Happy holidays, gentle readers! I hope this season finds you reasonably well, at least on a local level, given the general setting of GAAAAAH globally at the moment. I myself have been digging deep into work and family and friendship as a sustaining focus for the past two months, hence the lack of distinct November update.
I had the good(?) news that I’m teaching both an extra class in the spring and a class online in the summer (assuming it fills), which on the one hand, yay! My car approves this decision. On the other hand, prep and grading and whatnot have largely eaten my ability to focus on Lennox work, so I’ve decided to let this lie fallow for the holiday season while I work on clearing my plate for the coming year. In January, therefore, I’ll be picking back up with the project work as normal. I hope to have new progress to update next time around.
For now, however, I hope that whatever you celebrate, you are able to take a moment to yourself and acknowledge the dark and light, the turning of the year and the brightness inherent in the human spirit even when things seem hopeless. May we all have a brighter 2024.
Photo by u0410u043bu0435u043au0441u0430u043du0434u0430u0440 u0426u0432u0435u0442u0430u043du043eu0432u0438u045b on Pexels.com
Greetings, gentle readers! And a happy decorative gourd season to all who celebrate. As we reach midterms in the fall semester and all the grading that entails, I have taken a break to update you on this month’s progress.
The process of confirming or eliminating physical copies continues apace. Since the last update, I’ve worked through another 37 libraries*, completing the libraries that begin with the letter “B”. It will likely not be a surprise to anyone to know that there are quite a few libraries that begin with the letter B that have Lennox holdings, and that’s after some elimination of spurious, online access, or deaccessioned copies.
As for the database work, I’ve about decided that I’ll put in the libraries I’ve confirmed as locations for now, but not the individual titles. I may change my mind about that as I move forward, but we’ll see. I go back and forth on the utility of it prior to actually seeing and cataloging the data for a given copy.
In other news, I’m also trying to decide if I want to apply to any fellowships for next summer’s research. I’d been hoping to be further along than I am (though it’s not like every letter will have as many entries). It seems a shame to let a summer go to waste, but I’ve still got so much cataloguing to do. I have a little while more to ponder and see if the pace picks up in this portion of the endeavor.
Number of libraries confirmed: 77 Number of libraries entered into the database: 2 Number of extant copies confirmed: 299 (See Note)
* Note: Those observant readers among you will have noted that the letter “B” also applies to “Bodleian,” as in the famed library (or set thereof) at the University of Oxford. I cannot claim to have completed verification of my list of items at the Bodleian, given the nature of its search engine, the fact that defaults to including all the Oxford libraries, of which there are many, and the fact that it’s by no means uncommon to have multiple copies of the same work at different libraries within the greater institution of Oxford. I started working on it and quickly realized I was just going to need to pull out all the Oxford listings, put them in a big list with a couple of notepads and sticky notes as needed, and just do all of them in one big push. As I’m not planning to be in the UK any time in the near future, this isn’t really a problem per se, but it does mean that all Oxford listings are considered not fully confirmed until I clime that particular molehill.
Greetings, gentle readers! September finds me pushing forward still, albeit a bit more slowly due to general life issues and a lot of time dedicated to sorting through the works housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale. Needless to say, we’re going to have to spend some time there in the future, to no one’s surprise.
I currently have 30 libraries verified, having removed two or three so far that ostensibly had only a couple of items at most, and they turned out to either simply not be there, to belong to an affiliated library on the same system, or to be online or microfom versions of the work. I am looking at applying to the Lewis Walpole Library Fellowship this year, along with perhaps a local fellowship that might cover some gas money for libraries near to hand.
Number of libraries confirmed: 34 Number of libraries entered into the database: 2 Number of extant copies confirmed: 148
Greetings, gentle readers! The end of Hot Data Summer is upon us, and I have nearly finished all my class prep for the next semester’s teaching. Around and among and before that, I’ve been busily embarking on Phase 2.2 of the project, which as stated in July’s update, involves breaking out the data by library/institution (it depends on the nature of the organization and its libraries — there’s a system, I promise) and verifying holdings via catalog searches and/or contacting the library directly in some cases.
Thus far I’ve completed a mere twenty libraries, but that’s still served to provide some interesting insights. I have eliminated some prospective holdings (either they don’t exist or were online access only), but I’ve uncovered at least as many that simply weren’t in ESTC or Worldcat when I used it, for whatever reason. I knew there would be missed volumes, so that isn’t that surprising, but the number and type of them is still intriguing. As an example, an early data point (we’ll see if it holds) is that out of those 20, six libraries have multiple pre-1850 editions of the Memoirs of the Duke of Sully. What does that mean? I’m not sure, but it’s something to ponder and look into further if it holds up.
As far as the database design goes, I’ve put it aside for the moment. I could, in theory, enter holdings in as I confirm them (almost certainly a good idea, now that I think about it) but I would like to get a bit more done in confirmation first, and then perhaps have phases of entering data as opposed to a more constant back and forth.
Number of libraries confirmed: 20 Number of libraries entered into the database: 2 Number of extant copies confirmed: 77
Marbling from the end papers of a fantastic book at the Library Company of Philadelphia
Greetings, gentle readers. I am thrilled to share the news that I’ve finished Phase 2.1! I’ve finally completed* aggregating all the map location data into one huge Excel workbook. Now I can pull it all together into a single worksheet and create some pivot tables to help me cross reference locations. I have also added all the rest of the maps into the Maps page here on the site, for anyone who’s interested in seeing them. Just as a note, the maps are cleared of duplicates, but do not yet represent verified holdings.
The next step is Phase 2.2, wherein I put all the data in a single sheet, create a massive pivot table, and break out the results by library/institution so I can see which institutions have what books and start planning the in-person gathering of bibliographic data, as well as the applications to fund the travel required to visit those collections. I’m not sure how long that portion of the project will take, but I think it should be considerably less than the previous phase if only due to the relative lack of data entry.
I also need, while this process continues, to start finalizing some decisions about the Heurist database I’m using. I’ve started working on importing some data and creating the structure and relations based on the data I have. I’m still very much in the mess-around stage of making the database — there are no permanent decisions in place yet. I’m happy with how things are shaping up, though.
Finally, as a few data points:
The last title I put into the workbook was The History of Eliza.
Since June’s update, i’ve entered 472 entries across four titles, including the most famous of Lennox’s works, The Female Quixote (which had 309 entries).
2612 records total at the end of Phase 2.1.
*I fully expect to find material that I’ve accidentally left out or overlooked. No process is perfect, after all.
Greetings, gentle readers! The summer has almost returned, and I’m managing to make this post mid-month as opposed to nearly-done-month. Overall I’m quite pleased with my industry.
Insofar as the project goes, finishing the semester has done wonders for my ability to keep working on my data. I completed working on the Marquis de Sully finally and was able to likewise finish Old City Manners, Philander, Poems Upon Several Occasions*, and Shakespear Illustrated, the latter just this evening. I’m very happy with the rate of progress I’m making.
In addition to working through the data and cleaning it up, I’m currently trying to work through two different problems. The first thing I’m trying to sort out is regarding periodical reprints of Lennox’s work. I want to catalog not simply the stand-alone volumes of her works, but also the various reprints, both partial and complete, of her work in periodicals of the time. The problem is, how do I track them? Using the Lennox bibliography in Susan Carlile’s book, Charlotte Lennox: An Independent Mind, I have a list of excerpts in various publications.
The question, though is this: 1) is that actually all of them? and 2) (and this is a big one) how do I treat these periodicals within the same project as more traditional codex books? Lennox even had her own periodical, The Lady’s Museum. The same periodical may have (and in some cases does have) multiple samples from her various works across time. How do I record that data so that nothing is lost and yet I’m also not doubling my own effort? It’s not that this is a particularly complicated problem; it’s just that the solution I pick will necessarily inform the shape of the project as it goes, so I’d rather do my best to choose something that won’t cause problems later if I can.
The next issue, mostly unrelated to the above procedural quandary, is how to set up my database so that different records can have the same title without it being a gigantic mess. This is actually the easier one to answer, most likely, as I’m sure I’m not the first person building a relational data structure to have multiple entries with the same name, for example, but different data attached to each one. I’m working on doing some reading and I’ve got some feelers out with some data-oriented DBA people I know, and I’ll likely have an answer to this later this month. Once I do, I can keep working on the structure on my Heurist database and importing the material I’ve currently got in spreadsheets. In the meantime, I’ll keep working on the organization and getting the location data sorted, with the goal of being finished with it and organizing the next phase of the project by the fall, aka library fellowship application season.
Current Data Category:Shakespear Illustrated # of entries in this category to date: 126 # of entries in the worksheet so far: 2140 and counting
Here it is, the middle of May already. Where is the April post, you may ask? Well, the April post sadly went the way of the rest of my month of April, swallowed whole by the end of the semester and grading. I got nothing done on the project to speak of in April, though I did find my way into some interesting discoveries.
At the beginning of April/end of March, I attended the ASECS (American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies) annual conference, this year held in St. Louis. While I was there I went to a fantastic panel (okay, many fantastic panels) but this one in particular discussed a very interesting potential path forward for the Lennox project. This panel included a paper by Norbert Schürer (CSULB), who was discussing a digital humanities project being created using the Heurist platform — a customizable relational database system that was designed for Humanities research. The platform is free to use, hosted by the University of Sydney. It is based in MySQL, which means that it’s easy to export to somewhere else for hosting or other purposes, and it’s going to be simple to transfer to new homes and interfaces down the line. It can also generate a website interface and has mapping and network visualization capabilities.
No one else has, up to date, used the platform for a descriptive bibliography, so a lot of the relationships and information types I need for my project do not yet exist. Before I start putting in extensive book data, however, I want to take the information I do have and create a locational database that takes the map data sets I’ve created and pulls it together for more effective research planning. To that end, I’ve created a test database and been futzing around with it in my spare time, which has not been terribly plentiful over the past month but should ease up considerably over the summer.
I was torn for a time on how to proceed, as it might be less time consuming simply to switch over to inputting data into the database directly. I think I’ve decided, though, to continue putting entries into the spreadsheets for now while I try to figure out the structures I need in Heurist and build something useful. To that end, I’ve started inputting data again and am nearly done with the Marquis de Sully, which is a relief. I’ll keep you posted on how it all goes.
Current Data Category:Memoirs of the Duke de Sully translation # of entries in this category to date: 953 # of entries in the worksheet so far: 1505 and counting
My dog Noodle, basking in a sunbeam with his blanket.
Welcome back! It’s a bit past the middle of March, Spring has officially sprung for what it’s worth, and Noodle is back to enjoying his sunbeams and blanket in the mornings in our household library.
March saw me attending the annual American Society of Eighteenth Century Studies (ASCES) meeting, held this year in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference went really well, all things considered, and I was glad to have the chance to present a bit of my own work and hear about the awesome things others are doing. I attended a fantastic play reading by the Theater and Performance Caucus, went to a lot of great panels, and in particularly the Bibliographical Society of America panel left me with a LOT to think about.
Specifically, I’m reaching the point in my spreadsheet work that I’m thinking about where the work goes from here and what format is next. At that panel, at a talk by Norbert Schürer, I learned about Heurist, an open access relational database setup designed for humanities research, hosted and overseen at the University of Sydney. I’ve started poking at it since ASECS, and I’m both overwhelmed by and excited about the possibilities. I decided to keep bringing info into my spreadsheets for now as I can manipulate it and export it to the database, which will be faster than putting it all in by hand later (I’ll likely have to do a lot of editing of records and making links, but that’s still less work than inputting everything by hand again).
Progress proceeds apace on record data entry. I’m still working on the Marquis de Sully records, but I’m now onto Map 2 (!) and halfway done with it. Onward!
Current Data Category:Memoirs of the Duke de Sully translation # of entries in this category to date: 720 # of entries in the worksheet so far: 1272 and counting
Portrait of Maximilien de Béthune, Duke de Sully Unidentified painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The image I’ve included here is the Duke of Sully, a French Protestant courtier and advisor in the court of Henry IV of France, also known as Henry the Great. You might wonder why I’ve included him here, in the Lennox blog. The answer is that his memoirs (a set of five volumes describing most of his service to Henry IV and that king’s support of Protestantism) were translated into English by Lennox from L’Ecluse’s French edition of Sully’s memoirs (published 1745). Her translation was published in 1751. Lennox’s translation of Sully remained steadily in print for over 100 years after its original debut, making it possibly the most popular of her works (and very nearly the one with the most extant copies — the result remains to be definitively determined.)
I don’t know whether Lennox expected the result of her translation efforts on Sully. Certainly translations of the period didn’t often advertise who the translator was, and neither did the first few editions of Sully. She came to be closely associated with this work, however, and before long was featured as translator on the title pages of the various editions. This alone was not the biggest reason to include Sully in this post, however. I am including him because I feel as though I am chained to him through long familiarity, consisting largely of how long I’ve been working on entering copies of her translation of Sully into my database.
For the record, as of today I am still on map 1 of 3 of extant copies in terms of inputting data, and I’m already at over 300 records with a total of 5 different editions that I’ve worked with so far. I have not yet entered the raw data from The Female Quixote, but I can say that the total number of volumes of Henrietta that I’ve located (pre verification) is only 134. I expect that this will be well over 1000 copies by the time I’m done. It’s in the running to be Lennox’s most popular work, bar none, in terms of the sheer number of editions AND in the number of copies that have been preserved. I’m still so early on in this project that I’m hesitant to form any declarative statements regarding analysis, but what I can saw without fear of contraditions is that there are a whole whacking lot of Lennox’s Sully books out there, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of them in person someday.
Current Data Category:Memoirs of the Duke de Sully translation # of entries in this category to date: 324 # of entries in the database so far: 876 and counting
Welcome to 2023! It’s been a busy holiday season — enough so that I didn’t manage to put up a post in December. The spring semester has started, though, and I’ve returned to my data entry. There are an absurd number of entries for the 1856 Bohn edition of The Memoirs of the Duke of Sully, but I’m pushing through. I’ve also had the chance to talk to the head of Special Collections at my institution’s library about increasing our Charlotte Lennox holdings. I’m very excited about the possibilities. Back to work, then!
Lennox Bibliography Project 