Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Commonplace Book
- Dates:
- 1684-1720
- Creators:
- unknown
- Abstract:
- This commonplace book's unidentified author was a student at Oxford. Much of the small volume is filled with accounts and receipts; these include statements of the author's expenses, ranging from tutors and booksellers to tobacco and candles. It also includes short letters, verse and prose entries, and directions for drawing and painting. Written in English, with some Latin and Hebrew.
- Extent:
- 0.5 linear feet 1 box, 59 leaves extant : paper ; 145 x 96 mm. bound to 150 x 100 mm. and 59 leaves extant : paper ; 145 x 96 mm. bound to 150 x 100 mm.
- Language:
- Materials are primarily in English, some materials are in Latin and Hebrew.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Commonplace Book (Collection 170/053). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The book is a miscellany written in a single hand. It appears that the pages in the volume were filled at different times (and in no particular order), but the bulk seems likely to have been between 1684 and 1686. Contents include accounts of the author's expenses while at Oxford University, including tutors and booksellers, clothes, shoes, handkerchiefs, foodstuffs, and his pocket money. It also contains a few short letters, verse and prose entries, the latter often in Latin, and a few acrostics/puzzles in both English and Latin. The author also seems to be taking Hebrew lessons, and occasionally practices his Hebrew characters. One section of the book is devoted to directions for drawing and painting, and on cleaning artwork as well as mixing chemicals and paints. This includes recipes for mixing paints of a wide variety of colors, often with somewhat whimsical names. Towards the end of the book is a section of Biblical studies.
- Biographical / historical:
-
The author is a student at Oxford during the reign of James II. He is thus likely teenaged, and certainly male.
- Processing information:
-
Processed by Manushag Powell, with assistance from Jain Fletcher and Laurel McPhee, in the Center For Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), July 2004.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special Collections.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Manuscripts.
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2025-09-29 14:50:14 -0700 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Commonplace Book (Collection 170/053). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988