AustenBlog Analog, redux
We’ve posted about this before, but since we talked about it as part of our presentation at the JASNA Super Regional event in Rochester this past weekend, we thought it was time to post it again: one of our favorite Jane Austen sites on the Internet, the Augusta Burke Notebooks at Goucher College Library’s website.
Augusta Burke was a Janeite who, beginning in the 1930s, amassed an incredible collection of Jane Austen first editions, letters, and other memorabilia, most of which she bequeathed to Goucher College, her alma mater. Part of the collection is a series of notebooks in which Mrs. Burke pasted articles and clippings that referenced Jane Austen and her work. She kept these notebooks from 1935 until her death in 1975.
The Jane Austen Collection website also contains a PDF of a booklet printed in 2000 for the 25th anniversary of the collection. The booklet includes a letter from Mrs. Burke’s husband, Henry, one of the founders of JASNA, to the director of the Pierpont Morgan Library in which he explains about the notebooks. We loved this quote:
Alberta started keeping notebooks where even the most casual Austen reference merited an entry. Approximately 2,800 items of this sort have found their way into 10 notebooks which are now a part of the Austen collection. Anything worth clipping was pasted into the notebooks…The three big items which almost filled a notebook apiece were the production of Helen Jerome’s Pride and Prejudice, the movie with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson, and the musical First Impressions.
Other highlights of the notebooks include receipts for and correspondence about the items that the Burkes acquired for their collection–including a first edition of Emma, uncut and in boards (which means it’s never been read) for $135! A first edition of P&P for £15 8 shillings!
We encourage our readers to spend some time surfing around the notebooks. However, make sure you have several hours to kill–you’ll get lost in there.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Actually, it could have been read if it is uncut and in boards. Uncut just means that the pages were not trimmed to be a uniform size. If it is unopened, on the other hand, then it is likely not to have been read, because that means that any pages held together by the folds of the original sheets have not been cut apart. You can have a book where the pages have been opened (usually with something like a letter opener) but the book remains uncut, but a book which has had its pages trimmed is almost always opened in the process. (A reflexive correction from a rare books librarian.)
May 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Thanks, Sarah! I always thought “uncut” meant the folds hadn’t even been sliced. I learned something today.
Librarians Rock!
(But STILL! $135!!!!!)
May 7th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
This is beyond cool. Now I feel slightly vindicated for keeping my scrapbook collection of entertainment articles from when I was kid. Someday, someone will want a record of the Elijah Wood references in Bop magazine, the episode descriptions of “Lois & Clark,” the TV Guide ads for “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer,” and the article featuring 20 Things You Don’t Know about Jane Austen back when I was a newbie Jane-ite.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:52 am
The Burke Collection is, indeed, fascinating; thanks for calling it to our attention, Mags. I’ve already spent considerable time wandering around in it, and look forward to much more time spent there. Thanks again!