So, would you care to step back through the pages of history with me for a bit? I wish to take you back to an age when pens and paper (or should that be quills and parchment?) were still a big deal to many in the world… A romantic age, a world in which gentleman were such and duels were fought… I want to take you to late 19th century London… Imagine the cobbled streets, gas lamps, horse-draw carriages… Now, imagine us walking together up a small street before we stop in front of a suite of apartments. The address? Why, 221B Baker Street of course, my dear friend.
Mists of time and all that jazz…
I knock on the door, and our inquiry is quickly answered by the kind, congenial landlady, a Mrs. Hudson by name. She directs us upstairs, first door on the left, and we quickly ascend.
“I hope you counted the steps as we came up, my friend often likes to test his guests with that bit of trivia upon their arrival.” I chuckle as I remember back to my own first visit. A faint whisper of violin music tickles our ears as we walk through the hallway. Finally arriving at the rooms we were directed to, I rap twice on the door. A muffled bark of “Enter!” greets my ears as the music abruptly ends.
We are greeted by a tall, gaunt man holding a violin and bow in his hands. He quickly lays them upon a nearby table before turning his piercing gaze toward his guests. His hawk-like nose and square jaw set a striking figure as he studied us momentarily before clapping his hands together startlingly loud in the moment of silence.
“Ah, yes, here you are! It’s not often that I receive guests anymore, ever since Watson moved into his new lodgings with his wife and relocated his practice and since that I have not been doing much consulting work as of late! Do come, come in, make yourself at home, if you can find someplace to seat yourself!”
He gestured to the apartment around him, noting the lack of suitable places to sit due to the hug piles of old newspapers, outdated correspondence, and other bits of memorabilia. An experiment still lie smoking on the table nearby, many of the beakers in disarray, and the top of the desk could not be seen the mass of paper on its surface.
“Oh, I do apologize,” he said, quickly clearing the papers off of the sofa and a chair and seeming to sort them into some of the many piles around the room, “I sometimes forget that without Watson here, everything is so disorganized in an organized manner. He was the neat one when it came to the room, you understand… Please, help yourself to a cigarette or some pipe tobacco,” he added, almost as an afterthought, pointing offhandedly to the box and slipper on the mantle.
“I can tell by your lack of haste that you have no new case for me, Mr. Davis?” he shot a hopeful query in my direction, a spark of interest in his eyes.
“Unfortunately not, Holmes… I actually brought my friend here because of his interest in your commonplace books.”
“You mean my records?”
“One and the same.”
At the mention of his books, his eyes lit up once again and turned, sweeping his arms out and gesturing grandly to a bookshelf full of notebooks of all shapes and forms. Some were bound leather books of the finest quality while others were mere reporters pads, but all of them were in alphabetical order and had obviously been well looked after.
“Ah, my crowning achievement… Truly, I have written several great works, perhaps you have… Oh, nevermind,” he intoned as he saw us gazing earnestly at the bookshelf and it’s contents. “Browse all you like, but take care that everything is returned to its proper place…” With this last exchange, he walked back over to the table, his movements reminding one of a living scarecrow more than anything else, and picking up the violin and bow once more, began to play…
Back to the future…
Well, sorry to waste your time, but I felt like a bit of short fiction was sort of appropriate to begin this article. The reason I chose to incorporate Holmes into my post is that it was one of the first times I had ever heard mention of a commonplace book. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle including in his works the sentences: “When our visitor was silent Holmes stretched out his hand and took down letter “S” of his commonplace book. For once he dug in vain into that mine of varied information.”
The moment those words registered in my brain, the search was on! Thankfully, due to the modern convenience we call the internet, my search was much easier and faster than some of Holmes’ clue-finding endeavours. Wikipedia has the following to say about commonplace books:
“Commonplace books (or commonplaces) were a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books…
Such books were essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: medical recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas. Commonplaces were used by readers, writers, students, as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they had learned. Each commonplace book was unique to its creator’s particular interests.”
(Read the whole article here)
“So,” you say “We’re talking about the predecessor to the scrapbook?” In a way, yes, in others, no… While scrapbooks are most often created to remember times, trips, and other events in life that are important, the commonplace book was for anything and everything. Some may have used it as a journal, others a recipe book, others a datebook, and still others, such as Sherlock Holmes, as their own personal encyclopedia of common and esoteric knowledge.
In this day and age, I am seeing more and more of a trend toward commonplacing, although many consider it journalling. I see more and more people not only keeping a journal, but also posting/glueing pictures, magazine or newspaper articles, or even fortune cookie fortunes into their pages. People are commonplacing and they don’t even know it!
Now, do all commonplaces have to be useful? No! It can be as useful or as fun as you want it to be. Do you keep a commonplace book/journal? How about sharing some photos or comment on your experiences below? ^_^
trapperhoney
Nov 11, 2010 @ 16:36:30
yes, mine was started in college and has a spiritual theme. i posted a pic on my blog some time ago — it’s the blue one with oriental decorations. i keep sermon notes, poems, acrostics, etc.
helz
Nov 11, 2010 @ 16:40:45
This is a fantastic post. I had never heard of a commonplace book before, but as you point out, many of us already have them and don’t know it.
This reminded me of a book I started back in 2002, to use a a sort of codex (not precisely correct, as it is bound, but I had no other word for it) to capture notes on all of the stuff that I look up, come across and generally stumble upon. It wasn’t for thoughts or ideas, more for concrete things like recipes, vocabulary words and anything else I happen to find interesting at the moment. Sadly, I didn’t keep up on its use, and it only has 20-30 pages filled up, but this post has really inspired me to engage in the practice of keeping a book like this. Since the book I use is a thick Miquelrius notebook, I have plenty of room to start again.
Here’s a couple pictures:
The Book
A few pages:
Thanks again for such a great and inspiring post!
helz
Nov 11, 2010 @ 16:44:22
My HTML isn’t what it used to be:
Book
Pages
Pages
Pages
John M.
Nov 11, 2010 @ 17:03:22
I recently purchase a Habana to use as my CommonPlace notebook after reading the post on !DIYPlanner. I got the Habana because it’s a little larger in order to fit more stuff that I can paste in there in addition to just notes.
Heather
Nov 11, 2010 @ 17:11:10
I’ve been keeping a commonplace book for a year or so now. Mine is a lined Paperblanks journal that has a design that makes it look like an old leather-bound book. I mainly use it to collect passages from books that I have been reading, as well as other miscellaneous information that I wish to save. I also keep a couple of other books that would probably fall into this category, even though I do not usually think of them as commonplace books. One contains favourite poems, and the other memorable short quotations and fragments of poems.
If you haven’t already read it, I would suggest you check out this excellent 2-part article on commonplace books from DIY Planner: http://diyplanner.com/docs/commonplace1 and http://diyplanner.com/docs/commonplace2
Ryan
Nov 11, 2010 @ 17:25:07
I have one for old cemeteries and “haunted” places I have photographed [or plan to.] Now I have a name for it! Very cool – thanks, Chris!
Speck
Nov 11, 2010 @ 17:41:56
I started a Commonplace in January this year. I didn’t know that’s what it was until a Flickr commenter clued me in. I had not heard the term before.
I had a bunch of little scraps of paper cluttering my desk and files and wanted to get them contained somehow – save the words but not the paper. Writing them in a blank-page 4″ x 6″ journal was the solution.
My Commonplace is filled with quotes, stuff I wish I had written. The quotes are timeless and just as relevant today as they were 30 years ago when I first started saving them. They fortify, nourish and inspire my soul. It’s a good read on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
I blogged about it here:
“Words” on the blog
Same thing is on Flickr if you want to read the comments:
“Words” on Flickr
Andrea Lisetti
Nov 12, 2010 @ 11:58:46
I wonder if Kikkerland would consider starting a line of diaries on bamboo paper with that kind of waterproof cover and a section for notes on graph paper? The very thought produces salivation of the stationery gland! MMM and winning such a give-away, goodness, too much excitement……
Stacey
Nov 12, 2010 @ 19:28:40
I did not know that my little notebook was a Commonplace notebook until today. I started one at the beginning of the year with no exact purpose in mind. Now it is almost full with class notes, things to look up online, story ideas, etc. It has been very helpful, especially since I’m in the middle of my college career. It makes for a good alternative to lugging around my full size binder.
Claire
Nov 14, 2010 @ 09:48:36
My chrono file binders should be renamed my commonplace books. Since I bought my first dedicated wordprocessor (breadbox-size Magnavox VideoWriter with built-in printer), I saved documents I wrote & printed, chronologically. I no longer needed a photocopier. I am on my seventh printer (thermal, dot-matrix, bubblejet, 3 black & white lasers, and one color laser). My bulky three-ring binders are falling apart and I am in the process of transferring to disc-bound notebooks using the Levenger Circa discs & punch. I save my own notes, news clippings, receipts. Once I discovered I could copy from the internet, the binders exploded. Good thing I have printouts of old dox because Hard Discs Die! Paper is more stable than electrons, and electronic dox are unreadable when the software inevitably becomes obsolete. Hard copies are my backup, moving from drawers to folders to boxes to ring-bound to disc-bound.
Weekly Wrap | PencilWrap.com
Nov 15, 2010 @ 09:46:05