subscription and contracted all the printing himself. 188 00:21:25,410 --> 00:21:31,740 He bought the paper, he employed the compositors, uh, engravers and woodcut makers. 189 00:21:32,070 --> 00:21:41,490 Um, in a in one article it's noted that he probably employed Hugh Cuckoo, the joiner who worked for the Bodleian in this period. 190 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:47,850 Um, uh, in this same article in 1951, published in the Bodleian Library 191 00:21:47,850 --> 00:21:58,290 Record remarked that some of the woodblocks used by Thomas Hearne in the early 18th century um had um had evidently been preserved after his death, 192 00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:05,520 and a set of those have recently been found in the library, 1951 recently found in the library. 193 00:22:05,760 --> 00:22:09,600 Well, that's a tantalising phrase. What did it mean in 1951? 194 00:22:09,990 --> 00:22:13,350 Were those woodblocks part of the library collections or not? 195 00:22:15,450 --> 00:22:17,240 Well, let's just rewind a couple of years. 196 00:22:17,250 --> 00:22:27,570 In 1949, some library staff and professors of English language and literature had formed the Bibliography Room, 197 00:22:27,870 --> 00:22:36,000 the Bodleian's uh Working Letter Press workshop, where people can experiment with, uh, hand printing. 198 00:22:36,870 --> 00:22:45,540 Uh, and this slide shows how it looks today. Um, part of the teaching materials, there are specimens of printing blocks. 199 00:22:45,540 --> 00:22:51,420 And I've brought to you that much, um, more appropriately housed printing blocks. 200 00:22:51,660 --> 00:22:54,720 Uh, as they were in the, uh, room. 201 00:22:57,410 --> 00:23:04,219 There, and this here is that some of you who are not looking at the table, this, that, that's that's what they look like 202 00:23:04,220 --> 00:23:10,910 now. There was no notice in the library catalogue of the woodblocks that survived from Thomas Hearne's publications, 203 00:23:11,420 --> 00:23:17,719 um, nearly 70 years after the foundation of the Bibliography room. In 2019, 204 00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:24,560 when woefully ignorant of that 1951 article, I came across the item on this slide, 205 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:31,940 which is a printed sheet titled A Set of wooden Characters used by the learned antiquary Thomas Hearne. 206 00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:36,050 As a frequenter of the Bodleian printing workshop, 207 00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:42,590 I was accustomed to seeing woodblocks that looked very much like they had been used to print this item. 208 00:23:44,700 --> 00:23:53,490 And there they are. I was startled to realise that these specimen woodblocks, um, must be over 250 years old. 209 00:23:54,030 --> 00:23:58,670 Um. And they are in a working printing workshop. In 2019, 210 00:23:58,680 --> 00:24:03,899 the sleuthing of Henry Woudhuysen came to the rescue in an article where he untangled 211 00:24:03,900 --> 00:24:08,970 the story behind these silent objects and bridged the gaps in this record. 212 00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:16,560 Um, the blocks belonging to Thomas Herne are now themselves in special collections of the Bodleian, 213 00:24:16,740 --> 00:24:20,550 and are listed in the main library catalogue available for inspection. 214 00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:29,170 But it was appropriate for a while anyway, that these woodblocks did sit in the bibliography room, even if they were not. 215 00:24:29,190 --> 00:24:33,719 They were not necessarily used for printing there, but they were made as tools for printing, 216 00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:37,800 and that's what they were able to demonstrate during their life in the bibliography room. 217 00:24:40,900 --> 00:24:44,080 The salutary lesson of that story is that, um, 218 00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:49,000 knowledge can die off. Even, even published knowledge can die off. 219 00:24:49,360 --> 00:24:53,950 Um, and we need to join in events like this to keep reminding each other, 220 00:24:53,950 --> 00:24:57,850 Of what? Of things that are in the library, of interesting in questions. 221 00:24:58,420 --> 00:25:07,720 Um, I want to go back to the hats now. Um, again, on this theme of reminding ourselves about stories, reminding ourselves about questions. 222 00:25:08,140 --> 00:25:14,710 After we discovered that the 17th century Ballard printers had made two woodcut men share a hat. 223 00:25:14,740 --> 00:25:20,980 I decided that although we don't have the historical woodblocks that made these prints, we should try to recreate them, 224 00:25:21,580 --> 00:25:32,140 or at least a version of them as a material way, uh, to communicate the potential of woodblocks, um, and the ingenuity of 17th century printers. 225 00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:46,330 So here is a slide showing, as we saw that the man with the outsized hat appears on the same sheet as a woman there. 226 00:25:48,550 --> 00:25:52,750 And I thought we should give the woman a hat as well. 227 00:25:52,780 --> 00:26:01,150 So we've cheated. We've done photo etching to make a man with a detachable hat and a woman with a detachable hat, both printable. 228 00:26:01,510 --> 00:26:12,490 Um, both can can reconstruct this, uh, strange decision by the 17th century printers to, uh, remove a hat from one person and put it on another. 229 00:26:13,120 --> 00:26:15,790 In looking through the stuff collected in libraries. 230 00:26:16,090 --> 00:26:24,640 You are constantly making discoveries and rediscoveries, and more often than not, you are meeting an earlier bibliographer coming around the corner. 231 00:26:27,070 --> 00:26:31,660 I'll turn over now to another bibliograpery. Thank you. 232 00:26:34,830 --> 00:26:42,660 My talk this afternoon is going to, uh, will take a single piece of wood recently bought for the Bodleian's Biblio Press, 233 00:26:43,230 --> 00:27:02,060 which we've just seen as a starting point. It's a wooden block engraved on one side with the letter K that is made out of four human figures, 234 00:27:02,870 --> 00:27:13,370 and with some trial engraving on the back, where it's also inscribed W E, the K is reversed on the front and in part the sides. 235 00:27:13,790 --> 00:27:19,670 Um, the k is reversed and the front, and in part the sides have been coloured black by printing ink. 236 00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:26,030 Because you've all just been, uh, listening to Alex, we all know that this is a wooden printing block. 237 00:27:34,140 --> 00:27:37,740 So here's the block slightly tipped, showing the engraving more clearly. 238 00:27:38,430 --> 00:27:48,240 The letter K is formed by four figures a man holding a ribbon in one hand with morn heart there, or with my heart written on it. 239 00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:54,210 He's down on one knee while presenting a ring, a ring to a woman standing behind him. 240 00:27:55,020 --> 00:28:01,800 Together they form the stem of the letter, while two men fly out from them to form the arm and leg of the K. 241 00:28:03,270 --> 00:28:11,010 It's a handsome thing, and my talk today will start to explain how the Bodleian bought this piece of wood earlier this year, 242 00:28:11,940 --> 00:28:15,390 giving a behind the scenes glimpse into the workings of the library. 243 00:28:16,410 --> 00:28:24,120 But more importantly, it will begin to explain why we bought it, how it relates to other items in our collections, 244 00:28:24,570 --> 00:28:29,580 and the light it sheds on how our collections have been investigated in the past. 245 00:28:36,610 --> 00:28:43,090 So our story begins on a Thursday evening in February when I spotted the block on Etsy. 246 00:28:43,330 --> 00:28:46,570 And that's an online marketplace for independent traders. 247 00:28:48,250 --> 00:28:51,820 I'll have to confess, I hadn't been looking for it. I've been looking for something completely different. 248 00:28:53,950 --> 00:29:01,480 The description was not entirely correct, but I messaged a link, uh, via WhatsApp to Alex. 249 00:29:08,530 --> 00:29:13,300 But because the Bodleian never sleeps, she quickly messaged back. 250 00:29:13,390 --> 00:29:17,260 40 minutes is pretty quick for us. Uh, with the instruction 'buy'. 251 00:29:17,590 --> 00:29:21,670 But but never one to act quickly. I then slept on it. 252 00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:34,620 However, Alex hunted me down first thing the following morning and prevented me going 253 00:29:34,620 --> 00:29:39,450 from having a cup of coffee and instructed me to go and buy it straight away. 254 00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:52,040 So why had I messaged Alex and then used my own credit card to buy it so quickly? 255 00:29:53,270 --> 00:29:56,900 This isn't the usual way for the Bodleian to acquire new items. 256 00:29:57,410 --> 00:30:00,290 What was it about this blog that caught our attention? 257 00:30:09,180 --> 00:30:20,100 Alex and I both knew this block from a woodblock grotesque alphabet book, thought to date from 1464, that is now in the British Museum. 258 00:30:20,940 --> 00:30:26,550 And I show the printed letter K alongside the block in the alphabet book. 259 00:30:26,580 --> 00:30:31,920 Each letter is printed on one side of a single leaf in a brownish ink. 260 00:30:32,970 --> 00:30:38,550 The alphabet would have originally contained 23 letters, omitting J, U, and W, 261 00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:45,899 though the letter S is missing, and of A,T and V, only fragments remain in the British Museum 262 00:30:45,900 --> 00:30:56,970 copy. And that copy is only one of two known surviving copies of this grotesque alphabet, both of which are now in the British Museum. 263 00:30:59,100 --> 00:31:04,530 But let's not get overexcited. Sadly, this is not a 15th century woodblock. 264 00:31:10,570 --> 00:31:18,100 The block we've purchased is a facsimile copy of the letter K, and was used to print a treatise on wood engraving, 265 00:31:18,100 --> 00:31:24,970 Historical and practical, with upwards of 300 illustrations engraved on wood by John Jackson. 266 00:31:25,570 --> 00:31:31,240 That's what it says on the title page, published by Charles Knight and Co in 1839. 267 00:31:31,660 --> 00:31:40,630 And now here I show the two other letters that were reproduced from the alphabet in the treatise L and Z, both printed in a brown ink. 268 00:31:46,740 --> 00:31:53,490 And here I show you the block alongside the K in the treatise, where it is described as follows, 269 00:31:53,490 --> 00:32:03,440 And I quote, 'There is in the print room of the British Museum a small volume of woodcuts, which has not hitherto been described by any bibliography. 270 00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:11,640 It consists of an alphabet of large capital letters, formed of figures arranged in various attitudes. 271 00:32:12,330 --> 00:32:21,540 There is only one cut on each leaf, the back being left blank, as in most block books, and the impressions have been taken by means of friction. 272 00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:27,270 The paper at the back of each cut has a shining appearance when held towards the light.' 273 00:32:29,750 --> 00:32:30,680 It continues, 274 00:32:31,010 --> 00:32:41,660 'The ink is merely a distemper or watercolour, which will partly wash out by the application of hot water, and the colour is a kind of sepia.' 275 00:32:42,980 --> 00:32:47,810 And then next to the K it has, describing the illustration. 276 00:32:48,050 --> 00:32:55,550 'The above is a facsimile of the cut', referred to the letter K of the size of the original. 277 00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:08,309 So the Treatise on Wood Engraving links this alphabet and its method of printing to block books. 278 00:33:08,310 --> 00:33:16,680 And we saw one of these earlier. Here I show a copy of the edition of the third edition of the block book Biblia Pauperum from the Bodleian's collection, 279 00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:21,390 the impression, dating from about 1645 to 70. 280 00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:30,270 You can see it's also printed in a deep brown ink on only one side of the paper by rubbing from engraved wooden blocks. 281 00:33:31,830 --> 00:33:36,899 The late Professor Nigel Palmer, who catalogued the Bodleian's collection of blocks books, 282 00:33:36,900 --> 00:33:47,250 has said 'the simplest definition of a block book is that it is a book printed from wood blocks without recourse to moveable type', 283 00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:54,030 and block books have an important place in the early discussions of the history of printing. 284 00:33:54,720 --> 00:34:00,690 They were once thought to be the immediate precursor to Gutenberg's invention of moveable type. 285 00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:11,940 The Bodleian has a small but important collection of eight block books, including some of the first discussed in relation to the history of printing. 286 00:34:12,810 --> 00:34:19,410 The one I'm showing is one of two bequeathed to the library by Francis Dowse in 1834. 287 00:34:28,260 --> 00:34:31,620 And the Treatise was also interested in the method of printing. 288 00:34:31,620 --> 00:34:34,949 Explaining the colour of the paper, I quote. 289 00:34:34,950 --> 00:34:41,340 'The colour of the above will give the reader, who had not an opportunity of examining the originals, 290 00:34:41,610 --> 00:34:48,210 some idea of the colour in which they are printed, which in all of them is a kind of sepia.' 291 00:34:49,500 --> 00:34:54,330 And these are the only blocks in the book that are'nt printed with black ink. 292 00:35:00,830 --> 00:35:08,540 So we now know that this block was used to print the Treatise on Wood Engraving in 1839, where it was printed in brown ink. 293 00:35:10,370 --> 00:35:18,020 The title page only mentions the engraver John Jackson, who had been an apprentice to the wood engraver Thomas Buick. 294 00:35:20,070 --> 00:35:23,070 But the book was actually written by William Andrew Chatto. 295 00:35:23,550 --> 00:35:31,710 Chatto. And the absence of his name from the title page and alterations to his preface clearly angered him. 296 00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:40,410 In a densely written, privately printed 36, 36 page third preface, 297 00:35:41,010 --> 00:35:44,640 he gives us extra information that would otherwise be lost. 298 00:35:45,330 --> 00:35:52,710 He's also very rude about Jackson, who he calls an illiterate, ignorant man with the nickname 'Old Hickory the Woodcutter'. 299 00:36:02,780 --> 00:36:08,240 He says, and I quote, 'Of the numerous copies of old woodcuts contained in the work, 300 00:36:08,270 --> 00:36:16,040 not a single one has been either drawn or engraved by Mr. John Jackson', and that Jackson and Knight had suppressed. 301 00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:19,279 And I quote again 'The name of W F Fairholt, 302 00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:28,940 the artist by whom all the elaborate facsimile facsimiles of old woodcuts contained in the work, except two were copied and drawn on the block.' 303 00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:35,060 The best of the copies of old woodcuts were engraved by a young man named Stephen Rainbow. 304 00:36:35,540 --> 00:36:38,060 At that time a pupil of Mr. Jackson's. 305 00:36:39,380 --> 00:36:46,340 He also tells us that technical requirements means that the reproduction that we have is not a complete facsimile. 306 00:36:46,580 --> 00:36:54,620 And I quote again, 'It is in consequence of the work having been originally intended to be printed in demy octavo, 307 00:36:54,830 --> 00:37:00,410 that most of the cuts now appear so small when compared with the size of the page.' 308 00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:08,780 It is from this cause that the so called facsimiles for the alphabet want the outer border line at the sides. 309 00:37:10,310 --> 00:37:15,170 So we know far more about this new block than other printing blocks that have survived, 310 00:37:16,670 --> 00:37:21,680 and that this one was used to convey the materiality when discussing early printing. 311 00:37:22,370 --> 00:37:27,770 However, this still isn't the reason why Alex and I were so keen to buy it. 312 00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:41,000 A great excitement in this new block is due to two other wood blocks that are also in the Bodleian. 313 00:37:41,870 --> 00:37:47,480 They are two of four which I show here that have the shelf marked Douce woodblocks. 314 00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:59,510 I first came across them in the stack of the New Bodleian beneath our feet, um, in the early 2000s around 2012, 315 00:37:59,510 --> 00:38:04,190 I mentioned them in passing to Alex, who as we know, is interested in all things printing. 316 00:38:05,210 --> 00:38:11,420 She realised that they had not been catalogued and were therefore not readily accessible to researchers. 317 00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:25,060 I improved their housing the next year and show the fawn blocks now within the tailored archival box. 318 00:38:25,510 --> 00:38:29,860 They were first catalogued in October, uh, 2014. 319 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:40,960 Francis Douce's collection, which we've, uh, which we've seen earlier in that block brick example, um, arrived in 1834. 320 00:38:41,500 --> 00:38:46,930 So it was only a wait of 180 years for us to catalogue these two blocks. 321 00:38:48,350 --> 00:38:53,440 Uh, we also managed to get the, uh, one of the letters wrong in that first catalogue description. 322 00:38:59,740 --> 00:39:06,040 So two of the blocks are also copies from the same grotesque alphabet of 1464. 323 00:39:06,670 --> 00:39:12,100 Here we have a single block with X and Y, with a print from it stuck to the back. 324 00:39:13,060 --> 00:39:17,320 And you'll see the block has a major split and has been partially repaired. 325 00:39:23,170 --> 00:39:29,320 And a smaller block with the letter Z, which has a hanging ring at the top of it. 326 00:39:37,430 --> 00:39:44,870 Although they hadn't been catalogued by the Bodleian, and they had been noted in 1896 by the historian of early printing, 327 00:39:44,870 --> 00:39:49,400 Robert Proctor, who relates that they had hung in the Douce Room. 328 00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:52,130 And here I show you the Douce Room, 329 00:39:52,430 --> 00:40:01,310 which contain the large collection of manuscripts and printed books from the from downstairs bequest, as it was in 18 as in 1939, 330 00:40:01,790 --> 00:40:06,590 just before the library's collections moved from the school's quadrangle to the New Bodleian, 331 00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:11,630 the building we're in now now known as the Weston Library. 332 00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:22,310 And here is the room two years earlier, in 1937. 333 00:40:28,470 --> 00:40:32,100 Could this darker rectangle in the window be one of the blocks? 334 00:40:32,550 --> 00:40:37,110 I'd like to think so. I'm, I'm not convinced. Knowing that Douce 335 00:40:37,110 --> 00:40:42,750 also owned two wood block facsimiles of the grotesque alphabet of 1464 336 00:40:42,900 --> 00:40:46,230 was the clinching argument for us buying this new block. 337 00:40:52,650 --> 00:40:57,630 There are further connections. Kept with the original prints at the British Museum 338 00:40:57,870 --> 00:41:05,970 is a letter dated the 27th of May, 1819 from Samuel Lysonss to Sir George Beaumont, 339 00:41:06,270 --> 00:41:11,940 its then owner, and I quote from the letter, uh, shown here on the screen. 340 00:41:13,230 --> 00:41:16,920 'I return here with your curious volume of ancient cuts. 341 00:41:17,340 --> 00:41:22,650 I showed it yesterday to Mr. Douce, who agrees with me that it is a great curiosity. 342 00:41:23,190 --> 00:41:28,680 He thinks the blocks were executed at Haarlem and are some of the earliest productions of that place. 343 00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:36,900 He has in his possession most of the letters executed in copper, but very inferior to the original cuts.' 344 00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:43,620 So Douce had seen this then unique wood woodcut alphabet in 1819, 345 00:41:44,220 --> 00:41:50,850 the same example that Frederick William Fairholt would copy some 20 years later for our new woodblock. 346 00:41:51,780 --> 00:41:56,490 It's this example of the discoveries and rediscoveries that Alex discussed, 347 00:41:56,820 --> 00:42:03,840 and the meetings with earlier bibliographers coming round the corner, or in our case, not a corner, but Etsy. 348 00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:18,050 And going back to the 1839 treatise which explained, and I quote again, 'The colour of the abovve, that is, the grotesque K, 349 00:42:18,140 --> 00:42:27,980 will give the reader, who has not had an opportunity of examining the originals, some idea of the colour in which are printed, 350 00:42:28,430 --> 00:42:36,620 um, in which they are all printed, which in all of them is a kind of sepia'. Thomas Hearne, who we've heard about earlier, 351 00:42:37,130 --> 00:42:44,510 the Oxford antiquarian and sub librarian here at the Bodleian, was trying to do exactly the same in 1714. 352 00:42:45,410 --> 00:42:49,220 Here I show his essay on early printing ink within his diary 353 00:42:49,730 --> 00:42:54,920 where he discusses the colour and texture of theink used for some block books and early woodcuts. 354 00:42:55,280 --> 00:43:03,739 He says I quote again 'Anyone that will give himself the trouble of considering the first specimens of printing that we have in the Bodleian 355 00:43:03,740 --> 00:43:14,330 library, being two thin folio books containing old pictures from wooden cuts will have will afford to a curious observer many speculations', 356 00:43:15,380 --> 00:43:22,010 but because those books cannot be conveyed out of the library to give him a better idea of the nature of them, 357 00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:29,930 I shall here subjoined the specimen of a fragment of another book that was communicated to me by Mr. Bagford. 358 00:43:35,250 --> 00:43:42,540 That is John Bagford, the late 17th century and early 18th century bookseller and antiquary, 359 00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:48,299 and the fragment given to him by him to Hearne, is part of a German block book, 360 00:43:48,300 --> 00:44:01,500 Biblia Pamperum him updated the impression, dated between 1462 and 68, where the Treatise carefully reproduced the grotesque alphabet in brown ink. 361 00:44:01,980 --> 00:44:09,750 Hearne's desire to convey the materiality of early water based printing inks was accomplished with, uh, a specimen. 362 00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:25,990 John Bagford was working on a history of printing in the early 18th century, sadly never completed, 363 00:44:26,530 --> 00:44:34,810 and these copies of the Grotesque Alphabet alphabet, later owned by Francis Doce, were cut for this project. 364 00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:40,750 Recent work by a Whitney Trettion and Ed Potton, who will be speaking in a moment, 365 00:44:41,050 --> 00:44:47,290 have linked our two blocks with a block for K and L at the British Museum and these 366 00:44:47,290 --> 00:44:52,540 three alphabet blocks and a third Douce block here at the Bodleian join two others, 367 00:44:53,140 --> 00:45:01,930 one at the John Rylands Library and one at the British Library, to form a group of six surviving woodblocks from Bagfords' 368 00:45:01,930 --> 00:45:09,570 History of Printing. But the plot thickens. 369 00:45:10,140 --> 00:45:19,980 We're also fortunate to have impressions from these, uh, blocks A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, X, Y, 370 00:45:19,980 --> 00:45:28,980 and Z in Thomas Hearns collections which came to the Bodleian as part of Richard Rawlinson's donation in 1755. 371 00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:34,259 Hearne's index, dated the 28th of January 1729, 372 00:45:34,260 --> 00:45:44,640 describes them as quote figures of some odd letters which I had from Mr. Bagford, and I'm showing the index and, uh, A,B,C,D. 373 00:45:51,150 --> 00:46:00,030 And here we have, uh, the impression from the blocks later owned by Douce, X, Y, and Z printed before the splits and damage. 374 00:46:00,030 --> 00:46:07,020 Again, one of the ways that we can date or relate a chronology of of impressions to blocks. 375 00:46:15,830 --> 00:46:18,260 Thank God for early librarians leaving notes. 376 00:46:18,590 --> 00:46:26,180 Thomas Hearne had noted on the back of our impression, I quote, 'These are figures of odd letters which I had from Mr. Bagford. 377 00:46:26,720 --> 00:46:30,800 I have an account of them from his own mouth in one of my diary books.' 378 00:46:32,180 --> 00:46:35,750 They run to the published versions, run to many volumes, 379 00:46:37,460 --> 00:46:44,210 but from them I've managed to find in a letter from Hearne to Bagford, dated the 6th of February, 1708. 380 00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:50,960 We learn that I quote 'Mr. Wanley, has lately happened on some very old alphabets. 381 00:46:51,290 --> 00:46:59,420 Antique, of sort of printing, cut on wood, which I shall exhibit in my book as soon as I've got them cut. 382 00:46:59,660 --> 00:47:05,060 I shall send you a specimen of them. I daresay you will please you when you see them.' 383 00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:15,230 Later that year on the 8th of October, and gives a fuller account, presumably after he had received these printed impressions. 384 00:47:15,230 --> 00:47:21,230 And I quote again, 'Mr. Bagford has had a German printed book of the alphabet drawn. 385 00:47:21,230 --> 00:47:29,630 Exactly. It contains nothing more than the alphabet, only here and there a sentence in German inserted in the letters. 386 00:47:30,050 --> 00:47:34,970 They are all of a very large size for the for the use of the illuminators, 387 00:47:35,330 --> 00:47:41,990 and are made up of several figures as heads of men, etc. the z is made, and he puts the Z backwards. 388 00:47:42,860 --> 00:47:50,060 He has another alphabet, the letters of a stranger sort, though made up in knots with scrolls of parchment.' 389 00:47:55,730 --> 00:48:00,530 So these earlier facsimile prints linked this group of early 18th century 390 00:48:00,530 --> 00:48:07,760 printing historians to another specific copy of the grotesque alphabet of 1464, 391 00:48:08,570 --> 00:48:12,200 one that was owned by the antiquarian and librarian Humfrey Wanley. 392 00:48:12,860 --> 00:48:15,920 Again, 1672 1726. 393 00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:26,390 It is by chance the second surviving copy, and one that was given to the British Museum by Charles William Dyson Perrins in 1947. 394 00:48:26,900 --> 00:48:32,600 And here I show the iron K printed, this time on one piece of paper. 395 00:48:38,100 --> 00:48:46,590 And by chance. And here is the John Bagford block. A block for iron K, the one cut in 1708. 396 00:48:47,010 --> 00:48:52,320 The block is now at the British Museum and is from the same set as our Douce's wood blocks. 397 00:48:59,010 --> 00:49:03,930 So I hope that my introduction to this new, or at least, uh, new to us, 398 00:49:03,930 --> 00:49:08,400 Woodblock demonstrates the relevance of wooden printing materials to the library. 399 00:49:09,570 --> 00:49:14,520 These examples are witnesses to a long engagement with the history of printing, 400 00:49:15,120 --> 00:49:22,380 and highlight different approaches to attempting to convey the complex materiality of the originals to a wider audience. 401 00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:34,050 All of these blocks link us back to earlier bibliographers and collectors as we rediscover them, and make them readily accessible to researchers. 402 00:49:34,380 --> 00:49:41,190 We, uh, shouldn't forget, as Alex has said, that we are meeting earlier bibliographers coming around the corner. 403 00:49:43,260 --> 00:49:48,330 Woodblocks might not always have, uh, fitted comfortably into the Bodleian collections. 404 00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:53,430 And they've clearly caused problems for librarians and cataloguers over the years. 405 00:49:54,270 --> 00:49:56,550 But I'm glad we have them. Thank you.