Bodleian Library, MS. Don. e. 7 [=Arch. F. e. 32]

A quarto memorandum book bound in quarter tanned sheepskin and sided with marbled paper containing 92 leaves (204 x 161 x 20 mm.). Written and corrected throughout in a variety of brown-black iron-gall inks. Pasted to the head edge of the left board sheet is an off-white wove machine-made paper label (102 x 49 mm.) in Cassandra Austen’s hand and written in iron-gall ink. The label extends above the head edge of the left board and was folded over to display its annotation on the upper cover.

The memorandum book comprises six quires of a single paper stock, a lightly blued cream handmade laid writing paper formed on a single-faced mould with a Britannia watermark and a countermark of the royal cipher ‘GR’ surmounted by a crown¹. The watermark and the countermark are each centred on opposing halves of the sheet and both were designed to read from the felt side of the sheet. The text-block comprises six regular quires folded from 49 half sheets of paper with the chain lines running horizontally across each leaf (leaf size 199 x 160 mm.). The trimmed size of the half sheet is 320 x 199 mm. which allowing for a modest trim implies a sheet size of approximately 418 x 330 mm. or foolscap². The orientation and position of both the watermark and countermark are consistent throughout the manuscript. The watermark lies across the spinefold with the top of the watermark appearing on the leaves after the centre of the quire. The countermark lies across the spinefold with the top of the countermark appearing on the leaves before the centre of the quire. The quires were formed by folding a pile of eight sheets of paper parallel to their long edge³. This folded pile was then cut in two (parallel to the short edge) to form two separate quires. Thus each quire contains eight half-sheets, from eight separate sheets of paper, without their matching halves. The quires were folded from a pile of paper where all sheets were piled mould side uppermost but where the watermarks were not aligned. Each quire therefore contains a mixture of watermarks and countermarks but the random arrangement of watermarks and countermarks is unique in each quire⁴. The corresponding mirror arrangement is not repeated within any quire in this manuscript and it would seem that the 49 half sheets in this manuscript derive from 49 separate sheets. These five folded quires provided 98 leaves, the first three leaves from the first quire and final three leaves from the sixth quire were used as pastedowns within the binding leaving a text-block of 92 leaves.

The memorandum book was bound in quarter tanned sheepskin and sided with marbled paper over millboard. The text-block is sewn on two wide parchment tapes, and the edges of the text-block have been cut and decorated with a sprinkled red colour which is now worn. The volume was quarter covered with a very thin tanned sheepskin and the boards were sided with a ‘spot’ marbled paper in red, yellow, blue, white and pink⁵. The volume has no decoration or tooling. The method of folding the paper, which differs from the binding of printed books, and the disposition of watermarks both indicate that this was a professionally produced memorandum book, probably produced as a stock item for a stationer or bookseller.

The manuscript exhibits signs of heavy and early use. The marbled paper to both boards is abraded with loss of surface and the spine is damaged with extensive losses of covering leather. This wear pre-dates its institutional ownership as the manuscript has been housed in a book box, probably dating from 1933, made for the Friends of the Bodleian by Oxford Bookbinders Maltby. A Bodleian reference leaf and label were tipped to fol. i in the mid-twentieth century. By 2003 a number of leaves were detached and the manuscript was extremely vulnerable. It was conserved following digitization by the Bodleian Library with a grant from the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust between 2007-8. It is now housed, with a portfolio containing the removed Bodleian label and leaf, and fragments of the covering leather, in a maroon cloth-box made by the Bodleian Library.