Two letters from Sir John Franklin (1786-1847)

John Franklin was an English admiral and explorer who led the infamous ‘Franklin expedition’ (c. 1845-1848) in search of a Northwest Passage through Canada. This ill-fated expedition resulted in the death of all 129 crew members and officers on board the two military-grade rocket vessels, ironically named the Erebus and the Terror. Despite efforts from the British navy to retrieve the lost crew and vessels, the exact circumstances of their perishing remain mysterious.

I have recently cataloged two handwritten letters from Sir John Franklin, both of which include machine-searchable transcriptions through our Digital Library.

Letter, To: Rev’d H. Wagner From: Sir John Franklin, undated.

This undated letter was written from Franklin to Rev. Henry Michell Wagner, a very influential clergyman of the Church of England. In this short letter, Franklin is very apologetic about forgetting to invite Wagner to visit with Franklin and his wife, whom he refers to as “Lady Franklin”.

Letter, To: “Dear Sir” From: John Franklin, 13 Sept 1834.

This letter comes with a typewritten transcript of the original document, which is scribed in the hand of Franklin. He sent this letter on the 13^th of September 1834 from 5 Orchard Street, Portman Square, over a decade before his fateful expedition. The note is about a book, the Life of Scott, that the recipient (likely the name at the bottom of the document: E. H. Locker Esq.) had sent to Franklin.

The full title of the published book is Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, by John Gibson Lockhart, first published in 1837. According to the date of the letter, Franklin must have had a copy of Scott’s autobiographical manuscript version, “Memoir of the Early Life of Sir Walter Scott, Written by Himself”, which was completed in 1826. The autobiographical version describes the Scottish author’s ancestry, upbringing, and life up to the age of 22. Franklin describes the affinity he felt towards the renowned historian, poet, and playwright, particularly in the context of the recent death of Franklin’s brother.

The James Wheeler Collection consists of books and items related to the Arctic and Antarctic regions in all aspects – history, travel, voyages, adventure, natural history, science, etc. These items were collected and generously donated by James Wheeler, MD. Only a selection of items are digitized.

Check out the digital exhibit featuring materials from the James Wheeler Collection, curated by Rebecca Oviedo “That Fairyland of Ice”: Polar Exploration in Mind and Memory.  

Congratulations to the Class of 2023. In honor of this weekend’s commencement is a #TBT of commencement ceremonies of years past.

Commencement ceremony outside, 1927

Commencement Audience, 1927

And did you know former U.S. President Grover Cleveland received an honorary degree at Villanova?

Former U.S. President Grover Cleveland with Archbishop Patrick John Ryan of Philadelphia after receiving an honorary degree at commencement in 1902

More commencement and student life photographs can be in found in the Distinctive Collections Digital Library.

Another Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller novel has been added to Project Gutenberg based on scans from our Digital Library. First serialized in Street & Smith’s New York Weekly story paper from June to September of 1894, Sweet Violet; or, The Fairest of the Fair is a tale of jealousy, in which Amber Laurens seeks revenge on her cousin, Violet Mead, after Violet wins the affections of the poor but handsome Cecil Grant.

Being a Mrs. Miller novel, there are a few subplots to supplement the surface-level romance. The most interesting of these involves a murder near the Chicago World’s Fair which bears at least a superficial resemblance to the story of conman and murderer H. H. Holmes, who received sensational newspaper coverage around the same time that this novel was published. However, given that Holmes’ crimes didn’t begin appear in the national news until about two months after the serial ended, this seems to be coincidence rather than a case of the author taking inspiration from the headlines.

If you want to read the book for yourself, the full text can be found online (or downloaded in popular eBook formats) at Project Gutenberg.

For all the mothers and the mothers-at-heart, thank you for your care and kindness. Happy Mother’s Day!

Mother’s Day Luncheon, 1947

Mother’s Day Program, 1952

Mother’s Day is an unlikely popular tradition of Villanova history. From the early 1900s, Mothers were invited on campus to celebrate Mother’s Day with their child. The day’s events would include tree-planting ceremony, corsage giving, mass, luncheon, games, and entertainment. Mother’s Day activities were incorporated into Junior Week festivities which began in 1935. By the 1950s, more than 400 Mothers and Grandmothers would visit marking it as one of the largest events each year. Parents Weekend overtime replaced Mother’s Day traditions. Though having Mothers partake in Junior celebrations bolstered the idea of Villanova’s community representing families of students too.

Tree Planting, 1949

An especially long-standing tradition, that started long before it was incorporated with Mother’s Day activities, was the Junior tree-planting ceremony. The tree-planting ceremony was considered the class tree, a precursor to more elaborate class gifts. Typically, the event was held after Mass and students would walk in a parade to plant the tree. With time, the tradition evolved to include Mothers participating in the planting ceremony.

More about Mother’s Day and Junior Week can be found in Blazers and Class Rings digital exhibit and Digital Library.

“Birdseye view of the Riverside Paper Mills”

Villanova University’s Digital Library presents and preserves digital collections of selected holdings from our University Archives and Special Collections, as well as partner materials including institutional partners as well as individual donors. A recently added title from my own family’s bookshelf, Along the Pathway from Fibre to Paper, shares a rare, illustrated history and step-by-step detail of the papermaking process in one of Philadelphia’s many paper mills at the turn of the twentieth century.

Riverside Paper Mills

The booklet was produced by W.C. Hamilton & Sons, owners of the Riverside Paper Mills, “where good paper has been made since 1853” – according to its title page.  The description opens with the history and long tradition of the papermaking industry in the Philadelphia region including the very first paper mill built in North America, established by William Rittenhouse in 1690.

Endpaper

The Riverside Paper Mills were located in Whitemarsh township, Montgomery County, situated on the Schuylkill River. The area, adjacent to Roxborough, Philadelphia and formerly known as Lafayette Station, is now known as Miquon.

An explanation of the company’s trademark image and the name “Miquon” is given. The trademark, appearing on nearly every page as well as the book’s endpapers, depicts the face of William Penn within a round circle over a feather quill pen, with the words – MIQUON – RIVERSIDE MILLS.

The origin of the name Miquon is said to derive from a meeting of Lenape people with William Penn. Penn’s interpreter, searching for a way to translate Penn’s name, pointed to a goose quill on the ground and said, “Onas, signifying a Quill or Pen. But his familiar name was Miquon” [8].

The Papermaking Process

The book then details the many steps and processes of turning wood fiber to paper, with large photographic plates of the machinery and workers to illustrate each step. The second half of the book incudes samples of the final products, including Hamilton’s Fine Writing paper, buff colored paper, and envelope papers.

“The Steam Splitter”

“The Fourdrinier Paper Machine. Dry End.”

My favorite part of the whole publication is, of course, that it belonged to my great-great-grandfather. A dedication bookplate on the front fly leaf reads, “Harry West, associated with W.C. Hamilton & Sons / Riverside Paper Mills / Lafayette / Montgomery County / Pennsylvania / for twenty-seven years / is the owner of this descriptive-history of the institution he has helped to build.” Signed by Freas B. Snyder, President. [Dated] 7/1/21. being no. 19 of 350 copies.” The italicized words are hand-written in the intentional blank spaces left in the printed text. I love that there is a blank space for he (and therefore, also presumably for she) indicating that copies were likely given to both men and women who worked in or were associated with the mills.

Unfortunately, Harry West died at the mill in 1925. His death certificate indicates that he was working as “Head Drainer” and cause of death listed as “crushed skull, cervical vertebrae, and left shoulder by belt driven pulley at W/C Hamilton & Sons White Marsh Township, Monty Co., Pa.”

In 1999, the former mill buildings were preserved and redeveloped into an office complex (named River Park I and River Park II). Since 2012, River Park II has been home to the campus of AIM Academy, an independent school for grades 1-12.

For more on Paper and Papermaking in Greater Philadelphia see also: https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/paper-and-papermaking/

If you have a unique or interesting item you would like to see digitized, please reach out to us at digitallibrary@villanova.edu.

Rebecca Oviedo is Distinctive Collections Archivist at Falvey Memorial Library.

A Magic Letter from God

A Himmelsbrief, which translates to “heaven’s letter” is a miraculous religious textual object believed to have been written by God himself. The object’s purpose is to protect the owner of a copy from all evil and danger and punish disbelievers, so long as the owner follows the moral covenants detailed in the letter. These divine letters could also be invoked to communicate with someone departed, or to request assistance from God in heaven. Scholars today consider Himmelsbrief to be part of the Folk Medicine tradition.

Pennsylvania Dutch Powwow

The Pennsylvania Dutch participate in a magical worldview, where superstitions and charms have apotropaic properties. The Powwow was a popular method of physical and spiritual healing for believers. The integration of the Native American term “powwow” illustrates the diverse cultural influences of the Pennsylvania Dutch beyond their German ancestry.

Performing a Powwow hinges on repetition of specific Bible verses and other incantations to ensure that their owners would be protected from death, injury, and other misfortune. In addition to verbal repetition of magical and religious phrases, simply owning a copy of a Himmelsbrief can serve as a protective talisman against evils and ailments. Although the text of these letters is often written in a formulaic rhyming scheme, Powwow practitioners charged steeply for these magical letters–with prices dependent on the reputation of the practitioner (referred to as a Hexenmeister or Braucher).

Falvey’s Magdeburg Himmelsbrief

The two most popular examples of these Powwow letters are the Koenigsberg Fire Brief of 1714 and the Magdeburg Himmelsbrief of 1783. Falvey Library holds a copy of the latter, described on the bottom of the page as “Magdeburg, 1783.” The title at the top of the letter reads:

Ein Brief, so von Gott selbsten geschrieben, und zu Magdeburg niedergelassen worden ist. // A letter written by God himself found in Magdeburg.

It is believed that these divine letters miraculously fall from the sky, and are subsequently found by the devout (in this case, found in Magdeburg–historically one of the most populous cities in the Holy Roman Empire). The title is followed by 27 lines of prose, and tacked on the back of the frame are six nails with the note “Original hand-made nails used on frame backing—frame refinished March ‘82”.

My exhibit case for Poetic License: Seven Curators’ Poetry Selections from Distinctive Collections focused on epic poetry from the Western tradition and the poets who played a key part in translating these works. A reader’s encounter with epic poetry is often through a translation, and so the craft of the translator becomes an integral element, acting as a conduit between the original language of the epic and the audiences of the translator.

My selections included four translated works from the library’s Special Collections. This journey naturally begins with The Iliad of Homer, translated by Alexander Pope between 1715-1720. Pope drew wide acclaim at the time of its publication, and the work helped fulfill a longtime fascination he had with Homer. However, Pope may have taken a few liberties in his translation, as the critic Richard Bentley is reported to have said, “It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer.” The edition on display, published in 1853 by Ingram, Cooke, and Co., includes designs and illustrations throughout by John Flaxman.

The Iliad of Homer, translated by Alexander Pope, design by John Flaxman.

In addition to translation, Homer’s epics would prove inspirational for original works. The Roman poet Virgil created his own epic with The Aeneid, about the hero Aeneas’ wanderings after the Trojan War, which bear similarity to the wanderings of Homer’s Odysseus. On display is The Aeneid from the Works of Virgil : In Latin and English, translated by Christopher Pitt, who was a contemporary and friend to Alexander Pope. This edition, published in 1778 by J. Dodsley in London, includes the Latin text of the original facing Pitt’s English translation. Though the English text may also require some deciphering to modern audiences, as the printed type used the ‘long S’ throughout.

The Aeneid from the Works of Virgil : In Latin and English, translated by Christopher Pitt.

Cover to the limited edition of Beowulf,
translated by Seamus Heaney.

Our journey continues to northern Europe and the land of the Danes, of the king Hrothgar, the monster Grendel, and a hero named Beowulf. Considered a foundational work in English poetry, Beowulf was introduced to a new generation of readers thanks to the translation of Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who brought a fresh, visceral energy to the text. The limited edition on display includes the opening of the poem in Old English, with text replicated from the only surviving manuscript, facing the English translation. The edition is also autographed by Heaney, who was a frequent visitor to Villanova University thanks to the Center for Irish Studies.

Our journey ends in Ireland itself with The Táin, the Irish Iron Age epic about Queen Medb and King Ailill’s war against Ulster, and the demigod Cuchulainn who stood against them. Irish poet Thomas Kinsella serves as the translator for the edition on display, and while much of the epic is a prose work, the monologues and dialogues are presented in a verse form, connecting it to a poetic tradition. This edition also includes ink drawings by Louis le Brocquy, which bring a brutal, raw, and mysterious atmosphere to the battles that the poem recounts.

Louis le Brocquy ink drawing from The Táin,
translated by Thomas Kinsella.

Poetic License is currently on display on the first floor of Falvey Library. Join us on Thursday, April 20 from 4-5:30pm to celebrate the exhibit, which will include an open mic event. Attendees are invited to share a favorite poem or piece of creative writing to share with the community during the reception.

Bleak, haunted moors. Doomed lovers and fiery passions. Wuthering Heights, the sole novel written by Emily Brontë, still stands as a remarkable work of Gothic fiction, as it chronicles the tangled lives of the Earnshaw and Linton families, at the center of which is Heathcliff, the Byronic anti-hero who is adopted by the Earnshaws but who is slighted and seeks a long revenge against the families.

One of the more unique visual adaptations of the book is an edition in Falvey’s Special Collections, illustrated by German-American printmaker Fritz Eichenberg. The black-and-white illustrations, created originally through wood engraving, are stark, bold, and capture the tumultuous and haunted atmosphere of Brontë’s story.

“I’m come home: I’d lost my way on the moor!” (page 15)

In a previous post, I wrote about metal engraving in the illustrations of Felix Darley, and while there are similarities between wood and metal engraving processes, there are some key differences which give Eichenberg’s illustrations their unique style. Wood engraving is a relief method of printmaking, where ink is rolled onto the surface of a carved block of end-grain wood, unlike metal engraving where ink is pressed into carved lines. So, the white lines or areas of negative space we see in Eichenberg’s illustrations are areas that have been carved away in the actual block of wood, using fine-tipped burins.

Eichenberg is adept at using his tools to create the atmosphere of Brontë’s world. In one illustration of young Catherine Earnshaw, the fine lines in the background can be interpreted as both the rolling hills and the clouds covering the Yorkshire moors. In another, these fine lines mimic fog while also defining the features of Heathcliff’s face, representing a feverish, internal obsession weighing upon Catherine’s mind. Finally, this doubling nature appears in an illustration where Heathcliff and Catherine embrace, the lines in the background defining both the folds of the curtain and the wind from the open window, defining the lifelong companions and would-be lovers.

She kept wandering to and fro, from the gate to the door… and at length took up a permanent situation on one side of the wall, near the road… (page 53)

“Oh! Nelly, the room is haunted! I’m afraid of being alone!” (page 78)

“I have not broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.” (page 102)

One of Eichenberg’s most striking illustrations in the book shows the external environment expressing the internal turmoil of its subject, as Heathcliff digs up Catherine’s grave late in the novel. Harsh hatch marks and stipples cover both the cold night sky and Catherine’s headstone, as Heathcliff’s face is contorted into a mixture of  rage, madness, and grief.

This would not be Eichenberg’s only encounter with the Brontës; an illustrated edition of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre would be published the same year as Wuthering Heights. Other illustrated books by Eichenberg include Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Gulliver’s Travels, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, and Anna Karenina. He also contributed numerous illustrations to the Catholic Worker after befriending Dorothy Day in 1949.

“I’ll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I’ll think it is this north wind that chills me; and if she be motionless, it is sleep.” (page 181)

On a final technical note, an editor’s description at the beginning of this edition states that the illustrations were reproduced using electrotype. This is a process where a metal plate reproduces the original wood engraving, making it easier to fit in with the type when the book is put into production. This process still maintains the relief quality of the wood engraving, so what we see on the printed page remains true to Eichenberg’s work.

Wuthering Heights may be viewed in the Rare Book Room during walk-in hours (Wednesday 9:30-11:30am, Thursday 2-4pm) or by appointment. Books illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg in Falvey’s circulating collection include Gulliver’s Travels, Fathers & Sons, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day, and Works of Mercy.

To learn more about wood engraving, please visit The Wood Engravers’ Network. To learn more about electrotyping, please visit Wikipedia.

I lingered round them, under that benign sky… and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. (page 212)

Charles Garvice was a very popular author around the turn of the twentieth century, churning out formulaic but sometimes witty romances about upper class British life. Many of his works were reprinted in dime novel format, and so quite a few have made their way into our Digital Library, and a handful from there into Project Gutenberg, thanks to the efforts of Distributed Proofreaders.

The latest such book to be released as a free eBook is Olivia; or, It Was for Her Sake, a fairly typical example of Garvice’s output. The titular heroine is the daughter of a country squire, and the story focuses on her interaction with two neighbors who both grow to love her: a disgraced but self-sacrificing noble who has retired to the country to escape scandal, and a wealthy but ruthless and uncultured “self-made man.” As the setup implies, this is yet another Garvice novel built almost entirely upon its author’s class prejudices. The story is not without its sensational moments, but compared to the twist-packed work of some of Garvice’s contemporaries (like Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller), it seems rather slow-moving and conventional. Still, in spite of its flaws, its author’s style occasionally makes it distinctive, as demonstrated by the dry, ironic humor of its opening paragraph:

It was in the “merry month” of May, the “beautiful harbinger of summer,” as the poets call it; and one of those charming east winds which render England such a delightful place of residence for the delicate and consumptive, and are truly a boon and a blessing to the doctors and undertakers, was blowing gaily through one of the lovely villages of Devonshire, and insidiously stealing through the half opened French windows of the drawing-room of Hawkwood Grange.

If you want to read any further, you can find the entire book available for free online reading (or for download in popular eBook formats) through Project Gutenberg.