Is there marginalia for sale on e-bay?
One full length book has been written on the subject,
and the reviews were very favorable. And of course there are people who, rather
than objecting to it, find it desirable, and even advisable.
Not having read the book (and discovering, quite to my surprise that the Britannica
has no article on the subject (though
the Wikipedia does) I've had to piece together some knowledge on the history
of the topic through various web pages - some of them, rather logically, reviews
of the book.
Apparently, the term itself was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge who seems to
have kept himself busy at it throughout his waking hours. Judging by the fact
that six volumes
of his marginalia (arranged alphabetically by author of the book that earned
his comments) have been published, it seems a small wonder that, between all that
reading and commenting, he found time to write poetry. A
single-volume selection of Coleridge's marginalia is also available - I'd
consider reading it. Henry VIII, I've
learned, was an avid reader, and also wrote in his books in a manner that
we would refer to today as research, even if he knew in advance what he wanted
to find.
One
blogger, who certainly seems to be in the know (and whose interests go beyond
the medieval to the digital), tells us about marginalia
in medieval times:
Yes, marginal glosses
are used in medieval (and earlier—think Egyptian
papyri) manuscripts just that way. ... Those marginal comments, or glosses,
were used by readers to make reflective annotations, to add reference material
by other authorities, to make corrections, or even to doodle. Scribes also used
margins to make corrections, or sometimes, just comments.
In his review of
Jackson's book, Frank Kermode explains why the eighteenth century saw a flowering
of marginalia:
Books were cheaper, and the growth of the practice
of annotation probably coincides with a large increase in private ownership. The
notes, as Jackson says, became at once more private and more public. Their authors
used them for purposes of self-expression, but quite expected them to be read
by eyes other than their own. They particularly solicited the attention of friends,
who would sympathize with the personal tone while also constituting a small admiring
public.
Perhaps a bit inadvertently, that suggests a similarity with cyberspace where
the blurring of the public and the personal is often honed into an art form.
And as to e-bay, a number of copies of Jackson's book are for sale, but I didn't
find any items that specifically note marginalia as a quality (either positive
or negative) relevant to a sale.
Go to: In the margins of cyberspace.