Oxford Readings

Why, yes, yes I do take pictures of absolutely everything.  Why do you ask? :-)

Above is a close- up of the cover of the book I was here to consult.  It is a first edition (1557) Whetstone of Witte by Robert Recorde.  It is the first time the + and - signs are introduced into an English-language text, and it is where the equals sign is invented.  The author explains that he chose to use two parallel lines of the same length because he is tired of the "tedioufe repetition" of writing "is equalle to" between sides of every equation.  He chose two parallel lines of the same length "bicaufe noe.2. thynges, can be moare equalle."  It was interesting to see that the length of his equals sign (and his plus sign and his minus sign) was longer than the length of the word "bicaufe."

I took many pictures of the INSIDE of this book too, and it is a delight!  Seriously!  It proved to be an amazing, exciting treasure hunt!  It was definitely English I was reading, but, as you can see above it took some amount of deciphering - and part of that was not just the different spellings of words but also the font that was used in the the printing.  It took me quite a long time to figure out that what looked like "bse" was actually "use" even though I had context and two-thirds of the word figured out!

Unfortunately those pictures I cannot post, as I have pretty much sworn on my life and the lives of all my offspring for generations to come that the pictures I took of the contents are for my own research and not for print or electronic publication.  I feel OK having given the brief quotes above, as those can be found all over the place on the internet, and they are things I had seen and read previously - and therefore could have written here - prior to having opened this book.

Below is the shelf that kept catching my eye on my left side as I read.  And the picture beneath that is a larger view of the inside of the library.  Some day I'd like to camp out in this library for about 6 months!

Queen's College Library, Oxford

At the Bodleian my reading was different - correspondence rather than a book.  And it just now struck me today that some of the correspondence I read is EXACTLY 300 years after what I read in Queen's, 1557 and 1857.  The challenges of the reading were different.  Here the language is much closer to that of today, but it was hand-written.  The writing is exquisitely neat, but it is done in very small print with a quill pen, and that did prove to be a challenge.

Over the year and a half that I'd been preparing for this trip I came to have a strong interest in the life of Mary Somerville; the correspondence I read in the Bodleian was between Somerville & Grieg families and Byron & Lovelace families.  In other words the family of Mary Somerville (who married Captain Samuel Greig) and the family of Ada Augusta Lovelace (daughter of Lord Byron).

I was anticipating reading letters from Mary Somerville, but it seems her papers contain letters to her rather than from her - at least for the most part.  I was able to read about three-fourths of the correspondence, and, while I was initially disappointed at not finding letters written by Mary I became so taken up in the the stories of the lives as I read them that it became a more profound experience than I could have ever imagined it would be!

I'm not above admitting it's kind of fun to feel elite once in a while!

The Mackerras Reading Room in the Bodleian Library

There were two boxes of correspondence of the size you see pictured above and below.  This is a "pencils only" reading room.  All pens and other unnecessary items were stored in a locker downstairs; necessary items could be taken into the reading room in a clear, plastic bag.

Again, I can't show contents, but I can, in my own words, share what impacted me.  First of all I hadn't realized there was such a strong and lengthy connection not only between Mary and Ada but also between their families.  There was a deep and abiding caring for one another that in some instances almost made me weep as I read.

Three things stand out most of all as I reflect on what I read - but I'll share those only briefly now, as I will be doing a post solely on Ada very soon.  The first was a letter from Ada's mom (Lady Byron) to Mary regarding her pleasure at what a good influence Mary was on Ada - her scientific focus helping Ada keep a "balanced mind."  The second was to Mary from a young Ada asking if Mary would be her chaperone to a party Charles Babbage was putting on (actually, there was more than one such letter about more than once such occasion - the age difference between Mary and Ada is 35 years).  The third was a letter to Mary's son, Woronzow Grieg, from Ada's doctor in her final illness.