Everything about Marginalia totally explained
Marginalia is the general term for
notes, scribbles, and editorial comments made in the margin of a book. The term is also used to describe drawings and flourishes in medieval illuminated manuscripts. True marginalia isn't to be confused with reader's signs, marks (for example stars, crosses, fists) or
doodles in books. The formal way of adding descriptive notes to a
document is called
annotation.
The
scholia on classical manuscripts are the earliest known form of marginalia.
Fermat's last theorem is probably the most famous historical marginal note.
The term was coined by
Samuel T. Coleridge who did extensive
in margin notes in almost all the books that he read. Five volumes of just his marginalia have been published.
Edgar Allan Poe formally titled some of his reflections "Marginalia."
Some famous marginalia were serious works, or drafts thereof, written in margins due to scarcity of paper. Voltaire composed in book margins while in prison, and
Sir Walter Raleigh wrote a personal statement in margins just before his execution. John Bethune was a poor English poet whose only available paper was borrowed space in books.
Marginalia can add or detract from the value of a book, depending on the author of the marginalia and the book. Marginalia by
Tony Blair in a book by
Winston Churchill, for example, might add value; a student's notes in a popular edition of
Oliver Twist might not.
Scientists doing research on the future of the
user interface have studied the phenomenon of user annotation of texts. They discovered that in several university departments, knowledgeable students would scour the piles of textbooks at used book dealers for consistently annotated copies. The students had a good appreciation for their predecessors' distillation of knowledge.
In the last decade of the 20th century, many attempts were made to design and market
e-book devices permitting a limited form of marginalia. At the beginning of the new millennium, the
Sony Librie EBR-1000EP was introduced with a tiny but full
qwerty keyboard below the display, to permit the creation of marginalia and bookmarks.
Further Information
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