Bibliographer: Hannah Kloetzer
The History of Miss Temple
Traditional Description
Rogers, A. The History of Miss Temple. In Two Volumes. By a Young Lady. London, 1777.
THE| HISTORY| OF| MISS TEMPLE| IN TWO VOLUMES.| BY A YOUNG LADY.| “---- generous forrow; while it sinks, exalts, | “and conscious virtue mitigates the pang.| YOUNG.| VOL I| LONDON:| PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR;| And fold by WALLIS No. 16, Ludgate Street; FLEXNEY| Holbourn; DAVENHILL, No. 30, Cornbill; and| FIELDING and WALKER, Pater-noster Row.| MDCCLXXVII.
Vol. I. 228 pp.; Vol. II. 259 pp.
Duodecimo
Vol. I. A1r Title, A2-A3 dedication, B1-L6 text
Vol. II. A1r Title, B1-M12
Sources from Harvard University Houghton Library and accessed from Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale Document Number: CW3310431737. Seal for Harvard University on A1v. Vol. I. ends on page 228 with “END of the FIRST VOLUME”. Vol. II. ends on page 259 with “THE END”.
THE| HISTORY| OF| MISS TEMPLE| IN TWO VOLUMES.| BY A YOUNG LADY.| “---- generous forrow; while it sinks, exalts, | “and conscious virtue mitigates the pang.| YOUNG.| VOL I| LONDON:| PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR;| And fold by WALLIS No. 16, Ludgate Street; FLEXNEY| Holbourn; DAVENHILL, No. 30, Cornbill; and| FIELDING and WALKER, Pater-noster Row.| MDCCLXXVII.
Vol. I. 228 pp.; Vol. II. 259 pp.
Duodecimo
Vol. I. A1r Title, A2-A3 dedication, B1-L6 text
Vol. II. A1r Title, B1-M12
Sources from Harvard University Houghton Library and accessed from Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale Document Number: CW3310431737. Seal for Harvard University on A1v. Vol. I. ends on page 228 with “END of the FIRST VOLUME”. Vol. II. ends on page 259 with “THE END”.
This replica of The History of Miss Temple replaces the content of the novel with various word clouds to indicate some form of narrative style and common themes, diverging from traditional bibliography, and restructures it into a traditionalistic format.
What I found was that there was a high prevalence of words and phrases with positive connotations throughout both volumes. In each word cloud, there were many words such as: friend, happiness, happy, heart, life, hope, and God. Furthermore, there were a lot of male names, such as spencer and charles. This could have a number of meanings. One potential interpretation, which is probable when comparing this novel to other novels in the era, is that Miss Temple is coming of age and trying to find her happiness in a suitor. Another interpretation is that this novel could follow Miss Temple throughout her whole life, not just a certain time period, and her quest to find happiness and love. While this is not a full plot summary, the knowledge about this Miss Temple and her goals as a protagonist as well knowledge about the novel in general that we can infer just from the tools on voyant is significant.
Lastly, in order to feel like one is reading the actual novel, I included the title, dedication, and page formatting of the novel in my replica of it. While doing this project I became very interested in the amount of whitespace in the title page and also in the book. I attempted to replicate the title in a way that it could be written today, since dimensions for novels seem to be different now. For the dedication, I decided to include it not only because it fit within my page formatting of duodecimo, but also because it shows the amount of empty space (a sign of wealth and elegance) each page has (I followed the margins as they are in the actual novel.)