Marginalia (or apostils) are marks made in the
margins of a
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
or other document. They may be scribbles, comments,
glosses (annotations),
critique
Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic study of a written or oral discourse. Although critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgment,Rodolphe Gasché (2007''The honor of thinking: critique, theory, philosophy''p ...
s,
doodle
A doodle is a drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract lines or shapes, generally without ever lift ...
s,
drolleries
A drollerie, often also called a grotesque, from French language, is a small decorative image in the margin of an illuminated manuscript, most popular from about 1250 through the 15th century, though found earlier and later. The most common type ...
, or
illuminations
Illuminations may refer to:
Shows and festivals
* IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth, a nightly fireworks show currently at Epcot at Walt Disney World Resort
*'' IllumiNations'', original nightly firework show at Epcot at Walt Disney World Resor ...
.
Biblical manuscripts
Biblical manuscripts have liturgical notes at the margin, for liturgical use. Numbers of texts' divisions are given at the margin (, Ammonian Sections,
Eusebian Canons
Eusebian canons, Eusebian sections or Eusebian apparatus, also known as Ammonian sections, are the system of dividing the four Gospels used between late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The divisions into chapters and verses used in modern texts d ...
). There are some
scholia
Scholia (singular scholium or scholion, from grc, σχόλιον, "comment, interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of th ...
, corrections and other notes usually made later by hand in the margin. Marginalia may also be of relevance because many ancient or medieval writers of marginalia may have had access to other relevant texts that, although they may have been widely copied at the time, have since then been lost due to wars, prosecution, or censorship. As such, they might give clues to an earlier, more widely known context of the extant form of the underlying text than is currently appreciated. For this reason, scholars of ancient texts usually try to find as many still existing manuscripts of the texts they are researching, because the notes scribbled in the margin might contain additional clues to the interpretation of these texts.
History
The scholia on classical manuscripts are the earliest known form of marginalia.
In Europe, before the invention of the printing press, books were copied by hand, originally onto
vellum
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...
and later onto
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...
. Paper was expensive and vellum was much more expensive. A single book costs as much as a house. Books, therefore, were long-term investments expected to be handed down to succeeding generations. Readers commonly wrote notes in the margins of books in order to enhance the understanding of later readers. Of the fifty-two extant
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...
copies of
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
' "De rerum natura" (On the Nature of Things) available to scholars, all but three contain marginal notes.
[
The practice of writing in the margins of books gradually declined over several centuries after the invention of the printing press. Printed books gradually became much less expensive, so they were no longer regarded as long-term assets to be improved for succeeding generations. The first Gutenberg Bible was printed in the 1450s. Hand annotations occur in most surviving books through the end of the 1500s.][ Marginalia did not become unusual until sometime in the 1800s.
Fermat's claim, written around 1637, of a proof of ]Fermat's last theorem
In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers , , and satisfy the equation for any integer value of greater than 2. The cases and have been k ...
too big to fit in the margin is the most famous mathematical marginal note. Voltaire, in the 1700s, annotated books in his library so extensively that his annotations have been collected and published.[ The first recorded use of the word ''marginalia'' is in 1819 in '']Blackwood's Magazine
''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by the publisher William Blackwood and was originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine''. The first number appeared in April 1817 ...
''. From 1845 to 1849 Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
titled some of his reflections and fragmentary material "Marginalia." Five volumes of Samuel T. Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poetry, English poet, literary criticism, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romanticism, Romantic ...
's marginalia have been published. Beginning in the 1990s, attempts have been made to design and market e-book
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
devices permitting a limited form of marginalia.
Some famous marginalia were serious works, or drafts thereof, written in margins due to scarcity of paper. Voltaire composed in book margins while in prison, and Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh (; – 29 October 1618) was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion ...
wrote a personal statement in margins just before his execution.
Recent studies
Marginalia can add to or detract from the value of an association copy
Association may refer to:
*Club (organization), an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal
*Trade association, an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry
*Voluntary associatio ...
of a book, depending on the author of the marginalia and on the book.
Catherine C. Marshall, doing research on the future of user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
design, has studied the phenomenon of user annotation of texts. She discovered that in several university departments, students would scour the piles of textbooks at used book dealers for consistently annotated copies. The students had a good appreciation for their predecessors' distillation of knowledge. In recent years, the marginalia left behind by university students as they engage with library textbooks has also been a topic of interest to sociologists looking to understand the experience of being a university student.
The former Moscow correspondent of The Financial Times, John Lloyd, has stated that he was shown Stalin's copy of Machiavelli's The Prince
''The Prince'' ( it, Il Principe ; la, De Principatibus) is a 16th-century political treatise written by Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli as an instruction guide for new princes and royals. The general theme of ''The ...
, with marginal comments.
American poet Billy Collins
William James Collins (born March 22, 1941) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York (retired, 2016). Collins ...
has explored the phenomenon of annotation within his poem titled 'Marginalia'.
A study on medieval and Renaissance manuscripts where snails are depicted on marginalia shows that these illustrations are a comic relief due to the similarity between the armor of knights and the shell of snails.
Writers known for their marginalia
*David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel '' Infinite Jest'', whi ...
*Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
*Herman Melville
Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...
* Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
*John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...
* Machiavelli
*Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
*Michel de Montaigne
Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne ( ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), also known as the Lord of Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularizing the essay as a liter ...
*Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
*Pierre de Fermat
Pierre de Fermat (; between 31 October and 6 December 1607 – 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he ...
*Samuel T. Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poetry, English poet, literary criticism, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romanticism, Romantic ...
*Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, ''The ...
*Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
See also
* Annotation
An annotation is extra information associated with a particular point in a document or other piece of information. It can be a note that includes a comment or explanation. Annotations are sometimes presented in the margin of book pages. For anno ...
, often in the form of a margin note but written by another hand.
References
Other resources
*Alston, R. C. ''Books with Manuscript: A short title catalog of Books with Manuscript Notes in the British Library.'' London: British Library, 1994.
*Coleridge, S. T. ''Marginalia,'' Ed. George Walley and H. J. Jackson. The Collected works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge 12. Bolligen Series 75. 5 vols. Princeton University Press, 1980-.
*Jackson, H. J. ''Marginalia: Readers writing in Books,'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. N.B: one of the first books on this subject
External links
Marginalia: Six Personal Libraries
(Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
, Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
, William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States.
James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
, John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...
, Herman Melville
Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...
, Hester Thrale
Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi (née Salusbury; later Piozzi; 27 January 1741 or 16 January 1740 – 2 May 1821),Contemporary records, which used the Julian calendar and the Annunciation Style of enumerating years, recorded her birth as 16 January ...
) from Harvard University Library
Harvard Library is the umbrella organization for Harvard University's libraries and services. It is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic library and largest private library in the world. Its collection ...
*. Barry Brahier, 2006 (University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
).
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Book design
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Writing