Scribleriana Transferred: Acquisitions, 2006–2009: Part Two

94 arguments of the permeability between spoken and written ghost stories in plausible garb. Virtually every form of written and enacted production was employed during the eighteenth century for distributing ghost stories. Ms. Handley discusses, for example, ballads, chapbooks , almanacs, jestbooks, rumor and gossip, oral and musical performance, theatrical enactments, letters, interactive periodicals, essay periodicals, and general magazines. Written ghost stories, clothed in dialogue , image, and circumstantial detail dramatized not only real events, but also the emotions and interior worlds of people —much like ourselves I point out— both skeptical of and intensely curious about the existence of their own souls after death. Ms. Handley attributes the shift in ghost imagery—evolving from the more concrete winding-sheet, faggot -bearing ghosts into the more poetic, ethereal visions—to technological advances in the sciences of optics and astronomy , whereby people could see within and beyond what had before been impermeable. Given that currentday readers will hang expectantly on each of her wordily retold stories, their expectancy of visual rewards that illustrate or portray these ‘‘visions’’ is left as unfinished business, since the stories are accompanied by a mere four illustrations . Nonetheless, Ms. Handley convinces us that Georgian England is the time and place when marvelous ghost stories happened and were told, stories worthy of studying and rereading. Kathryn LaFevers Evans Independent Scholar SCRIBLERIANA TRANSFERRED: ACQUISITIONS, 2006–2009: PART TWO James E. May • The Lewis Walpole Library acquired from John V. Price the second known copy of Kitty’s Attalantis, a guide to the London sex trade (J. Harrison, near CoventGarden [1766]), 12mo in sixes; pp. [viii] ⫹ 52, with half-title, in nineteenth-century half-plum morocco with marbled boards. Price compares it to ‘‘Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, a very popular annual guidebook to prostitutes . . . probably edited and written by Samuel Derrick in its early years, and published between 1757 and 1795. Kitty’s Attalantis is a similar work. The dedication to Mrs. R—Y is signed ‘The Authoress,’ . . . [who remarks on finding success in ‘‘the School of Venus’’ to bring] an happiness much to be wish’d for, by a real good honest woman.’’ After this comes a ‘‘prologue in rhyming couplets, about a ‘Youth’ who is taken by a female to a tavern . . . [and by] a verse riddle with an unexpected answer. The main body of the book is taken up with descriptions of the ladies and their qualifications: ‘The prattling Miss Camb—; very pretty, and not less infamous. I may venture to say, she has run through both universities, therefore her education must be admirable . . . . [she is] very fond of a country jaunt, and every night at the playhouse.’’’ Hitherto the work was known only in the British Library’s copy, reprinted in volume 4 of Whore Biographies, 1700–1825, edited by Julie Peakman, assisted by Alex Pettit and Patrick Spedding (Pickering & Chatto, 2006). Price’s copy joins related materials 95 at Yale’s Lewis Walpole Library, including one of two known copies of Harris’s List for 1773. • John Bidwell, the Morgan Library’s Astor Curator of Printed Books and Bindings , describes in detail for us several gems acquired by the Morgan, including a gift from Mrs. Joy Macdonald in memory of her husband, David R. Macdonald: The Royall & Most Pleasant Game of ye Goose (J. Overton, [ca. 1660–65]), of which Bidwell writes: One of two known copies of the earliest surviving English board game. Said to have been invented in Florence, the game of the goose was available in England by 1597, when this title appears in the Stationers’ Register, but none of the previous editions has come to light. The forfeits and rewards the players encountered in Overton’s version indicate that it was a drinking pastime for use in taverns. This copy appears to have been reissued by someone who traded in tavern merriments, judging from an alteration in the imprint: ‘‘Sold at the Black Lyon in Exeter Exchange in the Strand, London. Where you may have music prick’d.’’ Many years later the game of the goose was repackaged to make it suitable for children. • From Ursus Rare Books, the Morgan bought a rare folio atlas by John Rocque (d. 1762...