"Authors' Book" scrapbook

Collection — Box: 1

Identifier: MS-0892

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The title, “Authors’ Book,” is embroidered on the front cover above a trellis and floral decoration. The scrapbook contains 166 clippings of author portraits across eighty-three pages. Next to each portrait is a handwritten list of works the creator may have read, hoped to read, or kept for some other purpose. Those with the longest entries (ten or more titles) include, in order of appearance: Anthony Hope, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Adeline D. T. Whitney, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Francis Marion Crawford, Rudyard Kipling, C. A. Buchheim (titles in German), and William Dean Howells. Other authors represented in the scrapbook include George Eliot, William Shakespeare, Samuel Clemens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sir Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Charles Dickens.

Dates

late 1800s to early 1900s

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is housed off-site and requires 48-hours' notice for retrieval. Contact Special Collections for more information.

Conditions Governing Use

Single copies may be made for research purposes. Researchers are responsible for determining any copyright questions. It is not necessary to seek our permission as the owner of the physical work to publish or otherwise use public domain materials that we have made available for use, unless Johns Hopkins University holds the copyright.

Biographical / Historical

The creator of the scrapbook is currently unknown, but the contents suggest it was compiled primarily in the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century. The scrapbook may provide evidence of reading practices, reading culture, and the availability and consumption of books in late nineteenth-century America.

Extent

0.15 Cubic Feet (1 flat box)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

The scrapbook titled “Authors’ Book” is a cloth notebook containing 166 clippings of author portraits across eighty-three pages. Next to each portrait is a list of works, handwritten in pen or pencil. The creator of the scrapbook is unknown, but the contents suggest it was compiled primarily in the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century.