Century of literature comes into focus

Press, 19 November 1982, Page 22

Century of literature comes into focus

Using benefits of twentieth-century technology, the British Library has opened up the eighteenth century for investigation by researchers and scholars by providing a computerised file of more than 135,000 bibliographic records of books and other publications printed in English anywhere in the world between the years 1701 and 1800. “Bad verse” will be one of New Zealand’s contributions.

By

ALEC FORREST,

London Press Service

It requires a feat of imagination to envisage a single index to a century’s printed output. The Age of Transition, Reason or Enlightment, as the eighteenth century is variously styled, gave rise to revolutions both in agricultural and industrial practice. Its enormous energy also generated advances in exploration such as Captain James Cook’s epic voyages and settlement in remote regions. Medicine, science, law and order, and education, changed for the better and, in Britain, the religious teaching of John Wesley (1703-91) had an incalculable impact. One year alone, 1776, saw the American Declaration of Independence, publication of “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith, a work crammed with facts about the passing world, Jeremy Bentham’s “Theory of Legislation,” which challenged the principles of established institutions, and. the first volume of Edward Gibbon’s masterpiece, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

The new index, a magnificent tool for scholars, bringing 100 years of civilisation into focus, is the British Library’s “Eighteenth Century Short-Title Catalogue” (E.S.T.C.). Since July, it has been accessible to researchers through the library’s automated information service, BLAISE-LINE. The index is a computerised file of more than 135,000 bibliographical records of books, pamphlets, and ephemera, and extends to all works printed in. English anywhere in the world from 1701 to 1800 and to. all works printed in any language in Britain and its dependencies in the same period. ’

The project began in 1977. Since then its coverage of library resources has grown steadily more monumental. And over the next few years it will become even more extensive as the British Library draws on records held by more than 1000 State, public, and university libraries, county archives and museum collections housed in Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Irish Re-

public, West Germany, France, Sweden, and other countries. ’ I

For the present, most of the material computerised relates to the British Library’s own possessions — the largest collection of eighteenth century publications held by any institution. In Britain, the eighteenth century sparked off a publication explosion both in London and provincial centres. As the Cambridge historian, R. J. White, says in his “The Age of George III,”’ there were 75 printing presses in London in 1724 and probably 200 by 1757, and every newspaper was read by 10 persons.

Then, according to J. H. Plumb, whose social histories cover the eighteenth century, catalogues of second-hand books appeared in the 1730 s followed by circulating libraries at fashionable spas. And in 1777, Booth, a bookseller of Norwich, in eastern England, issued a catalogue of 15,000 volumes.

At least 10. per cent of E.S.T.C. material. represents first-time cataloguing. Titles of ephemera, for instance, relate to brochures, sermons, ballads, single-sheet songs, and a huge panorama of advertisements covering items such as wigs and bath chairs, stage coach services, public hangings, monstrosities exhibited in public houses, cricket matches, bear baitings, cockfights, and other sports since abolished. Arrangements are being made to link the file to Australia’s bibliographical network (A.8.N.), and E.S.T.C. is already accessible on line through the Research Libraries Information Network (R.L.1.N.) covering libraries in the United States and Canada.

In the eighteenth century, when Hanoverian kings reigned in Britain, a great deal of material in English was collected by Gottingen University. Through 'liaison between the British Library? and Gottingen such materials will also be brought into the file.

This vast enterprise of

converting library records into machine-readable form appears bewildering at first sight. However, since most words in the record are individually indexed by the computer, its resources are instantly available through searches by keywords. Printouts of the results can be made.

Single words are its vital components. Search the file for the keyword “India” and 672 items.will be retrieved. Or seek for information on “sugar” and “islands” and 678 titles will be printed out. For example: “Some consideration touching the sugar colonies, with political observations in respect to trade. By a person well acquainted with the sugar trade, but at present residing in the island of Antigua. Printed in London for. John Clarke, 1732.” By consulting E.S.T.C. one can, for instance, discover works published in" German in the United States; sermons preached on fast days in any year, which are held by Cambridge University Library; and the bibliographical history of “The Rights of Man” by Thomas Paine as well as the criticism aroused by that seminal work. An example of the latter is: “The abridged life of Thomas Pain (sic) the author of seditious writings, entitled ‘Rights of Man.’ By Francis Oldys, A.M., of the University of Pennsylvania. Printed in London for John Stockdale c 1793.”

An American professor was recently anxious to discover when the term “consciousness” first appeared in a title. Among items printed out by E.S.T.C. was: “Consciousness- to his sincerity, the Christian’s rejoicing,” the title of a funeral sermon preached by James Wood at the King’s Weigh-house in Eastcheap, London, on September 10, 1727. This service to historians, biographers, novelists, journalists, and others is an immense time-saver. It needs but a second or two to discover what was written about the Falklands in the eighteenth century. In 1771,

for instance, Dr Samuel Johnson published his “Thoughts on the late transactions respecting the Falklands Islands.” One may be interested in eighteenth century hygiene, a word not found in the famous doctor’s dictionary, first published in 1755. But the computer has ample information under the title of cleanliness as defined in that dictionary by (1) freedom from dirt and filth and (2) neatness of dress, purity, the quality contrary to negligence and nastiness. While touring England in the 1780 s, the Due de la Rochefoucauld noted that “the people take the greatest possible pains to- maintain the standard of cleanliness.” Nevertheless disease was rife, and overcrowding in the new manufacturing towns led to insanitary quarters, polluted water, and other evils. Or consider the eighteenth century interest in cricket. The game was already professionalised and a popular

sport before the Marylebone Cricket Club, the present ruling body of the sport, was founded in 1787 on Thomas Lord’s ground in Marylebone, North London. Some 20,000 people watched Kent play Hampshire in 1772 — many more than attend a similar county match today, unless it is a competition final. Of 10 records containing the word cricket, one relates to new articles of the game “as settled and revised at the Star and Garter, Pall Mall, February 25, 1774, by a committee of noblemen and gentlemen of Kent.” To this was added “the old laws, as settled by several cricket clubs.” The work, printed in London for J. Williams, 1775, is embellished with “a neat copper plate.” E.S.T.C. can be accessed via the computer search ser-

vice in the British Library’s main reading room. It is also accessible by those public and academic libraries which are subscribers to the British Library’s BLAISE-LINE. At present there are 700 organisations subscribing to it in Britain and elswhere. BLAISE-LINE Search Service (7 Rathbone Street, London WIP 2AL) accepts postal requests for searches. For investigators, the project heaps points of resemblance to the . central criminal index at Scotland Yard, headquarters of'London’s Metropolitan Police Force.

As E.S.T.C. embodies in its computer bank more and more records, culled from libraries outside Britain, its usefulness, already recognised by scholars over a world front, must be greatly enhanced.