Early modern books often contain marks that appear to be incomprehensible scribble, consisting of doodles, pen trials, letter and handwriting practice and other kinds of mark that cannot be classified as marks of ownership, annotation, recording or drawing. Women’s names can be embedded in these networks of marks, indicating that such apparently random and inchoate forms were part of their marginal practice. It is occasionally possible to link a name and hand across different forms of graffiti, particularly in densely inscribed pastedowns, fly leaves and endpapers. Letter practice can lead into practice writing an agent’s name, for example, or an identifiable pen can be used to make shapes and doodles alongside letters and words.

These marginalia allow us to glimpse new kinds of book users, including women and girls: the non-elite, obscure and unknown, sometimes identifiable only through a first name. The lack of context and information about such book users presents interpretative challenges, forcing us to analyse their marginalia as texts and to widen our definitions of marginalia to include marks by agents who might be ‘letterate’ – able to make letters and some words - rather than highly literate readers and annotators in the humanist tradition such as Gabriel Harvey.

Rosalind Smith