Ye Foolish Book Collector

Above and below are four versions of an image I generated using Google's free AI tool—i.e., via the Google browser. It used Nano Bannana to generate the images. My initial prompt was "Create an image in the style of Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Dance of Death series, for the type of book collector depicted in Sebastian Brant's Das Narrenschiff."

I refined the image by asking it to remove the top banner; then "[1] Remove the fools cap from the skeleton reaching for the book; [2] add a simple constellation symbol to the blank pages on book at bottom right (above the banner), such as those found in Hygini, Poeticon Astronomicon"

Of the four images, I like the most the second one above, and this last one below—which is closest to what I had in mind.

Although I was delighted with the images, I was most impressed by the persistence (?)—how well Nano Bannana maintained the integrity of the original image, while modifying small details. This is a huge improvement on what image generators could do only twelve months ago.

OCR Redux

In my 2011 essay on the difficulties of searching OCR text-bases like ECCO ("'The New Machine': Discovering the Limits of ECCO; here), I gave, as an example, the opening sentence of Haywood's Female Spectator as rendered by Google Books and the Internet Archive. The two OCR-captured texts averaged over 150 typos per 2000 characters, a high enough error rate to render parts of the text completely unintelligible.

(I actually first did this test in 2004, at which point I encountered 33 errors in a passage 432 characters in length in a passage from Ab.60.7 The Female Spectator, 5th ed. (1755). I.e., OCR messed up 1 in 13 characters, nixing twenty words. The result didn't change between my first attempt at this and when I sat down to write my article, so this is the result I reported in 2011.)

While the Google Books passage had 33 errors among 432 characters, the Internet Archive had 35 in 430, allowing for differences in punctuation of the originals. The total of 68 errors among 862 characters equates to 157 typos per 2,000 characters. Here is the Google Books:

T is very much, by the choice we make of fubjects for our entertainment, that theiefined tall*' diftiuguifhes itfelt" from the vulgar and more grofs
: reading it univerfaily allowed to be one of the mofr. improving, as well at agreeable amufemerits; but then to render it fo,. one fhould, among the number of books which ar« perpetually ifluing from the prefs, endeavour to lingle out fuch as promife to be moft conducive to tho(e ends.

Since 2011, I have occasionally revisited this crude OCR test, to see how much OCR has improved. In January 2020, the same Google Books passage had only ten errors, or approximately 1 in every 43 characters—a significant improvement over 2011. Not only had the error rate for individual characters reduced by two-thirds, only three words contained errors compared to the total of twenty in 2011. Here is the 2011 text:

T is very much, by the choic* we make of subjects for our entertainment, that the icrlned tail*' distinguishes itself from the vulgar and more gross : reading it universally allowed to be one of the most improving, as well as agreeable amusements ; but then to render it so,, one should, among the number of books which art perpetually issuing from the press, endeavour to single out such as promise to be most conducive to those ends.

The error rate in May 2026 is, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, even lower. The same passage in two different editions (there are more editions of The Female Spectator online now than there were in 2011 or 2020) is only seven errors, six of which are long esses. Here is Ab.60.5 The Female Spectator, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (1748) here

T is very much, by the choice we make of fubjects for our entertainment, that the refined taste distinguishes itself from the vulgar and more gross: Reading is universally allowed to be one of the most improving, as well as agreeable amusements; but then to render it so, one should, among the number of Books which are perpetually iffuing from the prefs, endeavour to fingle out such as promife to be moft conducive to those ends.

Ab.60.7 The Female Spectator, 5th ed., vol. 1 (1755) here has exactly the same error rate, but the set of long esses misrendedred differs slightly. Intriguingly, a later edition, with what I took to be generally clearer type, has a lower error rate but more nixed words. Ab.60.9 The Female Spectator, 7th ed., vol. 1 (1771) being:

XCXX59XT is very much by the choice we make of subjects for our entertainI ment, that the refined taste diftin#guishes itself from the vulgar and more gross. Reading is universally allowed to be one of the most improving as well as agreeable ametements; but then to render it so, one should, among the number of books which are perpetually ifluing from the press, endeavour to fingle out such as promise to be most conducive to those ends.

The worst of the bunch is a copy of the 1775 pirate edition on the Internet Archive, having 33 errors—almost unchanged since 2011—only some being long esses: Ab.60.10b The Female Spectator, vol. 1 (Glasgow, 1775) here

IT is very much- by the choice we make of." fubjr&s for our entertainment, that the refined t:ut: uifimguilhes itfclf from the vulgar and more'grofs. Reading is univerfally allowed" to be one of the molt improving as well as agreeable amutements; but. then to render it fo, one fhould, among the number of books which are perpetually iffuing from the prefs, endeavour to finglc out fuch as promife to be moll conducive to thofe ends.

My conclusion from the above is that the Internet Archive has some work to do and that the Captcha / Turing test should probably be based on the ability to "diftinguish," or "fingle" out "fuch" words as distinguish, single out and such.

George Frisbie Whicher, 1889–1954, a bio-bibliography

George Frisbie Whicher, whose Columbia University thesis on Eliza Haywood was foundational to Haywood studies (i.e., The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood (1915)), has long been an enigma to me. Although his Columbia thesis was so important to Haywood studies, it seems that he never revisited the subject. At all. In forty-one years of academic life. In the circumstances, a meme something like this seems appropriate:

I have made multiple attempts in the past to peer into Whicher’s life, but never got very far. My most recent attempt was in January of 2018. Improvements in AI have vastly simplified this task, as has Anna’s Archive, so I have finally finished the following brief biography and bibliography.

* * * * *

George Frisbie Whicher (1889–1954) was the son of Lillian Hope and George Meason Whicher (1860–1937), a noted classics professor and poet. GMW seems to have been (appropriately) peripatetic: moving from Hastings College, Nebraska (1883–88), to Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn Heights, New York (1892–1900), then to Hunter College, Manhattan, New York (ca. 1900–1924), and finally—after GFW completed his own studies—to the Classical School in Rome (1921).

George Frisbie Whicher received his B.A. in 1910 from Amherst College, in Massachusetts, where he taught from 1915 to 1954, having received his PhD from Columbia in 1913, and having been an instructor in English at the University of Illinois from 1913 to 1915. As noted, his Columbia thesis was foundational to Haywood studies, but his most influential work may have been This Was a Poet: A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson (1938), which is credited with establishing Dickinson as a major figure in American literature. Whicher’s other notable works include: The Goliard Poets (1949), a collection of translations of medieval Latin songs and satires, Walden Revisited (1945), a centennial tribute to Henry David Thoreau, and Poetry and Civilization (1955); a posthumously published collection of his essays, edited by his wife. It is this collection which provides the basis of the bibliography below.

Whicher was married to Professor Harriet Fox Whicher (1890–1966) of Mount Holyoke. Born Harriet Fox, she earned her Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College and went on to have a distinguished academic career as a Professor of English in the English Department at Mount Holyoke. It seems that George and Harriet were close friends of the novelist Willa Cather (1873–1947).

The son of George and Harriet, Stephen Emerson Whicher (1915–61) was an influential American literary critic, biographer, and professor, best known as one of the leading scholars on Ralph Waldo Emerson. SEW earned degrees from Amherst College and Harvard University. He taught at Swarthmore College for a decade (1947–57) before becoming a Professor of English at Cornell University in 1957. His tenure there was short; SEW committed suicide at the age of 46—having been "upset by the prospect of continued world tension" (according to the NYT article, here)—leaving behind his mother Harriet, "his wife, Elizabeth, and four children, Susan, Nancy, Stephen and John." It is probably relevant that SEW served in the Navy during WW2 and received two combat stars during his service, so it is certainly possible he had something like PTSD.

An obituary for GWF: James Woodress and Robert P. Falk. "In Memoriam: George Frisbie Whicher, 1889-1954." American Literature, Vol. 26, No. 2 (1954): 255–56, starts: "The American Literature Group lost one of its most distinguished members when George Frisbie Whicher of Amherst College died on March 7. Few men have brought more honor to their profession through their lives and their writings than George Whicher did in his forty-one years of academic life."

* * * * *

A Bibliography of the works of George Frisbie Whicher

Books [5]
—The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood (New York: Columbia University Press, 1915).
—This Was a Poet: A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938).
—Alas, All's Vanity, or, A Leaf from the First American Edition of Several Poems by Anne Bradstreet (New York: Collectors' Bookshop, 1942). ¶ a biblioclastic "leaf book"; contains a leaf from Anne Bradstreet's Several Poems compiled with great variety of wit and learning, full of delight (Boston, 1678) [ESTC: R22624; Wing B4166].
—Walden Revisited: A Centennial Tribute to Henry David Thoreau (Chicago: Packard and Co., 1945).
—Mornings at 8:50: Brief Evocations of the Past for a College Audience (Northampton, MA: The Hampshire Bookshop, 1950).

Works edited, with Introductions [8]
—George Borrow, Lavengro, ed. George F. Whicher (New York: Macmillan, 1927).
—W. G. Hammond, Remembrance of Amherst, ed. George F. Whicher (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946).
—Henry D. Thoreau, Walden and Selected Essays, Intro. by George F. Whicher (Chicago: Packard and Co., 1947).
—Horace, Selected Poems of Horace (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co. Inc., 1947).
—The Transcendentalist Revolt against Materialism, ed. George F. Whicher (Boston: D. C. Heath and Co., 1949). Problems in American Civilization Series.
—Poetry of the New England Renaissance, 1790-1890, ed. and Intro. George F. Whicher (New York: Rinehart and Company, 1950).
—Virgil, Translated into English Verse by John Dryden, Intro. George F. Whicher, ill. Bruno Bramanti (New York: The Heritage Press, 1953). NEW
—William Jennings Bryan and the Campaign of 1896, ed. George F. Whicher (Boston, 1953). Problems in American Civilization Series.

Translations [2]
—On the Tibur Road: A Freshman's Horace. With George Meason Whicher (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1911).
—The Goliard Poets: Medieval Songs and Satires, with verse Translations by George F. Whicher (New York: New Directions, 1949).

Contributions [22]
—"Early Essayists" and "Minor Humorists" in The Cambridge History of American Literature, ed. William Peterfield Trent et al. (New York, 1917–21).
—[Seventeen articles] in Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone (New York, 1943).
—"Chapter 34: Literature and Conflict." in The Literature of the American People, ed. Arthur Hobson Quinn (New York, 1951).
—"Part IV: The Twentieth Century." in A Literary History of the United States, ed. Robert E. Spiller et al. (New York, 1948).
—"Introduction," in Publius Virgilius Maro, The Georgics, trs. Jolın Dryden. With an Introduction by George F. Whicher and Illustrations by Bruno Bramanti (Verona, Italy, 1952; rpt. New York, 1953).

Articles, poems, and reviews for various periodicals [not enumerated; I will add these as I find them]
—"The Present Status of the Bibliography of English Prose Fiction between 1660 and 1800" PMLA, Vol. 36, Appendix (1921), pp. c-cvi.
¶ This essay "rehearse[s] the tale of existing bibliographies of fiction, both published [Charlotte E. Morgan (1911), Arundell Esdaile (1912)] and unpublished [Chester N. Greenough, John M. Clapp]." In it, Whicher notes that "Upon his retirement from teaching a few years ago, Mr. Clapp bequeathed his [mauscript bibliography of 18C fiction] cards to me. I have as yet done nothing to improve my inheritance" (civ) and that "In 1913 I had occasion to go through the files of three newspapers in the Burney Collection from 1720 to 1730, noting all titles of fiction with the date of the first 'This day published' advertisement." (cv) I discuss Whicher's essay and the manuscript collections he mentions in my post "Knitting for Bibliographers, by Professor Greenough" (here).
—"Shakespeare for America" [reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly, Boston (June 1931).
—"Notes on a Wordsworth Collection," The Colophon, n.s. Vol. 11 (Summer 1937): 367-80. NEW
¶ In this essay, Whicher seriously questions the authenticity of what became known as the 'Wise cancel' in Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, concluding that 'These considerations are not direct evidence that the cancel leaf in question is spurious. Only an examination of paper and type can determine that. But they are sufficient to cast grave doubts on its authenticity. Mr. Wise's account of the normal make-up of both issues of the first edition of Lyrical Ballads is regrettably far from accurate" (373).

[2026.05.13 UPDATE: added another work introduced by GFW; publisher names; GFW roles; and another item under Articles]