I am only starting on this journey of reviewing commonplace books, but already I am starting to see the task as a mash-up of detective work, pop (and not so pop) culture research, fine wine tasting and forensic psychology. Not that I am qualified for any of the above, apart from the fine wine tasting, or course. But that is, after all, just a metaphor.
The Trinity College site has a great interface for their manuscripts (link via “read commonplaces online” page). The high-res scans load quickly and it looks like their selection is well-researched, if focused on a few individuals. One downside is that I can’t find a summary page of the manuscripts, and it’s practically impossible to link directly to a record (which I’d like to for this post).
I am looking through commonplace #3 in the Francis Longworth-Dames collection. If only we had journals like this to write in nowadays.
Stunning cover, and the inside has a great explanatory section about commonplaces.
Panningforink 