{"id":1486,"date":"2018-09-21T20:04:25","date_gmt":"2018-09-22T00:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/?p=1486"},"modified":"2018-09-21T21:41:32","modified_gmt":"2018-09-22T01:41:32","slug":"so-what-is-an-extra-illustrated-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/so-what-is-an-extra-illustrated-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"So What is an \u201cExtra-Illustrated Edition?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0By Kevin Grace, University Archivist and Head of the Archives and Rare Books Library<\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"enoch<\/a>
Enoch Carson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Cincinnati businessman Enoch Carson began collecting the works of William Shakespeare in the years before the Civil War, he was part of a bibliophile craze that stretched across the Atlantic Ocean. During the 1800s in Europe and America, book lovers scavenged publishers\u2019 catalogues, auctions and bookshops to amass their private libraries built on their specific interests. They corresponded with each other at length, trading prints and imprints and finagling to acquire their most desired items. For Carson, the quests were for Masonic books and for Shakespeare. His collection of books on Masons numbered in the tens of thousands, and while his library of William Shakespeare editions was not quite so large, it was no less impressive for its content.<\/p>\n

For Carson, his passion for collecting was fostered by a like passion for Shakespeare.\u00a0 But he wasn\u2019t just a collector \u2013 he was a student of the bard as well and a lover of theatrical performance.\u00a0 On one notable occasion in 1865, he even organized a local production of Hamlet <\/em>for the benefit of soldiers\u2019 families, getting Ohio\u2019s lieutenant governor, Charles Anderson, to star as Hamlet and taking on the role of one of the gravediggers himself. In building his library of Shakespeare editions in the many collected works available to him in the 19th<\/sup> century, Enoch Carson wanted more than just \u201cbooks.\u201d He wanted prints and engravings and sketches as well \u2013 anything related to the plays, to Shakespeare\u2019s Elizabethan era, and to the influences that Shakespeare expressed through his work. This desire on his part was reflective of that transatlantic craze, that fashion to acquire the \u201cextras\u201d that particularly defined one\u2019s private library.<\/p>\n

Extra-illustration collecting is said to have begun in 1769 when English clergyman James Granger published his catalog, Biographical History of England from Egbert the Great to the Revolution. <\/em>Interestingly, though, Granger\u2019s tome did not include any illustrations. What resulted from the publication was that readers began to collect images of the people he listed in his book. In the 1800s, this practice would become known as \u201cGrangerising.\u201d In essence, people were striving to make a particular book or set of books \u2013 Shakespeare, histories, botanical treatises, biographical dictionaries, travel and the like \u2013 into their own. In a way, collectors were creating new books, and in that sense, what they were creating were unique volumes, something that was special to them and different from everyone else\u2019s set of Shakespeare, for example.<\/p>\n

The next step after collecting these extra images was to re-create them as full books by disbinding the original volumes and re-binding them to include the additional pages. In many cases, the new versions were sumptuous items with leather bindings and gilded pages. And these were not scrapbooks. Rather, the images were integral to the texts and often used inlaying in paper frames.<\/p>\n

\"william<\/a>
William Proctor<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The University of Cincinnati\u2019s Enoch Carson Shakespearian Library is housed in the Archives & Rare Books Library. The hundreds of volumes were purchased from the Carson estate by William A. Procter, one of three private libraries he donated to UC in the 1890s to provide the modern founding of its library holdings. And over the past century, hundreds more books have been added to the Shakespeare holdings. For the most part, these books are 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> century sets of Shakespeare or books on particular aspects of Shakespeare\u2019s plays and characters, and most are illustrated. In the 20th<\/sup> century, fine press editions have been acquired as well.<\/p>\n

\"extra<\/a>
Knight’s Extra Illustrated Volumes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Enoch Carson certainly had an excellent library of William Shakespeare imprints, to which he added his loose illustrations and engravings. And this is where William Procter came in to provide the University of Cincinnati Libraries with its unique extra-illustrated edition of Shakespeare. Before donating it to UC, Procter took the 1839 Charles Knight edition of Shakespeare\u2019s works printed in London and one of the most popular editions, and created a new set. Using the illustrations collected by Carson and William Burton of New York, Procter had each of the 42 volumes disbound in order to add the extra engravings and sketches. These illustrations are of a variety of ages and origins, but when bound with the plays they represent, they provide a visual study of the works that are typical of how 19th<\/sup>-century productions of Shakespeare has informed how we think about Shakespeare today \u2013 costuming, stage sets and scenery. Some are steel or copper engravings, others are ink drawings or watercolors. Many of the volumes include engravings of the notable actors who played the various roles in the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> centuries, and for the latter, many who actually performed in Cincinnati like William Macready, Edwin Forrest, Charles Kean, Charlotte Cushing and several others.<\/p>\n