Missals and Martyrs: the Reformation in the Rare Books Collections at the University of York

Today is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses to the door of the Schloßkirche (“castle church”) in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. This event is conventionally associated with the beginnings of the religious conflicts and changes known as the Reformation. Luther was challenging the authority of the Pope, and also asking the Catholic Church to respond through reasoned argument. Many millions of words were written on both sides, and the printing press helped make the new ideas and thoughts widely available.

Initially, the official reaction from England was to condemn Luther. Henry VIII wrote the Defence of the seven sacraments, and learned men like Thomas More and Bishop of Rochester, John Fisher, published in support of the Catholic Church. Gradually, attitudes changed and under Edward VI and Elizabeth, Protestantism became the state religion.

Henry VIII. Assertio septem sacramentorum, or an assertion of the seven sacraments against Martin Luther... London, pr., Nath. Thompson, 1688.

In 2016 a display of books from the Rare Books Collection was mounted to support a workshop for AHRC funded project Remembering the Reformation, the starting point for this blog. The books help tell the story of the Reformation in Europe and in England. Many come from the Mirfield collection, a library belonging to the Community of the Resurrection, Anglican monks based in Mirfield, West Yorkshire.
All the items are available for study and can be found on Yorsearch.

Saint Jerome
Sanctus hieronymus interpres biblie

Lugd'., per ... Iacobum Sacon. Expe[n]sis ... Anthonij koberger ... Feliciter explicit, 1512.

The common or “Vulgate” version of the Bible in the Middle Ages was translated by Saint Jerome into Latin in the late 4th century. It was the official bible of the Catholic Church used throughout western Europe, including England. This edition was printed in Nuremberg, Germany in 1512. Its title page promotes itself as a learned text: the four Gospels are “revised, corrected and emended with the greatest diligence”, and it includes marginal annotations of textual cross-references. It is folio sized and the hand-coloured woodcuts make it an expensive artefact.

Missale: begins Annus habet. xii. meses. Nurmberge, impressum per Georgium Stuchs de Sultzbach, 1484.

Missals contain the instructions and words necessary for celebrating Mass, the most sacred part of Christian worship in the pre-Reformation church. This example was printed in Nuremberg in 1484, making it one of the earliest printed books in the Rare Books Collection, and some of the pages have illuminated initials. Showing the books continued use, an engraving of the crucifixion printed in the early 17th century has been pasted in opposite the Te igitur, the first prayer that marks the opening of the canon of the Mass.

Missale ad usum ecclesie Sarisburiensis.
Rothomagi, ex officina Richardi Hamillonis, in edibus Robert Valentin, 1555.

In medieval England, the most widespread form of the Mass was the Sarum Rite, or Salisbury Use, first developed in the 11th century. This was used throughout the south of England; in the north, the York Use was also common. This edition was printed in Rouen in France for distribution in England during the reign of Mary Tudor when Catholicism became the official religion again in England. After Mary’s death and Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne in 1558, this was reversed.

Confessio odder [sic] Bekantnus des Glaubens erlicher Fursten und Stedte: Uberantwort Keiserlicher Maiestat: zu Augspurg anno 1530. Apologia der Confessio. Gedruckt zu Wittemberg durch Georgen Rhaw, 1531.

The Augsburg Confession contains the chief articles of faith for the Lutheran Church. It was written in an effort to show common ground between the Lutheran and Catholic Church, and presented to Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg in June 1530. Martin Luther contributed much of the text but was unable to attend the Diet as he was banned from travel. Many of the German states supported the Confession, however the Catholic Church did not, so Philip Melancthon, a close friend of Luther’s, prepared the ‘Apology’, a defence of the Confession and an attempt to deal with the contested points that the Catholic Church had identified. The Confession and Apology are still important documents in the Lutheran Church today.

Dietrich, Viet. Agend Buchlein fur die Pharrherrn auff dem Land. Nurnberg, : durch Johan vom Berg und Ulrich Neuber, 1544.

After the Reformation, German Protestants developed their own forms of worship. The Agend Büchlein is a Lutheran Service Book which includes ceremonies and blessings to help clergy teach and lead their congregation. It was adopted by many German cities and territories. This edition was prepared by Viet Dietrich, an associate of Martin Luther.

Luther, Martin. Colloquia oder Tischreden Doctor Martini Lutheri: so er in vielen Jahren die Zeyt seines Lebens gegen gelehrten Leuthen, auch fremden Gesten und seinen Tischgesellen gefuhret. Franckfurt am Mayn, Peter Schmid und Sigmund Feyerabend, 1569.

Tischreden, or “Tabletalk”, was first published in 1566, and is a collection of Martin Luther’s comments overheard and recorded by his followers. It captures Luther’s most influential ideas, and covers topics such as religious doctrine and the undesirability of whipping children. The titlepage shows Luther in conversation round the dinner table.

Tyndale, William. The newe Testament of our savyoure Jesu Christe, newly and dylygently translated into Englyshe wyth annotacions in the mergent to help the reader to the understandynge of the texte, 1549.

William Tyndale’s New Testament of 1526 was the first full printed translation of the Bible in English. Tyndale wanted all Englishmen to be able to read the word of God in their own language. Early editions were banned in England, and Tyndale was executed as a heretic in 1536. However, changes in the political climate allowed Tyndale’s authorship to be acknowledged in this copy from the reign of Edward VI. It is claimed that the King James Version of the Bible, published in 1611, took more than 80% of its words and phrases directly from this translation.

Fisher, John. Assertationis Lutheranae confutatio, etc. Parisiis, apud Mathurinum du puys, 1545.

Initially Martin Luther’s ideas, as manifested in the 95 theses, were vehemently opposed by the government of Henry VIII in England. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and considered to be the greatest theologian in the country, first published his confutations of Martin Luther in 1523 in an effort to prove Luther’s ideas false. The Bible verse on the title page encourages the reader to reject false prophets. This edition was reprinted in Paris in 1545 at the same time as the opening of the Council of Trent, which initiated the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic reaction to the Protestant ideals. Although Fisher was dead by 1545, the reprinting demonstrates his continuing influence on the Catholic reaction to Reformation ideas.

More, Thomas. The supplycacyon of soulys made by Syr Thomas More knyght councellour to our soverayn lorde the Kynge ... against the supplycacyon of beggars. London, W. Rastell, 1529.

Thomas More, lawyer, humanist and Chancellor to Henry VIII, also opposed Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. He wrote this pamphlet as a response to The Supplication of Beggars by Simon Fish that had denied the existence of purgatory. Unlike John Fisher whose confutations were in Latin, More wrote in English enabling him to reach the literate but less educated English audience. After Henry VIII’s divorce and his break from Rome, both Fisher and More were executed in 1535.

Coverdale, Miles. Certain most godly, fruitfull and comfortable letters of such true saintes and holy ... as ... here within this realme, gave their lyves for ... Christes holy gospel etc. London, John Day, 1564.

After the death of her sister Mary I, Elizabeth I reinstituted the Reformation, and became “Supreme Head of the Church in England”. Miles Coverdale, Reformer and Bible translator, collected letters of early supporters of Protestantism in England such as Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, and Bishop of London Nicholas Ridley, who had been burned for heresy under Mary. On the titlepage Coverdale describes them as “saintes”. Another book written about the Protestant martyrs was John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments. An image from Foxe has been pasted into this book to reinforce the message about the holiness of those who gave their lives for the Protestant cause.

Book of Common Prayer, [1575]

The Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, laid out the structure and form of Protestant services in English. This copy is bound with a Bible printed by Richard Jugge in 1575.

The Rare Books Collection covers a wide range of topics. For more information check the website: https://www.york.ac.uk/library/collections/rare-books-collection/ 

Food Glorious Food

By Alice Bennett 

York Food and Drink Festival is a city-wide culinary celebration running from 22nd September to 1st October 2017. Markets and events provide opportunities to meet producers and taste new things. We ask that you’re careful consuming food and drink in the library, but we do have some tasty treats hidden away in the collections…

In this blog post we consider some icons of fictional food.

Would Proust have remembered so much without his madeleine? What would James have been without his Giant Peach? And how would the Famous Five have coped without lashings of Ginger Beer?

Food and drink play a part in many famous moments in fiction. This pivotal role of food in fiction starts in childhood. Fairy tale food often takes a sinister twist. Even something as familiar as porridge, the homely favourite of the Three Bears, can become monstrous, flooding a town in the misuse of the magic porridge pot. Seemingly innocuous food moments in fairy tales can become contentious - an edition of Little Red Riding Hood was banned in one US county, as an illustration of Red Riding Hood taking food and drink to her mother showed a bottle of wine in her basket, which was deemed unsuitable for a children’s book. In many stories, food can be used as temptation. Poison can lurk in apparently wholesome items, with Snow White tricked by the apparently perfect apple.

 Franz Jüttner Illustration from Sneewittchen Mainz (Snow White) 1905

Another traditional example is the sugary temptation of the gingerbread cottage used to lure in Hansel and Gretel. CS Lewis also resorted to confectionery temptation in Narnia, when the White Witch entraps Edmund with enchanted Turkish Delight. 

Ludwig Richter illustration,  'Hänsel und Gretel vor dem Hexenhaus' (Hansel and Gretel before the witches house) 1903

 

The inclusion of food in children’s literature is common. This can be fantastically oversized - from Jack’s magical beanstalk to the Giant Peach, which transports James and his insect friends away from his cruel aunts. Food can be used to demonstrate exoticism and plenty. The feasts at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series create opulent images of abundance, as well as illustrating the difference of the wizarding world through mysterious treats such as Butterbeer, Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. Sweet foods seem to be particularly popular as images of treats and plenty, but can turn sour in excess. The Chocolate Factory that is Willy Wonka’s playground has a distinctly sinister side, whilst Bruce Bogtrotter faces punishment through cake - although not quite death by chocolate. Bizarre food items can illustrate the magical or outlandish, whilst others have an almost universal appeal - Charlie Bucket is effectively the archetypal kid in a sweet shop.

Some of the most famous literary food appears in Alice in Wonderland. The size-changing  cake and potion labelled “eat me” and “drink me” add to the strangeness of Wonderland, as well as driving the plot, whilst the Mad Hatter’s tea party is one of Carroll’s most memorable scenes. Alice’s adventures through Wonderland and through the Looking-glass are interlaced with food moments, including the sneeze-inducing pepper, the oysters devoured by the Walrus and the Carpenter and that most curious insect, the bread-and-butterfly. 

 The Mad Hatters tea party in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

Carroll is by no means the only canonical writer to employ food to drive his plot. One of Shakespeare’s most gruesome scenes is that in which the avenging Titus Andronicus serves pies to Tamora, queen of the Goths - pies in which her own murderous sons are baked. Less disturbing is Robert Louis Stevenson’s use of food in conjuring memories of home as the marooned Ben Gunn dreams of toasted cheese from the Treasure Island. The role of food as a social indicator makes it a useful tool for the author, easily denoting class and status through an individual’s diet. Dickens makes great use of this, from the malnourished Oliver Twist’s request for more gruel in the workhouse to the poor but respectable Cratchit family, as they sit down to Christmas dinner.

Food continues to provide the basis of memorable scenes - one of the most notorious examples in recent fiction is that pie, in the novel The Help (and the subsequent film adaptation). Fictional foods can horrify, amuse, tempt or enchant us - and continue to do so today.

Feeling peckish? Feast on these delights from the library:

Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass and What Alice Found There MA 173.1

Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, novel in the Peggy Janiurek Collection

Roald Dahl, Matilda, novel available at  MA 193.9 DAH

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol - editions of the novel at MA 163.4  

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, editions of the novel at MA 163.4

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Tales of the Brothers Grimm, editions available at MG 124.4

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, novel at MA 198.9 MIT, BBC TV adaptation in the audiovisual collection at LP 4.50942 CHR

Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, at MJ 138.2

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter novels, available in the  Peggy Janiurek Collection

William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, editions of the play at  MA 102.71 TIT, DVDs of film adaptations in the audiovisual collection at MA 102.71 TIT

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, editions of the novel at MA 173.3

Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, film adaptation available in the audiovisual collection at LP 4.30973 TAY

Happy birthday, Mr. Eliot!

Dr Nicoletta Asciuto, Associate Lecturer in English Literature, writes about T.S Eliot who was born 129 years ago this month.

T.S Eliot in 1934.  Public Domain image by Lady Ottoline Morrell

‘Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future contained in time past.’ (I, ll. 1-3). Of Four Quartets, I have always found ‘Burnt Norton’, where these lines are taken from, the most soothing one. Written before the outbreak of World War II (1935-36), ‘Burnt Norton’, the first of the four quartets, carries the rewarding promise that our past lives, present experiences, and future hopes all merge into one fluid experience of personal time, where nothing is lost and everything redeemed, pointing to ‘one end, which is always present’ (l. 10). No other Eliot poem, I feel, expresses such fluidity in a more serene, peaceful way. Memories from his American childhood and his most recent British life mingle with preoccupations about the future, breaking through during the poet’s walk in the rose garden of Burnt Norton. He visited Cotswolds in 1934, to meet with his old friend Emily Hale, who came over from America.

This is what has made me a passionate reader and scholar of Eliot’s poetry throughout the years: how his poetry, always so very preoccupied with time, manages to be timeless yet profoundly set in history and tradition. ‘There will be time, there will be time’ (l. 26), says the poet in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, but only until ‘the taking of toast and tea’ (l. 34): after that quintessential moment of British and New England turn-of-the-century sociability, imprisoning the poet, there will be no more time to change our minds and, for him, to ever be free again.

Time and history were much on Eliot’s mind. But they are also literally accumulated and deposited in his verse, and not just as reflections of poet’s intellectual preoccupations. Writing cannot happen in a historical vacuum, and Eliot’s poetry especially engages, both directly and indirectly, with the rich poetic tradition that preceded it, whilst at the same time branding itself as new, modernist, and a breakaway from the old. Reading Eliot’s poetry does not mean simply reading the words and thoughts of an Anglophone poet living in the first half of the twentieth century; rather, it entails entering a literary time and a complex game of allusions and references, in which poets of different ages and cultures can somehow “cohabit” in one single, atemporal space. This timelessness of Eliot’s poetry has contributed to its allure, recognized by hundreds of students, scholars, and poetry readers over the last century.

This year, we not only celebrate the 129th anniversary of Eliot’s birth in St. Louis, Missouri, but also the 100th anniversary of the publication of Eliot’s first poetry collection, Prufrock and Other Observations, with the Bloomsbury-based Egoist Press, which also published works by Ezra Pound and James Joyce. Happy birthday, Mr. Eliot, and thank you for gifting us with such extraordinary, timeless poems.

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The Eliot Collection

(University of York library Rare Books Collection)

The University of York library was gifted a small number of books by and about T.S. Eliot by the library of King’s College, Cambridge in the early seventies.  This was the result of a bequest to King’s College by Eliot’s friend, John Hayward, and consisted of those books in the Hayward Collection of which King’s College already owned copies.  The collection has since been expanded, both through the acquisition of new books by gift and purchase, and through transferring to it books previously on the open shelves. It now covers such authors as W.B. Yeats, Robert Graves, D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Seamus Heaney, Christopher Hill, and Paul Muldoon.  

To arrange to view items in our rare books collection please contact the Borthwick Institute

The Ralph Vaughan Williams Collection

To mark the 59th anniversary of his death on Saturday 26 August, Olivia Else, Academic Liaison Librarian for Music, explores the set of scores that originally belonged to Ralph Vaughan Williams that are now housed in the Library's Rare Books collection.

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Vaughan Williams by Rothenstein in 1919.
Image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Vaughan-Williams-
by-Rothenstein.jpg in the public domain.

As the Academic Liaison Librarian for Music at the University of York I am proud to oversee the excellent collection of scores and academic texts that are housed in the John Paynter Music Library, as well as the large selection of music related DVDs and CDs, microfiche and electronic resources held elsewhere in the building, or online.

One of the lesser known parts of the Library’s Rare Books collection includes a set of 81 scores bound together in 21 volumes that were originally owned by the eminent British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958).

The scores were gifted to the Library by the Department of Music’s Professor Nicola LeFanu, an internationally recognised composer in her own right, and she in turn received them from another acclaimed composer, her mother Elizabeth Maconchy, who studied under Vaughan Williams (henceforth RVW) at the Royal College of Music in the 1920s.

The somewhat eclectic set of scores contains works by RVW’s forbears, contemporaries and pupils, as well as a handful of his own works. Most interesting to scholars are perhaps the annotations on some of the works. Although most show no signs of having been used in performance, some of the chamber works contain fingering and rehearsal marks, and a number of the scores have handwritten dedications to RVW by their composers, including Gustav Holst (a close friend of RVWs), Herbert Howells (a younger composer profoundly influenced by RVW’s music) and Arnold Bax (another younger composer who developed a close working relationship with RVW).

A selection of annotated scores from the Ralph
Vaughan Williams collection. Photograph by Paul Shields. 

RVW appears to have solved a problem that many musicians continue to grapple with today. He bound his score collection into larger volumes to make it easier to find what he needed when searching through large quantities of anonymous looking slimline sheet music. Some of these volumes have rather beautiful covers with RVW’s initials embossed on them in gold, and all contain handwritten contents notes on the front flyleaf, apparently written by RVW himself.

Front cover and contents page of a collection of scores, Morris dance tunes. Photograph by Paul Shields. 

The two most exciting volumes in the set contain a handwritten reduced score of RVW’s ballad opera Hugh the Drover. The opera was first composed during the period 1910-1914 but it did not receive a formal performance until 1924. A scrawled note on the cover of the first volume states “Curwen
Editions 3661” and this indeed reflects the details of the publisher and plate number of the 1924 edition of the score, but our version appears to be a pre-publication copy, possibly a final proof.

Front cover of Hugh the drover: a romantic
ballad opera in two acts. Photograph by Paul Shields.

Although largely identical to the published version, as you look through the score there are numerous areas of correction or re-working. On a casual glance it is impossible to be certain whether these reflect errors or deliberate revisions of the music - maybe there is a PhD thesis waiting for someone in these pages! What we do know is that Vaughan Williams continued to work on the score of Hugh the Drover throughout his lifetime, with the final version being published in 1956, over forty years after the work was first ‘finished’.

Annotations in Hugh the drover: a romantic
ballad opera in two acts.Photograph by Paul Shields.  

Whatever the role played by these volumes in the evolution of Hugh the Drover, for myself as a librarian and music graduate it is thrilling to be able to handle scores with such an illustrious provenance, and gain a little insight into the workings of one of our nation’s greatest musicians. As with any item in the Library’s Rare Books Collections, members of the University can arrange to consult the RVW collection in the Borthwick Institute’s Search Rooms. A full list of the scores in the collection can be seen on YorSearch,  I do encourage you to come and make full use of them. As for me, I’m off to bind my own score collection in leather volumes with OJE embossed in golden letters on the corners…

Creating the Story

In the second of his two blog posts regarding the IPUP internship, Alex Jubb tells us more about Clement Attlee's Indian Books.

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There is certainly an air of mystery surrounding Clement Attlee's relationship with the University of York. The presence of books donated by Attlee reflects two major questions; why did he have these books in the first place? And secondly, how have they ended up in the University's collection? The internship, brought about by the seventieth anniversary of the independence of India and Pakistan, has contributed to bringing both Attlee's involvement in the early history of the University to the surface, in addition to the wider knowledge of the accessions book; a source rarely known about outside of the Rare Books Department within the University.

Attlee's interest in Indian and Pakistani affairs was recognised by a great number of Indian authors. He had been a member of a number of influential commissions, including the Indian Statutory Commission between 1928 and 1934, and later became the expert on India within the Labour Party. During the Second World War Attlee was placed in charge of Indian Affairs, setting up the Cripps Mission in 1942 in an attempt to bring all the various factions within India together. As a result of this wealth of experience, Attlee played a crucial role in ultimately bringing about the independence of both states. It soon became obvious through many of the inscriptions in works personally donated by Attlee to the University that the ex-Prime Minister was a greatly admired, clearly knowledgeable individual who was seen as a man who could provide patronage to works on the subject of India and Pakistan. Authors such as Bhagavan Das,  MM Aslan Khan, and S Rawachaudra Rau, in addition to organisations such as the Anglo-Indian Association based in London, made hand-written notes to Attlee himself within many of the works. Das, in his 1934 work Ancient versus Modern “Scientific Socialism”, wrote to Attlee to ask for a review of the aforementioned work. This can be seen in the image below;

The inscription in Ancient Versus Modern "Scientific Socialism'"by Bhagavan Das.

In Rawachaudra Rau's case he forwarded on to Attlee his late father's 1912 work, K Srinivasu-Rau's The Crisis in India, stating that; 'For favour of noble acceptance by Major C. R. Attlee MP this work is presented in fulsome loyalty and devotion' (see the image below). This could be evidence for the respect for Attlee from authors of Indian affairs. Moreover, whilst the Anglo-Indian Association donated a work to Attlee from their offices in London, Attlee received many works from the Indian sub-continent itself. For example, Aslan Khan's analytical work 'Safeguards in the New Indian Bill' arrived on Attlee's desk all the way from Lahore.

The inscription in The Crisis in India by K Srinivasa Rau

The second question is clearly; how have these works ended up in the University's collections? The University had sent out a call to institutions and individuals across the country and as a result there were a series of generous donations of books between 1961 and 1963. During these years, the University had been announced but was not officially open until 1963. The founding of the University of York and other universities of the same period,  was a definite factor in receiving these donations. Socialist and Labour politicians such as Attlee appreciated and valued new universities as they provided education for a greatly increased number of potential students; 'education for all' being a key feature in the vocabulary of the majority of left-leaning politicians.

However, it is unclear what were the other driving forces behind the donation of these works. John Bew, the author of the most recent biography of Attlee, assumes that one possibility is that Violet Attlee, Clement’s wife, donated these books as the family was moving to a smaller home with less space for a vast library. The dates in which these works were logged in the accessions book all fell in August of 1962; Violet Attlee passed away in 1964, and Clement Attlee died in 1967. He was increasingly frail as the 1960s wore on, but in 1962 he did give two speeches in the House of Lords; he was very much still capable of enacting his political beliefs both in and out of Westminster, but was certainly in less good health than he had ever previously been. The latest possible date for these documents to have been donated would clearly be in 1962 with the logged date evidenced in the accessions book. The Attlee of the early 1960s would possibly have still been capable of donating these works, as well as also deciding which works to donate and which ones to keep within his collection. Documents that would support this theory have yet to be uncovered, and it is the accessions book that is the main piece of evidence for Attlee's contributions.

After correspondence with the British Library, the Bodleian Library in Oxford and Attlee's biographers, the mystery has only grown exponentially. In the correspondence with the Bodleian, the Superintendent for the Library’s Special Collections stated that; 'in keeping, perhaps, with his [Attlee's] seemingly quiet and methodical nature, he did not routinely keep personal correspondence … the collection we [the Bodleian] have is very much a collection of governmental and official documents'. The Bodleian holds the mainstay of manuscripts relating to Attlee, so the mystery would continue.

Clement Attlee's bookplate, found in
many of the works.

What is also interesting is that the collection of mid-twentieth century Indian works have been greatly
supplemented by major gifts from the Riddy family in 2008. Felicity Riddy was an academic at the University of York between 1988 and 2007, becoming the Vice-Chancellor in 2000. She is a specialist in late-medieval English and Scottish Literature, whereas her husband John had 'made his mark as a book collector, and built up a much-admired private library on the history of British India… once the largest of its kind in private hands'. He was known to give lectures and wrote articles illuminating various aspects of Indian history. The Riddys can also be found in the very same accessions book within the Borthwick Library, having gifted even more works than Attlee did himself. This project highlighting twentieth century Indian works within the University has accompanied the continued employment and recruitment of specialists in all departments within the University; specialists in fields such as Indian and Pakistani affairs, global and transnational history, in addition to scholars of worldwide independence movements following examples of de-colonisation in the twentieth century.

There is undoubtedly a great amount of scope for more research to be done in the particular field. The accessions book holds many hidden secrets; Attlee personally donated hundreds of works, to the University of York and this placement has only served to highlight those works relating to the independence movements of both India and Pakistan. A full programme of research into the accessions book will certainly be useful to create a greater level of understanding of the history of the Morrell Library.

There are plenty of sources still to find, and plenty of manuscripts still to uncover within the University’s archives to unearth the mysteries that have arisen as a result of this internship.

The information gathered during this internship will be used to enhance catalogue records making it easier for researchers to identify Attlee donations. For more information please contact the Rare Books Librarian sarah.griffin@york.ac.uk.

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All photos by Alex Jubb.

Clement Attlee's ‘Indian Books’

In the first of two posts to mark the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence, Alex Jubb explains how his internship led to him learning about the Library's collection of books once owned by Clement Attlee.

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This will be the first of two blogs written about an internship undertaken with the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past (IPUP). The first post will discuss how this internship came about, the first stages of the internship, and the internship's successes. The second post will develop the narrative that I have unearthed whilst progressing through the internship.

The accessories book, available in the Borthwick
Archives, open on just one of the many
pages of Attlee's donations

Every summer, IPUP offer part-time internships 'intended to give graduate History students an
opportunity to develop their skills, experience and CVs in various employment contexts.' I was lucky enough to be offered an internship closely associated with the History Department and the University Library's Special Collections. The University Library holds a vast array of hidden wonders within its collections; many of which are catalogued without copy specific details, leaving these particular books difficult to locate even if an avid historian tries to find them on the University's databases. Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom immediately following the end of the Second World War, donated many books to the Library in the early 1960s. Attlee was one of the most important figures in orchestrating the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947. As a result of this, in his vast collection of books he had obtained many works on Indian and Pakistani affairs. Attlee donated over 100 of these works to the Library, and I was to play a role in finding these works on the Library's shelves, listing them, and ensuring that they are widely advertised and explored thoroughly by other researchers, not just myself through improved catalogue records, and promotion via social media and exhibitions. This was primarily because this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Indian Independence Act, and is fresh on the minds of many eminent scholars and historians.

It is only known that these works originally belonged to Attlee through the exploration of the University's 'Accessions Book'; a book detailing all of the books, articles and other items donated to the Library over a two year period between 1961 and 1963. I spent a day working with this book in the Borthwick Reading Room, transferring the data from the book onto an electronic spreadsheet. It soon became obvious that there was minimal detail on the accessions book, and from a quick search of several of the books using 'Yorsearch', the University of York's online catalogue,  it soon became evident that these details were also missing from the online catalogue. Publishers were missing, first names of many authors were missing, and the title of the book and date of publication were often incomplete. To the outside world, and to most within the University itself, there was no indication that these were donated by Attlee. Only the accessions book had this crucial information. This lack of information was initially quite worrying, but a day spent collating all of the relevant works from the accessions book allowed me to 'fill in the gaps'. This was a long and arduous process, but one that will be of use to future researchers of Attlee and the independence stories of India and Pakistan. Many of these works have authorial inscriptions to Attlee, Attlee's family crest and bookplate, and other notations made by Attlee himself. These works are not known to scholars and biographers of Attlee, and by sharing the database of these works that I have now created it is hoped that this information will soon be out in the public domain via the online catalogue.

The accessories book, held in the Borthwick Archives, showing Attlee's donations.

This new research into Attlee's donations will also lend itself to the creation of an exhibition within the University Library. This exhibition will showcase several of the books that have been researched, and will be the first step to bringing Attlee's relationship with the University to life.

Clement Attlee with his instantly
recognisable smoking pipe

Being given the chance to work alongside both Sarah Griffin, the Rare Books and York Minster Librarian, and Mark Jenner, one of the University's Research Champions and also a Reader in Early Modern History, has certainly been something that I have really appreciated. The works that I have looked at within this internship were initially unknown to me, but I now have a much clearer understanding of the immense wealth of material that the University has within its collection. A simple use of the Library catalogue might highlight the location of a particular book but, at present, it is not always possible to tell via this method just how important an individual the book belonged to. This opportunity has been something that I have relished; it has provided me with inspiration for future avenues of research, and invaluable experience of working within the Special Collections Department of an academic institution. Not only will this be of great use in future when I am searching for jobs and deciding which career path to follow, but has provided me with a newfound set of skills; I am now confident in working on a project where the narrative has not been created and is not necessarily easy to come across. The second part of this blog will discuss the 'narrative' and story of Attlee's donations to the University, particularly focusing on his relationship with India and Pakistan. This relationship can be told through the information within the accessions book and Attlee's donated works, and the story is an interesting one indeed.

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Photo of Clement Attlee used under a Creative Commons licence from Wikimedia Commons. All other photos taken by Alex Jubb.

Philip Larkin’s connections to the City of Culture

Kyra Piperides, a PhD student in the Department of English and Related Literature, looks at Larkin’s connections to Hull including the recent preservation of his flat in the city by Historic England.

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Some of Larkin's poetry set up in a printing press.
(Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

As a researcher studying Philip Larkin’s poetry, I am frequently confronted with the comment: “I remember his poem about… you know… what your parents do to you!” In 2015 Professor Edwin Dawes, chair of the Philip Larkin Society, remarked that “[Larkin’s] words are quoted more frequently than those of any of his poetic contemporaries”. While the often allusively rephrased first lines of This Be The Verse roll so easily off the tongues of so many, it is the closing line of An Arundel Tomb that demonstrates the poet’s continuing relevance. A quick Twitter and Instagram search shows that #WhatWillSurviveOfUsIsLove has become associated with such diverse topics as LGBT+ rights, war and random acts of kindness. It is easy to see why Larkin became known as the country’s unofficial laureate.

Philip Larkin photographed in the
newly-completed Brynmor Jones
Library, 1969.  Photograph
by Fay Godwin. 

In 2003 Larkin was named favourite poet by the Poetry Book Society and the Poetry Library and in 2008, he topped The Times’ list of greatest British postwar writers. Despite declining the position of Poet Laureate shortly before his death, Larkin was finally memorialised in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner in December 2016. Further official recognition has come very recently, with the announcement in July 2017 that Historic England are to preserve the Hull flat in which he lived for eighteen years and wrote much of his poetry, with a Grade II listing.

While it may have taken a little longer for Westminster to officially recognise the poet, Larkin has long been celebrated in Yorkshire. From the windows of the University of Hull’s Larkin Building, you have a perfect view of the Brynmor
Jones Library, the iconic building that the poet-librarian oversaw the development and running of from 1955-1985. In the city immortalised in Here – “Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster/ Beside grain-scattered streets, barge-crowded water” – Larkin’s statue greets those arriving by train, his poems engraved below their feet. The Larkin trail guides visitors through significant points in Hull and beyond, and 40 technicolour toads graced the streets to mark 25 years since the poet’s death in 2010.

One of the technicolour toads.

CC-BY 2.0

It was the poet’s poignant words that introduced the promotional video for Hull’s successful campaign for the title of UK City of Culture 2017. The year’s celebrations have provoked all-the-more interest in Larkin, with a biographic exhibition opening in July 2017. Larkin: New Eyes Each Year features an enormous collection of the poet’s possessions, fittingly presented in the Brynmor Jones Library. Shelf after shelf of books are displayed, still in the order that the poet-librarian had them arranged, their breadth of topics highlighting his diverse interests. The words “books are a load of crap” are wittily placed, half-concealed on the shelves, behind his collection. As the complexities of the poet’s character are explored in the exhibition, visitors are given the opportunity to take a seat on a park bench, to immerse themselves in the former librarian’s poetry. Biographical interest and controversy aside, it is ultimately Larkin’s poetry that secured his place in Poet’s Corner and the title of the nation’s favourite poet.

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A statue of Philip Larkin
(Flickr CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The University of York library houses a range of Larkin’s work alongside related critical and The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin (2015), edited by Archie Burnett, contains all of Larkin’s published Larkin, Ideology and Critical Violence: A Case of Wrongful Conviction (2008). Andrew Motion’s Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life (1993) and James Booth’s Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love (2015) are engaging biographies. Audio cassettes of Larkin reading his poems are also available.
poems and a selection of unpublished pieces, complete with a comprehensive commentary. The library’s collection includes several introductions to Larkin and his poetry, as well as a selection of excellent critical works including John Osborne’s
biographical texts.

A number of Larkin’s works are held in the Poetry Society Library collection, shelved at the end of the literature section in the JB Morrell Library. This collection has over 10,000 books available to borrow, concentrating mainly on 20th century poetry in English. The Library’s rare book collection also has the Eliot collection, focusing on 20th century literature with a wide range of different authors. All the material held by the Library can be searched using the catalogue YorSearch.

Larkin: New Eyes Each Year is open until Sunday 1 October 2017, and Hull is only an hour away by train!