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Rose A. McCandless

@rosemccandless.bsky.social

410 followers 280 following 200 posts

Bibliographer, medieval manuscript enthusiast, and special collections instruction librarian. Lover of books in all ways. I post about rare books & manuscripts, fine/small press, book arts, digital humanities,etc. MPhil, MLIS. Leftist. Silly goose. she/her

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · Jul 25

So honored and grateful to have my book collection, and more importantly, my philosophy about rare books, featured on CPR news!

This 26-year-old has a thing for 13th century manuscripts — and a prize to prove it

Rose McCandless says the real win is putting her “hands on something that is old and cool.”

www.cpr.org

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 1d

Spent some extremely healing quality time with the most beautiful book ever printed today.

The double carpet page opening of the Kelmscott Chaucer (1896).

A woodcut illustration of two women in a garden.

A woodcut illustration of a man and a boy on a castle rampart, looking at the night sky.

A highly illustrated page opening The Prioress’ Tale.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 2d

Two GREAT choices

Reposted by Rose A. McCandless

Richard Ovenden @richove.bsky.social · 5d

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 4d

If you haven’t yet read Vnouček’s fantastic article on the parchment in the Hamburg Bible, I am constantly recommending it!

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 4d

I’ve not been able to confirm the current whereabouts of this person’s remains now. A few Māori heads displayed in British Museums have been repatriated, but even if the head itself has returned to its homeland, its colonially dehumanized representation will forever be immortalized in Jones’ work.

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 4d

The woman’s head—which thought thoughts, lived a human life, engaged in relationships, etc.—is used as an analog to the decoration added to architectural works. Immediately compared to inherently inanimate objects and, because of the oft-mentioned “ownership” of the museum, presented AS an object.

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 4d

Offered in contrast, I’ll note, to the classical styles of architecture and ornament that Jones uplifts as beautiful. It’s incredible to witness the colonial violence inherent to every aspect of British society in the 19th century, and the dehumanization of human bodies that is so key to this. 3/

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 4d

It’s a stark example of so many things @profdanhicks.bsky.social talks about in Every Monument Will Fall—the objectification of this human body that is “owned” by a colonial museum and used here as a representation of the “savage” practice of tattooing as ornamentation. 2/

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 4d

Alarmed and shocked at the first page of “The Grammar of Ornament,” Owen Jones (1856) which includes this representation of the head of a Māori woman owned by the Chester Museum.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 4d

Me welcoming the students to class in October:

A woodcut of a skeleton with its hand extended as if in welcome, from Arfe y Villafañe, De varia commensuracion para la esculptura y architectura (1585).

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Reposted by Rose A. McCandless

The Medieval Academy of America @medievalacademy.bsky.social · 10d

Jobs For Medievalists

Melvin R. Seiden Curator and Department Head, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts
(Full-time)
The Morgan Library & Museum invites applications for the position of Melvin R.
www.themedievalacademyblog.org/jobs-for-med...

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 11d

Books I saw at work: last week and @digitalscriptorium.bsky.social Annual Meeting today!

The inside of a front board, with lots of good stuff including hair remaining on the parchment, canvas binding supports, thongs of leather (spine support) woven into the board, and the imprint of a lost binding fragment.

A hand-drawn map of the Dead Sea, added to a medieval prayer book by an 18th-c. traveler who used the codex as his travel log. Ohio State University, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, SPEC.RARE.MS.MR.Cod.51.

An early modern Bible bound with lovely metal furniture.

A list of births and deaths in the back of a Bible.

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Reposted by Rose A. McCandless

Shannon K. Supple @mazarine.bsky.social · 13d

JOB ALERT: Assistant Professor of Art at Smith College, focusing on artists’ books and artist publications:

apply.interfolio.com/173234?fbcli...

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 16d

List three things you can talk about for three hours without prep

1) the medieval manuscript trade in northeastern Ohio
2) Lemonade (Beyoncé, 2017)
3) handmade/luxury paper (historical and present)

Sarah Bull @sarahebull.bsky.social · 16d

1. The nineteenth-century pornography trade
2. paint
3. food trends past and present

Dan Sinykin @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social · 16d

list 3 things you can talk about for 3 hours with no prep

1. the feces of various species
2. lunch meat
3. sweetbreads

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 18d

So curious about the gold tooling on this one—looks like contemporary bookbindings! (This is just a random example, but many look so similar to this Lady’s Companion.) Wondering if the circles of bookbinders and the folks who made these had some intersection…

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 18d

Fun things in (and on!) books used in today’s History of the Book scavenger hunt.

An initial “S” inhabited by a lil guy with a sword and shield.

A watermark of a hand topped by a star and with a moon (?) at the base of the hand.

A book bound in limp vellum that has been colored orange

A caption next to an engraving that states “This figure belongeth to the former page, but could not bee there placed.”

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 18d

Am I crazy that it looks like the baby is reaching for parchment being stretched inside the wreath?

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 19d

Stumbled across my 19-year old handwriting while shelving manuscript fragments! Back from my time as a student worker reorganizing the fragment housing—when the collection was a lot smaller than it is now!

Rose’s handwriting noting shelfmarks for manuscript fragments on archival folders.

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 20d

blog.library.si.edu/blog/2019/11...

No Love for White Gloves, or: the Cotton Menace – Smithsonian Libraries and Archives / Unbound

blog.library.si.edu

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 20d

Books I saw at work: last week!

An Ethiopian manuscript with a painting of St. George.

A Book of Hours printed on vellum (1480).

A printed book with manuscript binding waste and a table of contents added by hand.

A decorative binding commissioned by Robert Hor.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 22d

I have heard “cancel” applied to this kind of crossing out, in addition to the term’s uses for excised pages or text replacement. But I feel like maybe “cancel” is too broad a term?

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 24d

Spotted in the back of the stacks!

A Breakfast at Tiffany’s poster hiding behind map cases.

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 24d

Ah, to pull the largest book from the literal bottom of the stack.

But, very very large (and colonial) engraved prints await!

A stack of portfolio-sized books, with Cook’s Third Voyage (plates, 1784) on the bottom.

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 25d

18 years of Sunday school, even if it didn’t impress its religious message on me, did give me a knowledge of the Bible that has given me a huge leg up as a book/biblical historian!!

Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 26d

This happened to me the other day and it was Butch Cassidy!

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