Francesca Galligan, Assistant Librarian, Rare Books, writes: A generous grant from FNL has allowed us to acquire an exciting new volume from the library of Frances Wolfreston (1607-1677). Wolfreston owned a significant collection of literary and popular works in English including the only surviving copy of the first edition of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, now in the Bodleian’s Malone collection. Although widely dispersed, more than 230 of Wolfreston’s volumes have been identified. This copy of Lupton joins nine other volumes already in the Bodleian from her library, and brings significant new insights into the use she and her family made of their books.
Wolfreston liked to note her ownership with the inscription ‘frances wolfreston her bouk’, and has marked Lupton in this way inside the upper cover and on the first page of the main text. Although she does not record the date when she acquired it, the book itself tells us something about this. Lupton’s compendium of recipes and household advice was originally published in 1579. In 1631, the year this edition was published, Frances (Middlemore) married Francis Wolfreston, and the book would have been a useful resource as she embarked on married life. She perhaps acquired it around this time, and certainly owned it by the mid-1640s, as it has been annotated by her son, another Francis (1638-1712), while still a child.
In a childish hand, Francis junior writes ‘Francis Wolfreston His Booke’, as well as a prayer, Arabic and Roman numerals, doodles, and recipes including ‘Too make a tooth fall out with gods help’. These annotations show him using available blank paper to practise his handwriting and numbers, perhaps with his mother supervising.
Francis appears to have used this book over a long period of time, as an adult hand that also seems to be his writes further recipes in blank spaces. These are varied, from household advice such as how ‘To cleanse old pictures’, to a recipe involving sheep dung:
‘The beste recipe ffor a burn or scald. Take one handfull of Gill … one handfull of the common brier leaves or blackberry leaves, one handfull of sheep dung; boil them together in a pint of cream Till they come to an oyl then strain all throh a linnen cloath: then anoint therewith; it is present ease, and heals to wo[n]der.’
Lupton’s text includes a similar recipe, so it is curious to see Francis recording his own preferred version on the first leaf in the book. It was perhaps also Francis who took a close interest in gout, and underlined all references to it in the book’s table of contents.
A scrap of paper used as a bookmark, recycled from a manuscript letter, is still in place in the volume, and lists ingredients (cinnamon, cardamom, etc.) in a hand that has yet to be identified.
This acquisition offers important new material for scholars working on Wolfreston and her library, with further work to be done on the hands that appear in it.
