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#163528 11/15/06 10:35 AM
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Hydra Offline OP
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From wwftd.

Quote:

grangerize v.t. illustrate, especially by interleaving, with additional pictures. grangerism, n.




I found the following titbit quite interesting.

Quote:

James Granger (1723-1776)

Reverend Granger clipped over 14,000 engraved portraits from other books to use as possible illustrations for his Biographical History of England. Some of the books he pillaged were rare ones, and to make matters worse, he suggested in his preface that prvate collections like his might prove valuable someday. This resulted in an unfortunate fad called grangerizing or extra-illustration, with thousands of people mutilating fine books and stuffing pictures and other material into Granger's. Editions following the 1769 Biographical History... adapted to a Methodical Catalogue of Engraved British Heads provided blank pages for the insertion of these extra illustrations, and the book eventually expanded to six volumnes from its original two. Sets of Granger illustrated with up to 3,000 engravings were compiled, and so many early English books were ravaged that "to grangerize" came to mean the mutilation that remains the bane of librarians today.

R. Hendrickson, The Dictionary of Literary Anecdotes, 1990.




Last edited by Hydra; 11/15/06 10:40 AM.
#163529 11/15/06 02:14 PM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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I don't know from whence you got that short def'n; but it surely doesn't capture the "cutting" aspect; here's what I have for grangerism, which at least suggests nefandous acts.

May 9, 2006
the worthless word for the day is: grangerism

[fr. James Granger who published a 'Biographical
History of England', with blank leaves for the
reception of engraved portraits or other pictorial
illustrations of the text.]
(cf. grangerize, to so illustrate)
the practice of illustrating a book with engravings,
prints, etc. cut from other books

"The only drawback to Grangerism is that it leads to
the plunder and mutilation of valuable books for the
enrichment and amplification of others. It is stated
in the advertisement to the fifth edition of Granger's
Biographical History of England, that at its first
appearance the rage to illustrate it became so
prevalent, that scarcely a copy of any work embellished
with portraits could be found in an unmutilated state."
- George Augustus Sala, Living London


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