A challenge for the long nights

It sometimes comes as surprise to students of books history to learn that many ancient scripts were written in scripta continua, that is with no gaps between the words. Even more surprising, it was the Irish who sorted out this minefield of potential misunderstanding sometime before the year 1000 ad, due, apparently, to their difficulties in deciphering Latin words with which they were not terribly familiar.

The possibility of misreading individual words and even sentences is apparent, although context presumably ironed out much of the confusion. We've been wracking our brains to come up with a few examples of sentences which could be read in more than one way, and it is not as easy as it seems. One fairly simple example is: menswearupstairs. The best we could do is:

whatbookstolendreadfully

So, this month's challenge to readers is to produce the longest, most ambiguous, sentence they can. There will be a small prize for the best entry received. We don't like to think of our customers slaving away over the festive season, so we've decided to extend the deadline from our usual one month to the end of January (by email, snail mail, or blog-comment). The winning sentence will, of course, be given on the blog in early February.

Good luck, and Happy Christmas to all our customers, past, present and future.

Comments welcomed

Libre Livre always welcomes comments on our blog. Although it is easy enough to add them by using the 'comment' feature at the bottom of each post, some folk prefer to use email to let us know what they think.

Here, for example, is a comment we received recently:

Brilliant what a fantastic idea for a competition.

Both reviews really went to the nub of the issue: the way prizes were used both to motivate and influence behaviour. Come to think of it, a bit like bankers' bonuses.

I wonder if Mssrs Goodwin, Hornby et al might have benefited from such reading as 'For Honour Not Honours' by the great Gordon Stables.

And the winner is...

A lot of readers found our November competition quite a challenge, but two who didn't were our joint winners: KS of the Highlands and, coincidently, BS of the Valleys who will each receive their share of the prize before too long, weather permitting. Here are their entries:

All modern girls will love 'Georgie Merton or Only a Girl' by Florence Harrington. Stout hearted and active, Georgie has all the qualities her weak younger brother so badly lacks. When her natural instincts to protect him lead to a long and confining illness, Georgie's patient and uncomplaining acceptance of her fate wins the hearts of all who know her. Georgie Merton shows that modern girls can live active and useful lives without compromising their essential femininity.

'Island of Secrets' by C Bernard Rutley was a Sunday School prize. Dawn finds a tramp lying in the road and helps him to hospital where he dies, bequeathing her a treasure map. X marks the spot on a Pacific island. 'Dawn couldn't miss a chance of adventure like this.'

Well done to you both, thanks for entering and good luck for December's challenge, which will be issued soon.

We all have gremlins

Good-bye November, hello Winter. Snow everywhere, and expected to get worse. Still, it's an ill wind that blows no good, and our readers should find our December competition just the thing to pass the cold dark dreary hours - stand by, it will be announced shortly, along with the winner for November - which attracted some particularly high quality entries.

Meanwhile, I was rather tickled to discover recently that medieval scribes had a patron demon, Titivillus, who tricked them into making errors and omissions in their copies. I can personally vouch that he is still up to his games.

Here it is: the November challenge

Lavinia Heggs, lucky thing, was awarded a prize by Ibstock Sunday school in 1905. She received 'Struggling upward: A tale of the goldfields' by S J Jones who, the title page informs me, had previously found a modicum of fame as author of 'Downward'. The measure of Lavinia's delight is not recorded, but the book remains remarkably pristine.

At Libre Livre one of our interests is in late nineteenth century prize books. These were churned out in their hundreds of thousands, doubtless all with the best intentions. Brave lads set sail for the colonies to make their fortunes, whilst their long suffering sisters were induced to works of piety and charity. Reviewers recorded their admiration in terms such as 'no manly boy could fail to be inspired by this tale of courage and adventure'; 'every girl will find pleasure in this quaint story of adversity overcome'. Echoes of a lost world.

This month we invite our readers to send us a review of a prize book, real or imaginary, in not more than 50 words. As usual, entries can be submitted by email, snail mail or blog-comment to reach us by 30 November. The lucky winner will receive a token of appreciation.

Prize giving

As announced last week, the winner of our October competition was PR of Surbiton. We thought readers might be interested to see a picture of the prize giving at which lucky PR received her prize from our Head Marbler in person.

As you will see from the picture, a small crowd had assembled to watch the award, and doubtless many will be entering for the November competition - details of which will be announced in the next day or so. Anybody is free to enter. Entries can be made by blog comment, email or snail-mail, and once again Libre Livre will be offering a sumptuous prize. Watch out though - we expect some stiff competition - PR has already told us she will be throwing her hat into the ring.

The elephant

I recently stumbled across some short clips on the subject of Medieval documents. A particularly interesting one is a short talk by Christopher De Hamel talking about some of the documents held in the Parker library. In the course of his talk, he shows 12th century pictures of an elephant included in a bestiary, although the artist had never actually seen one. This is contrasted by a picture by the famous medieval scribe Matthew Paris, of Saint Albans, just 100 years later. By that time an elephant had been brought to England and was kept at the Tower of London, although its life was short and uncomfortable. the contrast between the two images could hardly be greater. If you are interested in taking a look, click Here (but do make sure your volume setting is not too high before you click).

Antiquarian Bookfair

On Saturday, whilst the HM was attending a conference on the writings of George Eliot, I dropped into the Antiquarian Bookfair in Chelsea town hall.

I had hardly been there five minutes when Ed C of Cambridge appeared loping over the horizon. After demolishing a couple of baked potatoes, we hit the stalls. And plenty of delights we found. There were around 70 stalls, from all over England and the Continent and some splendid tomes were on offer. I was taken with some small alum-tawed volumes from the early 16th century offered by a dealer from Berlin at a mere 600 euros or so. Ed found a copy of an interesting little limp binding, 'The Book of Trade Secrets, Receipts and Instructions for Renovation, Repairing, Improving and Preserving Old Books and Prints' - that recommended the use of cyanide of potassium for the removal of certain stains, which we both thought rather extreme.

I was rather taken by the Alembic Bibliography, which gives the early history of one of the finest private presses I have come across, and from whom we bought some of our letter-press equipment. Sadly, it was outside my budget, but it was very gratifying to know that David and Claire who ran the press started, as we did, using an Adana table-top press.

Another item of particular interest was a tiny volume, around 7mm square, which contained the Lord's Prayer printed in several languages, once on each page. The book - of which there were several copies on offer - was housed in a tiny clear box which served as a magnifying glass; so I can confirm that the pages were actually legible should anybody wish toread them. At £48 it too was over my budget for an item for which I could discern no conceivable use.

A grand old man

One of the great men of British book conservation is Chris Clarkson, who trained under Roger Powell and the Cockerells (who are, incidently, the family who gave us the hovercraft).

Earlier this week I was delighted to be able to attend a talk by Chris on medieval book structures, a subject in which he is an acknowledged expert. One of the interesting things he told us was that the standard of Anglo-Saxon carpentry, was markedly higher than during the later Romanesque period. Early books were sewn onto cords and/or leather thongs and these were channeled through tunnels in the edges of the boards (generally of oak in England), which allowed the boards to fit snuggly around the pages and to open easily. These tunnels were cleanly cut and well fitted to the cords, which raises the question of how they were made. The short answer is, nobody knows. Chris suggested that they might have used twist drills, perhaps made by wrapping wire around a steel shaft and then sharpening it.

For anybody interested, click here for a link to Chris Clarkson's website

Congratulations to...

We had a pleasing number of entries for our October competition. It obviously presented a quite a challenge, as, sadly, only around 30% of entries contained the correct solution: Tom, where John had had ‘had,’ had had ‘had had,’ ‘had had’ had had the examiner's approval.

As promised, the draw was made on 31 October, and I am delighted to announce that the winner is.....PR of Surbiton, whose prize is on its way.

We commiserate with those who didn't win this time, but cheer up; November's competition will be announced in the next few days.

And the winner is.....

Wait for it, wait for it....

The winner of the Libre Livre October competition will be announced within the next couple of days.

An ode owed

Another day, another missive from Doctor Doorknob of Chichester. He didn't say whether he wrote this poem himself or found it elsewhere on the internet, but anyway here it is:

There was an old man, a bookbinder
Who went out with a friend on a blinder.
She invited him in
For a night of pure sin,
But I'm glad to record he declined 'er.

Thanks, Doc. Thanks too to LM and M for their great blog-comments: keep 'em rolling girls.

Sneak preview and competition update

As well as selling the fabulous marbled paper produced by 'Marbled Arts' of Florence, Libre Livre makes a small range of handmade cards.

The card shown here is from our new Seahorse range, which will be featured on our website in coming weeks, but is available now in packs of 4 for £10.

We have already received a number of entries for our Punctuation Competition, some right, some wrong and one or two downright wacky. There's still time to enter - the draw is not until 31 October. Entries can be submitted by email, snail mail or blog-comment.

Strange places, familiar faces

London may be a big city, but although I don't venture up as often as I used to, it is surprising how often I bump into people I know. A day or two ago I spotted our correspondent, Ed C of Cambridge, and the HM partaking of a drop of "marbler's delight" in a wine-bar not far from Covent Garden. Naturally, I joined them, and before long the conversation had turned to...punctuation.

Ed, dab hand at letter writing as he is, is an efficient and enthusiastic exponent of the art. The HM and I do our best, but we do not always see comma-to-comma. I believe that the goal of punctuation is to improve 'readability'; which, incidentally, is not at all the same thing as legibility. The HM sometimes seems to think that the goal is to pack in as many commas as possible.

Years ago I came across a little brain-teaser on this subject which I am delighted to pass on: punctuate the following words to create a meaningful sentence: Tom where John had had had had had had had had had had had the examiner's approval. Any reader who can manage it, let me know and you will be entered into a prize draw (to be held on the date of our year end, 31 October).

If anybody can beat the above example for a sentence with the same word repeated consecutively (ie I am looking for runs of 12 or more) let me know, and a small reward might be winging its way.

That's it. Full stop.

Eastern European monasteries

For those reader interested in Moldavian and Rumanian monasteries, here are some more pictures: Monasteries

Moldovian Illustrated Document

I recently attended a fascinating talk by Dr Georgi Parlupov about the first (ever) illustrated book produced in Moldovia. Given the long history of insular illuminated works, it is notable that the book was produced is 1429; and equally remarkable that it is is now held by the Bodleian library in Oxford. Moldovia, one of the more obscure Eastern European countries, covered roughly territory now occupied by north east Rumania and present day Moldova, and had a complex linguistic history encompassing both latin and slavic tongues.

The gospel book was glossed, probably around the end of the 18th century, in Greek, and has a large colophon at the end of each gospel, from which the name of the scribe and the monastery at which he worked can be derived. Each gosepl starts with an illumination, tipped in, but painted on parchment of the same superb quality as the rest of the book. The frames of these illuminations may have been marked out by the same tool as used for marking the lines on the pages, as they appear almost embossed.

Sadly the book was re-bound in the nineteenth century, probably quite shortly after its arrival in Oxford.

click here to see some pictures of Moldovan monastries

Marbles

Although Libre Livre is primarily focused on book arts, we simply could not resist adding the fabulous traditional marbles create by Marbled Arts of Florence to our range. Visit our website to find out more about these and our other products.

The shame of it

At Libre Livre we try to develop the potential of all the team, and this weekend it was the Head Marbler's turn. A Conference on 19th Century psychology and aesthetics seemed just the thing. It grieves me to relate that when, after the first talk, the chairman asked for any questions the HM's hand went straight up: "what time's coffee?" she asked.

How crass you can you get: it's always 11 - 11.30, isn;t it?

A word in your ear

Dr D Doorknob, of Chichester, has suggested a few 'amusing' anagrams for "marble":

Ambler
Ramble

and my own favourite:

Mr Able,

Thanks, Doc

L is for....

Some folks have recently suggested to us that the Libre Livre logo looks rather like a 'Learner' sign, and added that maybe we should consider changing it. No way.

At Libre Livre we believe that we can always learn. We think our products are pretty good, and our customers tell us they think so too, but we continually strive to improve them.

Cuneiform and pens

What is the connection between: Room 101, a pictogram of beer, Eadfrith of Lindisfarne and capillary motion?

Got it? They were all subjects discussed at a small conference organised this weekend by the Writing Equipment Society and held in Senate House (the original for Orwell's Ministry of Information in 1984 - and incidentally, intended by a certain Mr A Hitler for housing his secret police head-quarters once the invasion of England had been completed).

Dr Finkel, of the British Museum, lectured with gusto on the origins of cuneiform writing and what became of it. Apart from showing the derivation of some of the symbols from their origins as pictograms (for example, the pictogram of beer evolved to have an alternative meaning as 'its'), he outlined the grammar of the verb 'to fart' in cuneiform - used by at least one teacher to catch the attention of his class.

Professor Michelle Brown, whose energy is a fine match for Dr Finkel's, explained some of the intricacies of the Lindisfarne gospel, and why she is convinced that the book was produced by one man, the abbot Eadfrith, whose illness or death prevented its completion.

Two acts hard to follow, but Dr Geoff Roe managed it with a forensic explanation of the development of pens, fountain (whose flow relies on capillary motion) and biro during the 20th century. He finished with the cheering news that whilst sales of ball pens have in real terms struggled to hold their own in recent years, sales of fountain pens have been roughly constant over the same period.

Of pears and parking

Before starting this week's entry, I would like to thank Mr Ed. C of Cambridge for his recent question concerning the Libre Livre team. No, Ed, the title 'Head Marbler' reflects her position in the company and is nothing to do with personal habits.

Now, on with the blog:

A few days ago the Head Marbler and I held an 'off-site' meeting in France. We took along with us Helen, a friend of a friend, who was headed for the same village. All went well until we came to leave. We'd filled the car, packed all our bags, bought a bottle or two of "marbler's delight" and were on the point of leaving when I closed the boot...and realised I'd locked the key inside.

The AA, bless them, refused to allow us to subscribe for European cover; the local garage said all its engineers were busy, and the Gendarmerie was closed for lunch. Of the village firemen there was no trace at all. Eventually the Gendarmerie re-opened and a tall policeman who looked about 14 gave me a withering look - there may have been a dash of pity in it, as both the HM and Helen were getting a bit excited by now - and rang another garage who said they would send somebody along shortly. We returned to take a coffee in the village square.

Sure enough, after half an hour or so an enormous lorry turned up, presumably loaded with ramps, and towing equipment etc fit for any emergency; except ours. The driver explained he needed more tools and would return shortly, by which time the entire village were on the alert.

Once back, in ways I should not divulge, the mechanic had the door catch up quite quickly, only to discover that the car's alarm system prevented it being unlocked without the key. The only solution was to break a window, haul out each bag in turn and search it for the key. This would have been fine and, in fact, did turn out successfully except that I had had the idea of collecting some windfall pears. As the bags were squeezed out the pears cascaded all around the car and rolled across the square before the astonished villagers.

Anyhow we found the keys and were off. At Calais, Helen said she needed to go and wash her hands. She left us in a queue of cars waiting for the ferry. I don't quite know how it happened, but as we turned around the let her back in all the other cars disappeared leaving us alone in a vast empty car park. A small white van scurried across and the driver conferred with the HM who announced that we had been selected for a 'thorough' customs check and should follow the van.

We drove slowly across the terminal until we came to a long line of vehicles - some of which I recognised as having once been ahead of us in our queue. The HM, however, was adamant: "follow that van". So I drove straight past the queue and drove on until eventually the van stopped outside a ferryman's cafe. The driver got out, looked at us with weary astonishment and beckoned us to resume our pursuit. Back across the terminal, back past the line of cars, until we finally drew up to the back of the queue where he waved us an exaggerated "good-bye"

"Leave me alone, both of you" cried Helen, rather hurtfully, once on board, as she headed for the duty free.

Friends old and new

It is always a pleasure to meet up with an old friend, and last week the LLL team were delighted to meet Vanessa, who was one of my fellow students at West Dean, and her husband Daniel.

Vanessa has made good use of her training and now holds a position at one of the most prestigious US institutions, which sounds absolutely brilliant. Daniel, who must be the most well travelled person I've ever met, grew up in places where the maps don't go.

We had a pleasant evening walking around Lewes and eating at the Pelham Arms - a pub I can thoroughly recommend and rather more respectable than some of the local hostelries, though Daniel assured me I ain't seen a bawdy house yet - not this side of the Pond.

Now that summer is finally drawing to a close this blog will be updated once again on a regular basis. I intend to write it weekly, and though there may be a bit of slippage it shouldn't be for long.

Meanwhile, thanks to Daniel and Vanessa for a great evening.

Lecture at St Bride's

Last night the Head Marbler and I attended a talk by Dr Claire Bolton at St Bride's Printing Library. the subject was the techniques used by early printing and raised, amongst other things, the possibility that early type may have been strung, or wired, together for printing. This would explain strange circular holes that have been found in several pieces of early type that are otherwise not easily accounted for.

It seems an interesting suggestion and I'm thinking of getting the Head Marbler cracking on drilling through our type collection (last estimate, well over 500,000 pieces - that should stop her getting bored!)

Paleography at King's

So, the chair of Paleography at King's College London is to close, a victim of economic constraints. We think this is a disappointing decision, and if you agree, why not sign the petition to protest at it?

Obviously with the economy struggling cuts become necessary, but it seems disappointing and distasteful that those with heavy responsibility for getting the UK economy into its parlous state are doing so little to help. How about the 'Andy Hornby' Chair of Paleography, or the 'Fred Goodwin' Gallery of Manuscripts?