Sometimes I’m looking for something online - often “how to” articles - and I want to filter for - like - a website that was clearly built in 2010 at the latest, which may or may not have been updated since then, but contains a vast wealth of information on one topic, painstakingly organized by an unknown legend in the field with decades’ worth of experience.
I don’t want a listicle with a nice stolen picture in a slideshow format written by a content aggregator that God forgot. I want hand-drawn diagrams by some genius professor who doesn’t understand SEO at all, but understands making stir-fries or raising stick insects better than anyone else on this earth. I don’t know what search settings to put into Google to get this.
thank you for articulating this cri de coeur for me
ngl these days i’m just happy when it’s not a video
The search engine calculates a score that aggressively favors text-heavy websites, and punishes those that have too many modern web design features.
This is in a sense the opposite of what most major search engines do, they favor modern websites over old-looking ones. Most links you find here will be nearly impossible to find on a regular search engine, as they aren’t sufficiently search engine optimized.
“It is a search engine, designed to help you find what you didn’t even know you were looking for. If you search for “Plato”, you might for example end up at the Canterbury Tales. Go looking for the Canterbury Tales, and you may stumble upon Neil Gaiman’s blog.
If you are looking for fact, this is almost certainly the wrong tool. If you are looking for serendipity, you’re on the right track. When was the last time you just stumbled onto something interesting, by the way?
I don’t expect this will be the next “big” search engine. This is and will remain a niche tool for a niche audience.“
i clicked around for a few minutes searching various things and I now have two fourteenth century pie crust recipes and an apple filling recipe i want to try, so thanks!
it has been twenty minutes and I am deeply in love with this search engine.
INCREDIBLE. I *do* want to know how to test Windows 95 for Y2K Compliance and I am glad that someone is still hosting step by step instructions for that.
tl;dr: search.marginalia.nu for the old or old looking and just plain serendipitous stuff that google or Duck duck go are gonna not find/bury on the 20th page. For perfectly good reasons, but …
My absolute favorite part of having made this post - other than causing people to be introduced to this site - are the people in the tags/comments talking about their interests and stuff they found about their hobbies.
Today, April 23, is Shakespeare’s birthday! Maybe. Supposedly. It was certainly the date of his death in 1616, but it also commonly celebrated as the date of his birth, some 52 years earlier in 1564.
Several editions of the Bard’s works were printed before his death, but the most complete and most famous collections of his plays are the large folio editions, produced posthumously.
While these beautiful and rare 17th century Shakespeare folios are a significant improvement over the earlier “bad” quarto versions, they are far from perfect copies of Shakespeare’s works.
In the case of own Fourth Folio, it appears as though a previous owner sought to correct some of the numerous typographical errors throughout the volume. Our dutiful annotator has also added several marginal notes commenting on various passages in the text.
Some of these typos really change the meaning of the text in humorous ways:
If good? Why do I yield to that suggestion, Whose horrid image doth unfix my heir [hair]
- Macbeth, Act I, Scene 3
What if it tempt you toward the Floud, my Lord? Or to the dreadful Sonnet of the Cliff [summit]
- Hamlet, Act I, Scene 4
My fault is past. But oh, what form of Prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul Mother [murther/murder]
- Hamlet, Act III, Scene 3
All those bored scholars with nothing better to do than overanalyze Shakespeare’s works looking for hidden messages should have a field day with some of these passages.
Though very few modern readers would recognize the name of Donald Grant Mitchell, his collection of sentimental vignettes, Reveries of a Bachelor (written under the pseudonym “Ik Marvel”) was one of the most popular novels of the Victorian era. It was a favorite of Emily Dickinson, and has even been compared to Uncle Tom’s Cabin in its popularity and influence.
Aside from serving as U.S. consul to Venice from 1853 to 1854, Mitchell (1822-1908) spent much of his career writing at Edgewood, his estate near New Haven, Connecticut. Portions of Reveries of a Bachelor first appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1849, and then in 1850 it was published in book form, going through dozens of editions in the following decades. Excerpts were even reprinted by insurance companies and the makers of tonic medicines to be distributed to potential customers.
The text itself is divided into four “reveries” in which a bachelor contemplates boyhood, marriage, country life, travel, and even the phenomenon of dreaming itself. Chapters include “Smoke – signifying doubt,” “Blaze – signifying cheer,” and “Ashes – signifying desolation.”
We were fortunate enough to have recently acquired a fascinating copy of the 1886 New York edition of Reveries of a Bachelor. Our copy was originally purchased in 1887 by Clifford Julius King (1865-1910), an Ohio attorney who practiced in Ashtabula (as King did not marry until 1891, he was still a bachelor himself when he bought the book). King had more than just a passing interest in books, as he was a member of the Rowfant Club, an organization for bibliophiles founded in 1892 in Cleveland and still active today.
King is presumably responsible for several other characteristics that make this copy stand out. First is a signed letter by Mitchell, perhaps written to King, pasted into the volume along with two portraits of the author. The letter reads:
My dr. Sir –
I have yr favor of 2nd inst to send you the autograph you ask for: I am too old a man to make engagements far from home.
Yrs vry truly, Dond. G. Mitchell
Edgewood 4th Novr. 1891
Additionally, an artist known only by the initials B.K.C. has contributed numerous pen and ink wash illustrations to this copy, some of which bear an 1887 date. In total, there are seven full-page images, 17 head and tail vignettes, and 73 marginal illustrations. These drawings really bring Mitchell’s text alive, and the marginal vignettes especially heighten the dream-like aspect of the book, depicting subjects such as a hand lighting a lamp, a foot entering a shoe, or the floating head of a woman.
Though it is not explicitly stated, it is likely that Clifford Julius King, due to his bibliophilic interests, was responsible for embellishing this copy by collecting the Mitchell paraphernalia and assembling it together with the illustrated text. The result is a copy of Reveries of a Bachelor that is truly unique — and truly special!
From the back matter of Football and How to Watch Itby Percy Duncan Haughton (1922). Original from the University of California. Digitized November 29, 2007.
Earlier this spring we hosted a “virtual” class visit for the Theological German language class at Harvard Divinity School. For the occasion, we brought out our oldest printed German work, a collection of sermons attributed to 14th century mystic Johannes Tauler.
We took the opportunity to take a closer look at this copy, which turns out to be FILLED with great marginalia, including notes and drawings. We’ll be posting more from this book in coming weeks.
The Romance of Alexander. 14th century. MS Bodley 264 fol. 67r (bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk)
Knights jousting and receiving favour from some suspicious ladies. The knight is looking very solemn but his horse seems to know the truth about what’s going on underneath her skirt!
The Romance of Alexander. 14th century. MS Bodley 264 fol. 44r (bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk)
Some type of game involving a woman holding a pot, a man with a club, a butterfly, another pot and some people who seem ready to catch something. Also a bonus hidden face in the margin.
