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The Collation

Ohel or Dod? Ideal copies and messy print

When is a repair to a title page more like a clue to a bibliographical puzzle?

An altered title page

detail of an altered title page

This question has intrigued me since, some years ago, I first consulted a Folger copy of John Rogers’s 1653 Ohel or Beth-shemesh. A Tabernacle for the Sun: Or Irenicum Evangelicum. An Idea of Church-Discipline, in the Theorick and Practick Parts (135- 312q). The Folger Institute’s recent faculty weekend seminar, “Narratives of Conversion in Reformation Europe, ca. 1550-1700,” co-directed by Simon Ditchfield and Helen Smith, gave me reason to return to the puzzle when, in one session, we were examining relevant Folger holdings. This book was of interest to the seminar for providing one of the first printed collections of Protestant sectarian conversion narratives circulated in English. I use the term “book” loosely, for Ohel is one of my favorite examples of how difficult it can be to establish stable and finite limits for a book. It is hard to know exactly what constitutes Ohel, even though there’s a pretty full body of evidence to consider. 

  1. E. 716 [2*] and E. 717 [1] in the Thomason Tracts at the British Library.
  2. Incidentally, the set of conversion narratives—which is what most readers today are looking for—is indicated as comprising Chapter 6 of “Lib. II” on page 102 of the Ramist chart.

Comments

A wonderful example of the detective work that early modern books demand. It reminds me of the question as to the actual date of publication (and editor) of Love’s Martyr. If we work primarily with more recent books, we tend to take such matters at face value.

Richard M. Waugaman — October 29, 2014

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