Cheap and Common

This post is a collaboration between Adam G. Hooks (U. of Iowa) and Marissa Nicosia (UPenn) — and is cross-posted at Adam’s blog anchora and the Penn Libraries’ blog Unique at Penn. This started as another post in Adam’s “Breaking Apart” series, which has recently focused on leaf books (see here, here, and here). As you’ll see below, our collaboration started when we began comparing our libraries’ respective copies of the same leaf book.

Early Oxford Press, Penn’s three-volume set

This is a story of a bibliographic reference book that does not simply describe old books, but actually incorporates original leaves from those books, making it a unique and rare work in and of itself. Falconer Madan’s study of Oxford printing, The Early Oxford Press (1895), catalogs and provides bibliographical descriptions of books produced in Oxford up to 1640. As he had outlined two years before, in an address to the Bibliographical Society, a “perfect bibliography” would not only attend to the physical aspects of a book, but would attend to the historical and cultural context, as well–or, in Madan’s words, it would “set before the student so much of the life of a book as would give him … the place of the volume in the literature of its subject” (“On Method in Bibliography,” 91). As such, a bibliographer should “never rest content with the technical description only.” Madan went even further than this, though, arguing that “if possible, leaves from real books should be bound in each copy, to illustrate the actual printing of each decade or each quarter century” (98).

And indeed, Madan’s ambition was (at least in part) fulfilled: the first edition of The Early Oxford Press included specimen leaves from actual sixteenth and seventeenth century printed books. [1] Though some of Madan’s illustrative examples are facsimiles intended to exemplify different styles of book production, each copy of his book also included a sampling of rare material. In the preface Madan provides a rationale for the inclusion of this rare material, one of the “features of novelty” of his work. In his account, “actual pages of books printed at Oxford” were inserted, pages which were selected, as he is careful to state, “from works which are cheap and common” (vii). At this point Madan inserts a footnote, further justifying his method in opposition to the insertion of “separate leaves from rare and costly books” in a previous work (a collection of leaves from Swedish liturgies from 1879) which, as he curtly notes, was “a practice which cannot be approved.”

Rare Leaves – Penn’s copy

As Christopher de Hamel notes in his consideration of the often dubious ethics of leaf books, “most writers would say that the leaves being dispersed derived from a book that was already defective and fragmentary” (11). In Madan’s case, the books may or may not have been “defective and fragmentary” (although as you’ll see in a moment, there was a particular kind of damage in one of the books he used) but nevertheless they were “cheap and common,” which alone justifies breaking them apart. This makes Madan’s leaf book a limit case of the genre (especially since it is primarily a reference work) and de Hamel duly notes that Madan’s “austere bibliography” is “quite the least bibliophilic leaf book ever issued” (11).

Breaking Apart / Collaborating

When Adam posted on twitter that he had found a copy of a book on the open stacks with sixteenth- and seventeenth-century leaves (and later found two more copies of the book, one of which was also on the open stacks), I promised (on twitter) to track down Penn’s copy to see if ours also included rare materials. Sure enough, it was also on the open stacks with the rare leaves intact. On closer examination of two of the Iowa and Penn copies, Adam and I were able to establish a few points of contact. When we realized we had the chance to bring together leaves from texts that had been broken apart, we decided to collaborate.

As it happens, two of the Iowa copies and the Penn copy include leaves from the same books. According to the plan Madan outlines in his preface, the extracted leaves were systematically grouped and divided. The first 700 copies of the print-run included three leaves; beyond 700, at least one leaf was promised. Madan also provides a reference list of books from which these exemplary leaves were drawn.

click to enlarge

Penn’s copy (#366) and Iowa’s (# 371 and #456) are from the same subset (nos. 323-500) of the first 700 copies of Madan’s book. The third Iowa copy (#27) is from the first subset (nos. 1-200). [2]

Unique Collection of early Moroccan Printing now at Penn

[Ed. Note: Today’s post is written by David Giovacchini, the Middle East Studies Librarian at the Penn Libraries]

Recently the Penn Libraries acquired an extraordinary collection of Moroccan manuscripts and early lithographed books.  This unique collection was assembled by Dr. Fawzi Abdulrazak, the leading scholar of the history of printing in Morocco and author of the authoritative bibliography on the subject. The collection now at Penn includes some 108 titles in 136 volumes.

Title page of the Fez printing of the Kitab al-Shihab bi-hamd al-Malik al-Wahhab written by Muhammad ibn Salamah al-Qudai

The bulk of the collection dates from 1865 to 1930, covering most of the span of Moroccan lithographic printing from its beginning in the city of Fez to its end during the French Protectorate. Importantly, five of the works included represent the very first lithographic books produced in Fez. In initiating their printing industry, the Moroccans chose the lithographic method over moveable type, because they felt it preserved a link to their country’s rich heritage of manuscript production. Indeed, as in manuscripts, five different types of script were used in making the lithographs. In general, the Moroccan intelligentsia felt that printing would preserve and invigorate their scholarship in the face of French and Spanish challenges by making books and the knowledge they contained more widely available.

Title page of the Kitab Shamail al-Mustafa by Abu Isa al-Tirmidhi, the first lithographic book printed in Fez (1865).

Initially, the Moroccan royal court was the driving force in the publishing of the new lithographic books, but soon private printing firms appeared. The collection includes works made by all of the various printers in Fez. The print runs of the Moroccan lithograph books varied from 200 to 300 copies of each title. Nevertheless, most of these prized books quickly went out of print. The lithographs were much sought after due to their first rate materials and printing, their exceptional scholarly worth, and the meticulous editing done to the texts. Over all, the books in the collection are in fine condition, and most are in their original leather bindings. They are rare and superb examples of the printer’s art in the Islamic lands.

Binding. From the Fez printing of the Kitab Shamail al-Mustafa by Abu Isa al-Tirmidhi

Just as when they were first published, the Fez lithographs are of great value for their intellectual content. The collection includes works by over 101 scholars and editors. These men comprised the pinnacle of the Moroccan intelligentsia of the time, and their works represent the pinnacle of Muslim scholarship in North Africa during the last half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Some of the subjects covered include Islamic law, mysticism, doctrine, religious life, Islamic philosophy, Arabic grammar, and rhetoric.

In addition to the lithographs, the collection includes a number of Arabic manuscripts from Morocco. There are 41 titles in 23 separate items, on diverse subjects, ranging in date from the 17th century to the early 20th.

Sharh al-Muqaddimah all-Ajurrumiyah by Khalid ibn Abd Allah al-Azhari. The second book printed in Fez (1866).

Some of these manuscripts deal with interesting and important topics. For example, one contains the exchange of a Moroccan legal scholar and the Amir of Algeria, Abd al-Qadir. The Amir asks whether it is appropriate for him as a Muslim to remain in Algeria after it has been occupied by the Christian French, and the scholar gives his reply that he should move to Morocco instead. Another manuscript in the collection is a copy of a Classical Arabic work on medicine, but unexpectedly rendered in Moroccan colloquial Arabic. This marks it as a working copy for daily use. There is also a ledger book belonging to a consortium of four Moroccan merchants, detailing their business activities after the French occupation. In addition to the lithographs and manuscripts, there are approximately 50 moveable type style books printed in Morocco under the French Protectorate, and a number of contemporary academic works and dissertations.

Manuscript entitled Khatmat al-Ajurrumiyah by Jafar al-Kattani. Kattani’s family were the leaders of the Kattaniyah Sufi order in Morocco during the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th

This collection will offer Penn scholars unparalleled opportunities for study in the fields of the material history of printing in Morocco and the Islamic world as a whole, and of the political and intellectual history of Morocco during a crucial period in its history. One of the largest private collections of Fez lithographs outside of Morocco, Dr. Abdulrazak’s collection will give Penn Libraries the distinction of owning an invaluable and exceedingly rare resource, which few other libraries can match. The collection is currently being processed in the Middle East section of the Library. After processing, it will be permanently housed in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. In the fall, the Penn Libraries are planning to bring Dr. Abdulrazak to campus to speak about the collection and the history of printing in Morocco and we look forward to seeing the material used by generations of researchers.

-David Giovacchini