Friday, December 19, 2008

Trivia question

This one's for my Renaissance peeps:

What seventeenth-century book does the INRU rare books library have more than 20 different editions of--all of them in English and all published within the same year or year and a half?

9 comments:

Flavia said...

(Incidentally, this is not a work I've ever written on or that I had any intention of looking at--but when I saw the catalogue listings, you'd better believe I ordered every last one of them.)

Doctor Cleveland said...

Something about Cromwell? Maybe about his death?

Anonymous said...

What is Eikon Basilike?

moria said...

Is it even possible that it's anything but the Book of Common Prayer? What the hell runs to twenty editions in a year? (And by "edition," you mean "print run," right? Surely not twenty distinct editions.)

Unless this is a post-1640 question, in which case I call shenanigans -- world history ends - ends! - with the coming of the conventional period boundary.

miltonista said...

Mmm, at the risk of being wildly wrong, I'll guess the second part of Pilgrim's Progress.

Fretful Porpentine said...

I'm going to take a totally random shot in the dark and guess The Plaine Man's Path-Way to Heaven by Arthur Dent, mainly because I find the title-and-author-name combo hilarious, and because I have a vague recollection that it was much more of a bestseller than one would think.

Flavia said...

Thanks for playing, guys. Our winner is. . . Smectymnuus!

Because indeed: there are dozens and dozens of different editions of Eikon Basilike published from 1648 (old style) through 1649. And words can't convey how awesome they are. (Way more awesome, evidentally, that whatever it is that I'm supposedly here to research.)

Your prize, Smecky, is a whole passel of poems on the Blessed Martyr King. They're less tedious than your pamphlets--but only because briefer.

Susan said...

oh, I love the Eikon Basilike. I once even made my undergrads read it, along with Milton's Eikonoklastes!

moria said...

How is this possible?

Says she who lives in early C16, where books in order to be produced in any volume have to double as beds and cooking stoves to increase their retail value.

Damn information technology markets and their self-newfangling tendencies.