Browsing in a second-hand bookshop on Charing Cross Road some years ago, I came across a copy of History and the Early English Novel by Robert Mayer. I opened it up and loose papers tumbled out. Turning the book’s pages, I saw hundreds of annotations pencilled in the margins: shaky lines and ringed numbers and then, across the endleaves and inside back cover, a thick scrawl of largely illegible notes: page numbers, cross-references, summaries, words circled furiously or underlined – ‘21. Facts’; ‘135. Origins of novel’; ‘143-4. Cromwell, Defoe’. What looks like ‘48-9. Milton’s lust’ is probably ‘Milton’s hist[ory]’.
Your photo of Hill's inscription helped me to identify my copy of Ringler's 1962 Sidney as Hill's as well. It could have been in 2003 that I bought it; I left a November 2003 bus pass in the book.
A salutary reminder of how long ago 1973 actually was, when Chris Hill *was* Balliol, and no-one in your current position would have needed to reach for the DNB... Not having studied history, my memories of the Great Man are restricted to, um, disciplinary encounters and "handshaking" (do you still do that?). But I expect others will (may already have) set you straight on that score.
Annotations are a curse in second-hand books (mine particularly, never much more insightful than "!!" or "??" or occasionally "Yes!"): it's impossible not to be diverted by someone else's egotistic highlighting. I blame William Blake and his scribblings on Joshua Reynolds' Works for making them seem respectable ("To generalize is to be an Idiot", etc.). In library books, of course, they are a capital offence: Balliol library, like many others, used to keep a display cabinet of books withdrawn because of "intrusive underlining and annotations" (not sure where they kept the heads of the offenders). Nonetheless, I expect they'd gladly accept this particular vandalised book and its annotations as part of the "old members" collection.
FWIW you'd have more luck following up Fiona Osler. She's very much still around.
Your photo of Hill's inscription helped me to identify my copy of Ringler's 1962 Sidney as Hill's as well. It could have been in 2003 that I bought it; I left a November 2003 bus pass in the book.
A salutary reminder of how long ago 1973 actually was, when Chris Hill *was* Balliol, and no-one in your current position would have needed to reach for the DNB... Not having studied history, my memories of the Great Man are restricted to, um, disciplinary encounters and "handshaking" (do you still do that?). But I expect others will (may already have) set you straight on that score.
Annotations are a curse in second-hand books (mine particularly, never much more insightful than "!!" or "??" or occasionally "Yes!"): it's impossible not to be diverted by someone else's egotistic highlighting. I blame William Blake and his scribblings on Joshua Reynolds' Works for making them seem respectable ("To generalize is to be an Idiot", etc.). In library books, of course, they are a capital offence: Balliol library, like many others, used to keep a display cabinet of books withdrawn because of "intrusive underlining and annotations" (not sure where they kept the heads of the offenders). Nonetheless, I expect they'd gladly accept this particular vandalised book and its annotations as part of the "old members" collection.
FWIW you'd have more luck following up Fiona Osler. She's very much still around.
Mike