Samuel Doody and his Books David Thorley Based on title page inscriptions, the online catalogue of Sloane Printed Books identifies forty- one volumes as having been owned by ‘J. Doody’ or ‘John Doody’.1 Typically, these inscriptions have been taken to indicate that the books were ex libris John Doody (1616-1680) of Stafford, the father of the botanist and apothecary Samuel Doody (1656-1706), but he may not (or at least may not always) be the John Doody to whom the inscriptions refer.2 While it is plausible that several of these books did belong to that John Doody, it is impossible that all of them were his: at least seven inscribed with the name were published after 1680, the year of his death. Only two books can certainly be said to have passed through his hands. First, a 1667 copy of Culpeper’s English translation of the Pharmacopœia Londinensis (shelfmark 777.b.3), bears several marks of ownership. On the reverse of the title page is inscribed in secretary characters ‘John Doodie his book’, while the phrase ‘John Doodie de Stafford’ appears on pp. 53 and 287, and the words ‘John Doodie de Stafford in Cometatu’ are written on to p. 305. A further inscription on the final page of Culpeper’s appendix giving ‘A Synopsis of the KEY ofGalen’s Method of Physick’ reads ‘John Doodie de Stafford ownth this booke and giue Joye theron to looke’. In two other places, longer inscriptions have been obliterated. Second, a 1581 edition of Dioscorides’s Alphabetum Empiricum (shelfmark 778.a.3) contains annotations in apparently the same hand that inscribed the 1667 Pharmacopœia. One thing that can be ascertained is that, at one point or another, several and perhaps all of these books belonged to Samuel Doody. None of the dates of publication falls after his death in 1706, and the date 1707 written into two copies suggests the volumes may have been acquired in the aftermath of that event. The most plausible candidate for the author and subject of the title page inscriptions is Samuel’s nephew John Doody (1687-1753), who in the years preceding Samuel’s death worked as his apprentice. A good sample of the younger John Doody’s hand for comparison with the inscriptions is difficult to come by, but they bear similarities to the the name ‘John Doody’ as it is elaborately written on to f. 1r of Sloane MS. 2318 (a book containing business notes in Samuel Doody’s hand as well as at least three others). More substantial evidence of Samuel Doody’s ownership of these books is that, although the catalogue does not always acknowledge it, three volumes, all works of botanical cataloguing, are interleaved with pages containing notes in his hand. The entry for a copy of John Ray’s Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum of 1696 (shelfmark 969.f.21) is described as ‘Interleaved, with copious ms notes by J Doody and J Petiver’. The book does indeed contain numerous annotations in several hands, but the one that dominates is Samuel Doody’s. A copy of James Petiver’s catalogue of his botanical collection, Musei Petiveriani (shelfmark 972.g.2) and a 1648 catalogue of the plants in the botanical collection at Oxford (shelfmark 449.a.49) are similarly interleaved with pages of notes in Doody’s hand. Additionally, a copy of the 1591 Icones Stirpivm Sev Plantarvm Tam Exoticarvm Qvam Indigenarvm (shelfmark 443.a.3) by the Flemish physician and botanist to James I Matthias L’Obel contains notes in a small, neat hand that uses secretary characters for English and italic for Latin. In the later parts of the volume, these give way to annotations in 1 <http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/sloane/> 2 For an example of scholarship accepting the books as the property of ‘John Doody, father of Samuel Doody’, see Alison Walker, ‘Sir Hans Sloane’s Printed Books in the British Library’ in Giles Mandelbrote and Barry Taylor (eds.), Libraries Within the Library: The Origins of the British Library’s Printed Collections (London, 2009), pp. 89-97 (95). 1 eBLJ 2018, Article 7 Samuel Doody and his Books Samuel Doody’s distinctively uncareful script. Appendix I lists the books from the Sloane library identified as belonging to the Doody collection. This evidence, and the facts that (as I will discuss) Samuel Doody and Sloane were acquaintances, the collection appears to reflect several of Doody’s professional interests, and four of the titles match recorded purchases made by Doody at book auctions, leads me to think it likely that many of the Sloane printed books bearing a ‘J. Doody’ or ‘John Doody’ inscription were once Samuel Doody’s.3 John Doody’s will made no specific provision for his books but, after disposing of his properties and modest fortune, bequeathed the residue of his estate to his son, Samuel’s younger brother, Joseph Doody as his ‘full and onely executor’.4 There is no record of whether Joseph allowed Samuel to take possession of some or all of their father’s books. Samuel died unmarried in 1706, willing the bulk of his estate to Joseph Doody, who too died the following year.5 It is also possible that it was through the mediation of the younger John Doody, Joseph’s son and Samuel’s apprentice, that the books found their way to Sloane (though John was neither the executor of his father’s will nor its main beneficiary), although it seems Sloane acquired Doody books at different dates. Those of the texts that bear alphanumeric Sloane numbers suggest that they came to him in groups, with the majority entering his collection between 1712 and 1723.6 No evidence survives as to the overall size of Samuel Doody’s book collection, but at least Doody’s purchases at two important book auctions can be added to these surviving items. In 1682, Doody was a buyer at the sale of Richard Smith’s library, acquiring 30 lots. The auctioneer’s annotated catalogue survives in the British Library, and Appendix II lists Doody’s purchases at the Smith sale.7 Most significantly, Doody participated in the 1686 sale of the library of Arthur Annesley, the Earl of Anglesey. This vast collection contained more than 8,500 items and, following the death of Henry Oldenburg in 1677, had incorporated a substantial portion of Oldenburg’s library.8 Thanks again to the survival of the hammer catalogue, Doody’s acquisition of 158 lots at the sale of Annesley’s books can be traced; these purchases are listed in Appendix III.9 3 The three volumes listed among Doody’s purchases at the Anglesey auction that survive among the Sloane printed books are: Henry Briggs, Logarithmorum Chilias Prima (London, 1617); Diocese of Lincoln, An Abridgment of that Booke which the Ministers of Lincoln Diocess Delivered to his Majestie upon the First of December Last (London, 1618); and Archibald Simson, Hieroglyphica Animalium Terrestrium (Edinburgh, 1622-4). See Appendix I:10, 25 and 35 / Appendix II:23, 90 and 131. The surviving volume that Doody acquired at the Smith sale is Joannes Chrysostomus Magnenus, De Manna (Pavia, 1648) (Appendix I:28 / Appendix II:28). 4 John Doody’s will is in Lichfield Record Office, Lichfield Consistory Court Wills, 1650-1700, B/C/11. A digital copy is available through www.findmypast.co.uk. I am grateful to Anita Caithness of the Lichfield Record office for assisting me in locating the Doodys’ wills. 5 Samuel Doody’s will is at National Archives, PROB/11/492/125. Joseph Doody’s will is at Lichfield Record Office, Lichfield Consistory Court Wills, 1650-1700, B/C/11, with a digital copy available through www.findmypast.co.uk. 6 On dating Sloane’s acquisitions through alphanumeric markings, see Amy Blakeway, ‘The Library Catalogues of Sir Hans Sloane: Their Authors, Organization, and Functions’, eBLJ, 2011, Article 16, pp.1-49, https://www.bl.uk/ eblj/2011articles/pdf/ebljarticle162011.pdf. 7 Bibliotheca Smithiana: sive catalogus librorum ... quos ... sibi comparavit ... Richardus Smith Londinensis (London, 1682), hereafter Bib. Smit. BL, 821.i.3.(1.), with a surrogate available at Mic.A.1343. The buyers’ names and books prices are also entered into a copy of the text in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Vet. A3. d.187. 8 See Noel Malcolm, ‘The Library of Henry Oldenburg’, eBLJ, 2005, Article 7, pp.1-55, http://www.bl.uk/ eblj/2005articles/article7.html, p. 9. For a discussion of the Anglesey library auction, see T. A. Birrell, ‘Books and Buyers in Seventeenth-Century English Auction Sales’, in Robin Myers, Michael Harris and Giles Mandelbrote (eds.), Under the Hammer: Book Auctions Since the Seventeenth Century (London, 2001), pp. 51-64. 9 The sale catalogue is Bibliotheca Angleseiana, sive Catalogus Variorum Librorum in Quavis Lingua, & Facultate Insignium (London, 1686), hereafter Bib. Ang. The auctioneer’s copy is London, Lambeth Palace Library, shelfmark Z999.P4. 2 eBLJ 2018, Article 7 Samuel Doody and his Books Attempts to relate the life stories of Samuel and the two John Doodys have been bedevilled by misinformation, and I will begin by sketching a biography of each that is borne out by primary evidence. After that, I will discuss the Sloane books bearing the Doody inscription, as well as Samuel Doody’s book buying at the Smith and Anglesey sales. Lastly, I will discuss Doody’s annotations and interleavings and the collaborative programme of botanical enumeration to which he was contributing by making them. John Doody (1578-1658) John Doody Anne Nicklin (1616-1680) (d. 1670) Samuel Doody Joseph Doody Anne Doody (1656-1706) (1658-1707) (née?) John Doody Samuel Doody (six other (1687-1753) (1693-1727) children) Relevant Doody family members I.