Manuscript Laboratory, Part 1: Determining Provenance and Descriptive Bibliography

Provenance:  The pages of the manuscript were found between the pages of a copy of Edward Edwards' Memoirs of Libraries, of Museums; and of Archives; (Public and Private); and of some of their chief founders, collectors, keepers, and benefactors, (1885) 2nd Rev. Ed. (London: Thomas Greenwood, 1901).  The book was purchased in December 2006, sight unseen via ABEBooks.com, from DNBGalleries.com, a bookstore in Rhode Island.  Based on the accession stamp on the title page, the volume previously was in the Surgeon General's Library (Washington, D.C.), having been given an accession number of 240161.  Beside the stamp, a second stamp, "Exchange," appears, indicating that the book was traded to another collection for something the SGL wanted.

Description of Content (Author / Text / Relation to Other Versions in MS or Print):

Brief Physical Description: Handwritten in English in somewhat faded brown-black ink, the document covers nine sides of three bifolia, the last three sides blank.  When first removed from the Edwards volume, the bifolia were still attached, but all save the last one have separated due to some brittleness of the paper at the fold.  Otherwise, the paper is sound, without watermarks or chain lines.  Each folio is 20.3 x 10.5 cm (i.e., the full pages originally were 40.6 x 21 cm.)

Further issues:

Lines per page (most/least, average)

Words per line (most/least, average)

Characteristics of the script (era, formality, abbreviations, distinctive letter forms)

Watermarks / Countermarks?

Other document evidence not visible in digital surrogate