Jonathan Harker - 1897

What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of a man?

[john-harkers-journal]

Johnny there you are! Thought we'd lost you.

I may be silent for long spells, but I'm still here!

[john-harkers-journal]

I’ve accepted an internship where I’ll be working with medieval incunabula, attempting to map out where the books travelled as they switched owners throughout the Middle Ages!

[john-harkers-journal]

"The Vampyre" by John William Polidori. Had the chance to see this first edition copy today.

[mary-shelleys-ghost]

IHob

International house of Byron

[john-harkers-journal]

May have the opportunity this August to see the original Frankenstein manuscript at Oxford!!!

[wispsofsilk]

🥀

[cair--paravel]

Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) illustrated by Kate Baylay, published by the Folio Society.

[cra-yon]

The Kafka Manuscripts

[xshayarsha]

From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Diary.

[tylerforesthauser]

The Garden

[achyjedi]

[john-harkers-journal]

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792 in original binding. Typo “Rights of Wowan” on spine.

[john-harkers-journal]

Working on another Plowman transcription

MS Douce 104

[john-harkers-journal]

Working on a translation of Beowulf’s funeral

[john-harkers-journal]

Just Pre-Ordered a facsimile of Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s hand for the 200th anniversary! 

Pictures from the SP Books Website.

[dr-archeville]

FRANKENSTEIN Turns 200!

This Day in World History: On January 1st, 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published  by the small London publishing house Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones.  It was issued anonymously, with a preface written for Mary by her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and with a dedication to philosopher William Godwin, her father.  It was published in an edition of just 500 copies in three volumes, the standard “triple-decker” format for 19th-century first editions.

Mary Shelley would receive credit as the book’s author in the second edition of Frankenstein, published four years later – August 11th, 1822 – in two volumes (by G. and W. B. Whittaker) following the success of the stage play Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein by Richard Brinsley Peake.

The (one-volume) edition most widely published and read now was first released nine years after that – on October 31st, 1831 –  and was heavily revised by Mary Shelley, partially to make the story less radical, and included a lengthy new preface by the author, presenting a somewhat embellished version of the genesis of the story.

[john-harkers-journal]

Transcribing and glossing a few lines from Piers Plowman.

MS Douce 104, fol. 74r