Skip to main content
The Collation

This month’s crocodile mystery was a bit more challenging than recent ones (perhaps not helped by my cryptic “suitable for April” introduction), but Aaron Pratt guessed the gist of it: the image was a detail of a page printed in black, usually referred to as a mourning page. Here is the full context, with the bit we were looking at taken from the middle of the left-hand page:

leaves A3v-A4r of Josua Sylvester's Lachrymae Lacrymarum

leaves A3v-A4r of Josua Sylvester’s Lachrymae Lacrymarum (click to enlarge in Luna)

  1. For more on the outpouring of grief in print on Prince Henry’s death, see Cambridge University Library’s exhibit on “Mourning Prince Henry”.
  2. See Whitney Trettien’s post for other examples of mourning pages, including the one in Tristram Shandy.
  3. R. MacGeddon [pseud. Randall MacLeod], “An Epilogue: Hammered” in Pete Langman, ed. Negotiating the Jacobean Printed Book (Ashgate, 2011), pp 137-99.

Comments

In which I talk about paper topography & mourning pages and wax poetic about secret histories for The Collation: http://t.co/QbWe0EwW5i

Sarah Werner (@wynkenhimself) — April 12, 2013

Reply

In truth, quite moving: Secret histories of books | The Collation – http://t.co/VebGceeqBS

Colin T. Ramsey (@ctramsey) — April 13, 2013

Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *