When is a duplicate not a duplicate? Multiple copies and discoveries in the Early Printed Books
In the depths of the Wellcome Collection lies a selection of early printed books (books printed pre-1851) referred to simply as ‘duplicates’. But what is a duplicate when it comes to rare books? These are items with hundreds of years of unique history under their covers. Why have these books been kept separate from the main collections? And what treasures can be revealed by the inventory team taking a closer look?
What is a duplicate?
Individual libraries and museums have different definitions of a duplicate, usually influenced by the types of items in their collections. For books, a basic definition, as described by London Library, would be ‘identical copies of the same edition’. An edition of a book is the form in which it is published, while a copy is a single specimen of that book. So, if a library had three identical copies of the same edition, two of those copies could be described as duplicates.
For libraries with a focus on modern texts, unless the same book is required by multiple students or readers at a time, having too many identical copies can be a poor use of limited space and resources.
The British Museum use a slightly broader definition, describing a duplicate as ‘an object that is identical in every significant respect to one or more other objects in the Collection, not merely of the same or a similar kind’. This is closer to the attitude we would take with early printed books at Wellcome. As this definition suggests, some things can be identical and therefore a duplicate, whilst others can be ‘of the same kind’ without being a duplicate.
Below are three frontispieces (the illustration opposite a book’s title page) from three copies of the same edition. All have been hand-coloured in multiple ways. All were used by different owners. And all were acquired by Wellcome Collection from different sources. Can any of these copies be described as identical or duplicates?
A quote from a previous rare book curator at Wellcome, John Symons, speaking at an event in the 1990s may reveal why any rare books at the collection were ever described as duplicates: ‘the Wellcome Library’s principle has always been that the books are for reading, not museum exhibits’.
This suggests the focus for Wellcome in the past was on text and content, fairly standard in the world of book history at the time. If you had a perfect copy of a medical text, even one from the 17th century, why would you keep another one? While the word duplicate may have made sense when the items were first brought together, with the way we look at rare books nowadays, this term is detrimental to our understanding of the collection and the books within it.
What is the ‘duplicates’ collection at Wellcome?
The Early Printed Book Duplicates collection at Wellcome is not an actual collection but sections of the store designated for what were originally seen as unwanted books, separated by format and size. So far, I have found only limited information about these books, why they were kept separate and how attitudes towards them have changed over the years:
· When were they first separated and why?
Sometime in the 1950s, these books were separated from others. This links with when the library first opened to readers, but continued to grow as new large collections were acquired, such as the books of the British Medical Association.
· Why were they separated?
They were separated out for the same reasons that countless other collections separate items: to clear space, make money, or to remove items that no longer fit within current collecting themes.
· How were duplicates decided?
Items were usually deemed duplicates if there was another copy catalogued, or if the book was deemed imperfect.
· What might we find in the collection?
The collection contains books with interesting provenance, annotations, and bindings. Collection documents suggest these ‘duplicates’ were worth investigating rather than selling.
Apart from a small handful of items, all the books are uncatalogued and I have been unable find a list of what books are there. I estimate there are around 2500 items, though, dating from the 16th to the mid-19th century.
In March 2023 the inventory team started to record these books. While the focus of inventory is on Museum Accreditation, the project provides an amazing opportunity to open up the stories hidden within the covers. This is even more important for these thousands of unrecorded multiple copies, labelled as duplicates and put at risk of sale or disposal.
What have we discovered during inventory?
The most important part of the work is attention to detail. For one book we came across in the ‘duplicates’, not only was there no other copy held at Wellcome, but it appears to be only the second recorded surviving copy in the world. The other copy is held at Corpus Christi College in Oxford. While the book had the same title, place and date of publication as another edition held at Wellcome, the copy we discovered had a different bookseller in the imprint, making it extremely rare.
But it is not just the rarity of an edition which makes a copy unique. A collection may have multiple copies of an edition but each individual copy will have hundreds of years of unique history under the cover or even within the binding.
On opening one book printed in Latin in 1712 on the treatment of diseases, I came across a text covered in additions and corrections as well as 13 pages of handwritten recipes in English. The previous owner clearly understood Latin, interacting with the text, but also saw the book as a repository for their own knowledge of health and medicine.
The text is written beautifully with explanations of how and when to use the recipe written in black ink, and the ingredients written in red ink. The recipes include cures for the King’s evil, ‘cystick tumours’ and a list of ‘emeticks’.
The book is small, making it easy to carry around, and was clearly important to at least one former owner. Unfortunately, there is no inscription to suggest who the former owner was, and Wellcome records simply show that it was bought from an auction house in 1906. However, it is interesting to note how this person’s story, and this object that the owner put time and effort into adapting, was deemed surplus to requirements back in the 1950s and is only now being recorded.
History is not just found inside a book but also in the materiality of the book itself. One of my favourite things to come across in a rare book is waste material. Until the nineteenth century, books did not automatically come with a cover — covers were added later according to the desires of the customer. Often, to cut costs, a binder would re-use material to create a binding.
On one ‘duplicate’ of a book on plague and diseases hitting the besieged town of Breda and printed in 1627, I found a beautiful manuscript covering the boards.
Like the contents of the book, the manuscript is written in Latin. From a bit of transcription and translation, and input from Professor Susan Boynton, we identified the binding as a notated missal (a liturgical text used by a priest when celebrating mass). The text refers to the celebration of Saint Blaise, a former physician and patron saint of wool combers, and ear, nose and throat illnesses, as well as to Saint Agatha, patron saint of breast cancer patients, martyrs, wet nurses, bell-founders and bakers. Both have feast days in February. From the handwriting, particularly the straight S’s, this missal is highly likely to have been written in the twelfth century. Interestingly, this appears to be a popular time for the worship of Saint Blaise.
Not only does the document look beautiful with the different forms of handwriting and colourful capitals but it opens up questions on why a liturgical text on Saint Blaise ends up wrapped around a text on illnesses during a siege centuries later. Why was this text just lying around? Where did it come from? How did the bookbinder get hold of it? As a patron saint of ear, nose and throat illnesses, is it by design that a religious work for Saint Blaise was used to cover a book on plague?
Once again there is limited information as to its former owners: we know only that it was bought for the Wellcome collection from an antiquarian bookseller in Amsterdam in 1927.
Conclusion
The term duplicate can be extremely useful for institutions with identical items that are struggling for space and resources. However, for rare books, when each copy can be filled with so much history and when not even the covers are the same, the word duplicate is harmful.
At Wellcome, labelling items as duplicates has led to some truly amazing items being left unrecorded and vulnerable to sale and disposal.
We now use the phrase “multiple copy” to describe these items, but even this can mask the uniqueness of each book which should be treated on its own merit. Our aim, once all the items have been recorded, is to move them into the main sequences and add them to the cataloguing process.
Finally, these objects will be given the attention they deserve and the opportunity to be shared with new researchers and audiences.
