It’s a GREAT HISTORICAL HOBBY you can still take up today, especially if you’re wondering what to write in a notebook, but what was a commonplace book exactly, how were they arranged and how can you create a commonplace book for yourself? In this video from History Calling I’m going to give you all the answers!
Commonplace books are books (traditionally handwritten, though nowadays you can create digital commonplace books) which the author collects together information relating to different topics of interest to them and places that information under headings. There is then a simple index at the start of end of the book telling them where to find information on a given subject. The practice of collecting information dates back to antiquity and commonplace books can contain anything, from quotes, to recipes, to medicinal information, interesting news items, mathematical information, gardening tips, notes on books read, drawings, historical facts, housekeeping tips etc. etc. The list is endless. Commonplace books are not diaries or journals however. They are not designed to record a person’s daily life or deep thoughts on a particular topic and as such they are less demanding than a diary. You don’t need to write in it every day. They are instead best described as a miniature encyclopaedia, tailored to the owner’s interests. Commonplacing was a common hobby in the past and whole books were even written about how to commonplace for yourself, including one by John Locke, who had his own system for indexing the information gathered in a commonplace book. You can create a commonplace book of your own using nothing more than a black book and pen or pencil, so if you’re not sure what to do with a notebook, or you’re looking for a new hobby, then why not try commonplacing? Of all the historical hobbies out there, it’s one of the easiest. It’s also a hobby you can do by yourself at home, it costs very little money, it’s educational, it will help to make you an active reader and listener when you consume content and it’s a great conversation starter if someone sees you commonplacing whilst out and about.
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SOURCES AND RESOURCES
[FREE] John Locke's A New Method of Making Common-Place-Books (London, 1706)
https://archive.org/details/13925922180LockeCommonplaceBook/mode/1up
[FREE if you sign up to JSTOR] Lucia Dacome, ‘Noting the Mind: Commonplace Books and the Pursuit of the Self in Eighteenth- Century Britain’ in Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 65, No. 4 (2004), pp. 603- 625. Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/3654271
[FREE if you sign up to JSTOR] Suzanne J. Podhurst, ‘Bound to Last: Commonplace Books and the Pursuit of a Reading Past’ in The Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol. 70, No. 1 (2008), pp. 9- 34. Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.25290/prinunivlibrchro.70.1.0009
[FREE if you sign up to JSTOR] Michael Stolberg, ‘John Locke's "New Method of Making Common-Place-Books": Tradition, Innovation and Epistemic Effects’ in Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 19, No. 5, Special Issue: A Natural History of Early Modern Writing Technologies (2014), pp. 448-470. Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/24269399
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