Lewis Carroll

Have started work on Lewis Carroll. This is going to take a while because the 1898 auction catalogue isn't very detailed and nearly every book has to be googled for identification. For instance, Lot #301 (that's where the books start): "Morris's Specimens of Early English, Alford's Queen's English and 5 others". Ah well...

How do we deal with the "5 others" part?

P.s.: For now I'm using "Comments" for hunches about books I haven't been able to identify with certainty. Is that a good idea?

>2 Lewis_Carroll: - Yes, perfect! I'd also use Comments to record the lot description as given in the catalogue. With a few that have had the random "and 5 others"-type things, I've ended up making a catch-all record at the end for these (I'll try to hunt up an example).

Thanks. And will do for the lot numbers.

For the curious: this legacy library will be based on Lewis Carroll's Library

I'm curiouser and curiouser. Also, excited.

moibibliomaniac notes, too, that for Boswell they just made a note in the "About my library" text to the effect that some volumes were not identified by title. Also works perfectly (particularly where we know absolutely nothing about the books at all, heh).

Right. For now I will list some "Unidentified" (and use the # of volumes thingy) for each lot number it applies (most of them by the looks of it). Feel free to comment if you think that's a bad idea.

Well, 300 auction lots (and 724 entries) in. That's about half of the auction. Currently a fair number of books are tagged "Needs Further Identification", but that's because I'm trying to catalogue fastish (as mush raw data as possible first). So if I can't identify a book fairly easily, it gets that tag for now. I'm reasonably confident I will be able to reduce the importance of that tag later on.

500 lots (and 1,241 entries) in. I think I'm making good progress. For reasons pertaining to this author I would like to have at least the auction data entered before Jul 4 next.

The auction catalogue is done (though it will need some polishing). Have now started with the bookseller's catalogue of "B.H. Blackwell, Oxford" (Carroll's books starting at #941). The bonus is that, besides giving us further titles, it provides valuable details about at least some of the auction lots. So cataloguing slows down a bit, but the polishing of some of the earlier entries is now part of the cataloguing process.

Two birds with one polishing stone!

From The Diaries of Lewis Carroll:

July 4 {1862}: "{...} Duckworth and I made an expedition up the river to Godstow with the three Liddells: we had tea on the bank there, and did not reach Christ Church again till quarter past eight, when we took them to my rooms to see my collection of microphotographs, and restored them to the Deanery just before nine."

To which he added on Feb. 10, 1863: "On which occasion I told them the fairy-tale of Alice's Adventures Underground, which I undertook to write out for Alice and which is now finished (as to the text) though the pictures are not yet nearly done."

Progress on the library isn't fast, but steady.

It's good to read the verbatim quote, after hearing Dodgson's account of the origins paraphrased for so many years. Perhaps worthy as a quote on the Legacy Library home page.

I'll keep it in mind for when I do some work on that. It is a bit basic now.

Okay, the Blackwell catalogue is in. Tomorrow I'll start on "Parker & Co."

Parker catalogue is done. I'll start on the "Art & Antiques Agency" catalogue tomorrow.

Well, those four 1898 catalogues are now all done. So in a way this library is now finished. (New entries may occur from quotes in diaries and letters as preserved*, but I don't expect many).

I will return to it to streamline tags and such of course. And I'll attempt sleuthing down some unknowns - getting rid of those "pesky" question marks.

* If I'll find any I'll put his comments in "reviews" (I think), unless there are objections.

Ah, Mr Carroll, you have deprived me of ultb status for The diseases of infants and children by Edward Ruddock. A pleasant feeling to share a book only with a Legacy Library.

Excellent, very cool. Just in time for a blog post announcing a bunch of completions, too! :-)

This is pretty cool, well done! I can't not add Lewis Carroll to my interesting libraries.

One thing, could you make the viewing style you used recommended? It would be a shame if people missed out on the comments you've entered.

Ehr, sure, but how do I do that?

If you click Edit Profile and go to 'Your Books', the suggest display is at the bottom. I find it useful for legacy libraries as I don't have comments in my library settings.

Ha, just saw you comment about the question marks. I hear ya'.

> 22: Thanks, learn something new every day.

Done!

Love this, and in fact encourage you to quote comments from letters as a review!