Anonymity in Eighteenth-Century

Italian Publishing: The Absent Author

Lodovica Braida
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NEW DIRECTIONS IN BOOK HISTORY

Anonymity in Eighteenth-
Century Italian Publishing
The Absent Author
Lodovica Braida
New Directions in Book History

Series Editors
Shafquat Towheed
Faculty of Arts
Open University
Milton Keynes, UK

Jonathan Rose
Department of History
Drew University
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Martyn Lyons, University of New South Wales, Australia
 Lodovica Braida

Anonymity in
Eighteenth-Century
Italian Publishing
The Absent Author
Lodovica Braida
University of Milan
Milan, Italy

ISSN 2634-6117     ISSN 2634-6125 (electronic)

New Directions in Book History
ISBN 978-3-031-03897-6    ISBN 978-3-031-03898-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03898-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
Translation from the Italian language edition: “L’autore assente. L’anonimato nell’editoria
italiana del Settecento” by Lodovica Braida, © Editori Laterza 2019. Published by Editori
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Cover illustration: BTEU/RKMLGE / Alamy Stock Photo

Vincent Placcius, Theatrum Anonymorum et Pseudonymorum (Hamburg, Liebernickel, 1708).

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
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To the memory of my mother, Anna.
 Contents

1 Introduction.
 The Absent Author: Functions and Uses of
Anonymous Authorship  1
References 15

2 The
 Ambiguities of the “Author Function” 19
1 Reflections on the Book Market 19
2 How to Write to “be read”: The Advice of Carlo Denina 28
3 Authorial Silence 37
4 Vittorio Alfieri: “The terrible ordeal of printing” 46
References 57

3 Anonymity
 in Travel Books 65
1 Travel Writing and the Notion of the Author 65
2 Four Nameless Travellers 73
References 90

4 Giuseppe
 Parini: Between Anonymity and Revealing the
Author’s Name 95
1 Il Giorno and Its Continuer: Parini a Second Cervantes?  95
2 Silent Coexistence and “Rapacious” Printers: The
One-­Volume Edition of Il Mattino, Il Mezzogiorno
e La Sera108
3 Translations and the Re-instatement of the Author’s Name116
References134

vii
viii Contents

5 Carlo
 Goldoni and the Construction of Authorship139
1 From Stage to Page139
2 Literary Property Versus Printing Privilege and Theatrical
“Use”149
3 From Playwright to Author158
References176

6 Novels:
 Read Them and Forget Them181
1 “Learned Italians” Do Not Write Novels181
2 Delegitimisation and Anonymity188
3 Books of “Sentiment” and Representation of Female Writing195
4 Forgettable Books: Fire and Oblivion200
References206

Index211
 About the Author

Lodovica Braida is Professor of History of the Book at the University of

Milan. Her work is devoted to the history of print culture and reading
practices in early modern Europe, and particularly in Italy, in a perspective
of socio-cultural history engaging bibliography, literary criticism, and
intellectual history. Among her publications are Stampa e cultura in
Europa tra XV e XVI secolo (Rome-Bari, 2000); Le raccolte epistolari del
Cinquecento tra inquietudini religiose e ‘buon volgare’ (Rome-Bari, 2009);
L’autore assente. L’anonimato nell’editoria italiana del Settecento (Rome-­
Bari, 2019). She is the editor, with Brigitte Ouvry Vial, of Lire en Europe.
Textes, Formes, Lectures, XVIIIe–XXIe (Rennes, 2020).

ix
 List of Figures

Fig. 5.1 C. Goldoni, Commedie, Venezia, Pasquali, 1761–1780, vol. I,

1761, frontispiece engraving by Antonio Baratti from a drawing
by Pietro Antonio Novelli (Casa Carlo Goldoni, Venezia) 164
Fig. 5.2 C. Goldoni, Commedie, Venezia, Pasquali, 1761–1780, vol. X,
1761 [but 1767], frontispiece engraving by Antonio Baratti
from a drawing by Pietro Antonio Novelli (Casa Carlo
Goldoni, Venezia) 165
Fig. 5.3 C. Goldoni, Commedie, Venezia, Pasquali, vol. XIII, 1761
[but 1775], frontispiece engraving by Antonio Baratti from a
drawing by Pietro Antonio Novelli (Casa Carlo Goldoni,
Venezia)166
Fig. 5.4 Portrait of C. Goldoni, in Le Commedie del Dottore Carlo
Goldoni, Venezia, Bettinelli, 1750, vol. I, anonymous engraver
(Casa Carlo Goldoni, Venezia) 171
Fig. 5.5 Portrait of C. Goldoni, in Le Commedie del Dottore Carlo
Goldoni, Firenze, Paperini, 1753, vol. III, engraving by Marco
Alvise Pitteri from a drawing by Giambattista Piazzetta (Casa
Carlo Goldoni, Venezia) 172
Fig. 5.6 Portrait of C. Goldoni, in Delle Commedie di Carlo Goldoni,
Venezia, Pasquali, 1761, vol. I, engraving by Marco Alvise
Pitteri from a drawing by Lorenzo Tiepolo (Casa Carlo
Goldoni, Venezia) 173

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction. The Absent Author: Functions

and Uses of Anonymous Authorship

The “author function,” to use Michel Foucault’s well-known expression,

acquires greater relevance during the eighteenth century, with the author’s
individuality and the affirmation of creative originality beginning to
emerge with increasing force (Foucault [1969] 1977). It is no coincidence
that European institutions which began to gather authorial archives con-
serve a significant body of literary collections from the eighteenth century
in particular, when, starting with Britain, copyright was introduced in
Europe. Since then, a close connection has been established between “the
author’s work and the writer’s life” (Chartier 2014, 85) and the discourse
on literary property—in other words, on the right of authors to continue
to own their intellectual creations even after the manuscript has been sold
to their publisher—has profoundly altered the history of culture. Many
authors felt, from then on, that their libraries, their archives and in
particular their manuscripts, constituted part of their work, inseparable
from the corpus of published texts. In other cases, they wanted their
unpublished materials to disappear with them, for fear of not being able to
control them. In this sense, as Roger Chartier has pointed out, “the con-
stitution of literary archives cannot be separated from the construction of

This Introduction has been revised and expanded for the current edition.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
L. Braida, Anonymity in Eighteenth-Century Italian Publishing,
New Directions in Book History,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03898-3_1
2 L. BRAIDA

philosophical, aesthetic and juridical categories that defined a new regime

for the composition, publication and appropriation of texts” (Chartier
2014, 89).
This is also the case for certain Italian authors, both famous and less well
known. Literary studies in recent years have paid great attention to the anal-
ysis of autobiographies, correspondence and other forms of egodo-cuments,
and to how certain authors have constructed and defended their authorial
identity through the skilful use of such published and unpublished writings,
in some cases even maintaining control over their library catalogue.
Authors took to the idea of constructing an image of themselves
through authentic documents, or those presented as such: a catalogue of
books, from which an author could eliminate titles which he did not con-
sider useful to his identity as a writer, as Vittorio Alfieri did (Del Vento
2016, 105; 2019); the inclusion of a different portrait for each of the edi-
tions of his works under his control, and the use of autobiographical mate-
rials combining words and images of the most important moments in his
theatrical career, in Carlo Goldoni’s case. This need to assert authorial
identity is accompanied by the concern—something present since
Gutenberg’s first press was invented—that the printer might alter the text
during the printing process, a fear which grows when the author is a long
way from the printing house and is not sure whether the person to whom
he gave the manuscript is wholly trustworthy. Anxiety regarding what
Alfieri calls the “terrible ordeal of printing” is a sentiment shared by many
authors.1 When they are concerned that their manuscript will end up in
the wrong hands, some even think of destroying it. Abbot Giambattista
Casti, for example, before leaving Paris, asked the friend to whom he had
given a copy of his Animali parlanti (The Court and Parliament of Beasts)
to burn it: he had in the meantime revised the text and feared that the old
manuscript might end up in the workshop of some unscrupulous printer.2

On Alfieri, see Chap. 1, section 4.

1

Casti wrote to his friend Paolo Greppi, who was coming to Paris, to bring along the copy
2

of Animali parlanti that he had left with him: “The other copy of my ‘apologhi’ [Animali
parlanti] you have with you, when you come, you can bring with you, since it is presently
very much lacking; if you are embarrassed to bring it with you, then burn it if you like—who
knows if its brothers [the other texts] will not suffer the same fate” (“L’altra copia de’ miei
apologhi che è presso di voi, venendo potete portarla con voi, benché presentemente man-
cantissima; se poi v’imbarazzasse a portarla con voi, bruciatela pure poiché chi sa che i loro
fratelli non abbiano ad avere la medesima sorte”), [Paris], le 8 pluviôse an 7 [27 January
1799], quotation taken from Tatti (2018, 160). On Casti, see also Palazzolo (2001).
 1 INTRODUCTION. THE ABSENT AUTHOR: FUNCTIONS AND USES… 3

However, the history of publishing shows that during the eighteenth

century, in the presence of a growing book market, not only did authors
feel the need to affirm their identity by all the means that printing allowed,
but also, at the same time, could make the decision to circulate their
works anonymously, handing over their manuscript to a trusted printer
and asking friends not to reveal their names. This was often an open
secret: in cultured circles, academies and literary salons, almost everyone
was aware of the identity behind such anonymity, especially if the author
was already known. However, this was not the case for ordinary readers,
who, being outside the world of literary life, bought or read a book with-
out an author’s name attached, and who, in many cases, held in their
hands, unbeknownst to them, works by famous hommes de lettres. This is
why the term “absent author” is employed here. Without any pretence to
exhaustiveness, the intention has been to focus, through the reconstruc-
tion of some significant examples, on the use of anonymity in Italian pub-
lishing, a centuries-old practice that has existed everywhere in Europe—one
that is certainly not only a prerogative of the eighteenth century or of
Italian book production, but one to which scholars have rarely attached
much importance. Robert Griffin’s observation in relation to English lit-
erary studies is equally valid for Italian studies: “Literary studies exhibit a
curious reluctance to acknowledge that most of the literature ever pub-
lished appeared either without the author’s name or under a fictive name”
(Griffin 2003, 1).
If the use of anonymity is so widespread, why has scholarship paid so
little attention to such an important issue in the history of written cul-
ture? Being immersed in a culture that holds intellectual property as a
supreme value, our thinking tends to be anachronistic, our way of under-
standing anonymity being conditioned “by the legal and cultural notions
behind intellectual property, copyright, and the value of a work being
increased by knowing the identity of its unique creator” (Rizzi, Griffiths
2016, 202).
Over the past 20 years, studies on early modern history and the transi-
tion from manuscript to print have applied strict methodological criticism
to a tradition of historical, philosophical and literary studies dominated by
an interdependent focus on the author and his works. In this author-­
centred perspective, as Robert Griffin has observed, anonymity is “an issue
only if an author remained unknown, and then it is a puzzle to be solved”
(Griffin 2007, 465).
4 L. BRAIDA

Some of these studies suggest moving away from a culture that tends to
read a form of cultural inferiority into an anonymous text compared to a
text attributed to an author (something which applies not only to literary
history but also to the history of art and music): rather than seek the
author hiding behind a certain text, whether literary, philosophical or
artistic, it is instead necessary to cast light on “the cultural systems that
underpin it” (Rizzi, Griffiths 2016, 202–203). In order to break loose
from literary criticism and its author-centred perspective, it has become
necessary for some scholars, “to explore the materials, functions, contexts,
and nuances of anonymous authorship without necessarily finding the
author” (North 2011, 13). In this perspective, the analysis of anonymity
is emerging as a research area independent of attribution studies: “Scholars
of attribution—points out Marcy L. North—strive to replace anonymity
with a name, and scholars of anonymity seek to understand the absence of
a name” (North 2011, 13–14).
Studying anonymity and its relevance in early modern printing is not
easy, however. As Mark Vareschi has recently highlighted, the search is
complicated by the difficulty of tracing works that have been published
without the author’s name on the title page, as there is no cataloguing
system that includes such data. Even online catalogues suffer from the
same problems in terms of querying data. The only way to find books
showing no indication of their authors is to search for a specific title.
Thousands of eighteenth-century texts, however, turn out to be “doubly
disappeared”: “unread and largely ignored because of their anonymity and
inaccessible because of cataloguing methods and database design”
(Vareschi 2018, 4). In order to get some idea of anonymous publications
throughout the centuries, it is necessary to refer to what John Mullan has
defined as “the great, but neglected, monuments to nineteenth-century
scholarship” (Mullan 2007, 4): the dictionaries of the anonymous authors
and pseudonyms. Nevertheless, these only contain works originally pub-
lished without the author’s name, but which, starting from publication or
immediately thereafter, were then attributed to one or more authors.
Those that have never been attributed are not found in Melzi for Italian
works, in Barbier for French, or in Halkett-Laing for English.3 Much
3
We refer here to the main French, Italian and English dictionaries of the anonymous and
pseudonymous writers: Barbier (1806–1809); Quérard (1869–1871 (II ed.)); [Melzi]
(1848–1859); Passano (1887); Rocco (1888); Halkett, Laing (1882–1888). For some indi-
cations on the history of the Italian dictionaries of anonymous writers see Pasquali, Natali
(1929); on the Halkett, Laing see Orr (2013); on French bibliographers Barbier et Quérard
and their activity see Serrai (1999, 39–60 and 79–146).
 1 INTRODUCTION. THE ABSENT AUTHOR: FUNCTIONS AND USES… 5

anonymous production, therefore, escapes any possibility of analysis,

despite being a phenomenon that characterised a considerable portion of
books printed in the early modern period.
American bibliographers Archer Taylor and Fredric J. Mosher have
traced the developments of the dictionaries of anonymous and pseudony-
mous authors from their origins to nineteenth-century dictionaries,
emphasising that, from the seventeenth century onwards, such tools for
tracing intellectual responsibility have tried to distinguish between plagia-
rism, pseudonymity, and anonymity.4 These terms do not, in fact, desig-
nate the same concept, since the presence of a pseudonym or plagiarism
indicates a deliberate action: in the former case, concealing one’s real
name; in the latter, passing off the work of another as one’s own. Defining
anonymity is less simple: it “bears a far more complex and less clear rela-
tionship to authorial agency” (Vareschi 2018, 17). Evidence that these
were different ways of hiding the author’s legal name can also be found
in the famous Theatrum anonymorum et pseudonymorum by Vincent
Placcius (Hamburg, Liebernickel, 1708), in which anonymous texts and
pseudonymous texts occupy separate volumes. As Martin Mulsow has
pointed out, such monuments of erudition responded to the need to
attribute the names of authors to an increasingly large anonymous and
pseudonymous production: “in an age of simulation and dissimulation it
was a frequent practice to publish polemical, heterodox, or somewhat
explosive material anonymously or pseudonymously” (Mulsow
2016, 220).
The engraving which preceded the title page of the Theatrum anony-
morum et pseudonymorum (it is reproduced on the cover of this book) also
left no doubt that the purpose of Placcius’s work was to discover the iden-
tity of “masked” authors: in an austere library room, some authors show
their faces while two of them hold masks in their hands. Higher up, hung
along a cord, there is a series of costume masks, some bearded to represent
sages, some more similar to comedy masks. The same mask metaphor
appears in the title of a work that preceded Placcius’s Theatrum: Auteurs,
déguisez sous des noms étrangers by Adrien Baillet, published in Paris in
1690. Baillet considers various reasons why authors should choose to pub-
lish their works anonymously and identifies a dozen of them, including:
prudence due to fear of censorship; the embarrassment of having a
4
Taylor, Mosher (1951); see also Serrai (1993, 682–691).
6 L. BRAIDA

ridiculous name; the shame of publishing a work unworthy of the author’s

status; modesty; fear of personal criticism; or simple divertissement (“gay-
eté de cœur”).5 For religious figures of any order and office, omitting their
names is often an ethical choice: especially in the case of a literary work,
anonymity is a way to avoid being judged as guilty of pride, of exhibition-
ism in search of fame. In other cases, there was no choice but that of
authorial silence in order not to incur severe criticism from the religious
order to which they belong.
However, the choice of anonymity is an ethical one for many, not only
for religious figures, an interpretation that can also be inferred from the
Encyclopédie entry anonyme, attributed to Abbot Mallet. In Mallet’s opin-
ion, the term anonyme can be used in two ways: “this epithet is given to all
the works that appear without the author’s name or whose authors are
unknown”.6 While the latter meaning refers to a work whose author is
simply a mystery, the former implies that the author’s name is in fact known,
albeit absent from the title page: in other words, a form of intentional ano-
nymity. This intentionality is reinforced by a long quotation from Baillet’s
Jugement des savants (1685–1686), in which he says that many authors are
afraid of revealing themselves to the public and prefer to remain in the
shadows, being indifferent to success and sometimes ashamed of the fame
acquired through writing: many consider it “a baseness and a kind of dis-
honour (or rather foolish pride) to be known as an author”.7
Still, Mallet added something of his own, the intention being, it seemed,
to bring up to date, in the publishing context of his time, the reasons why
many authors chose anonymity: for some it was a way of reacting to the
attitude of those readers who considered all books bearing an author’s
name to be credible, showing “an unjustified contempt for works without
an author’s name”.8 For other authors, by contrast, it was a way of

5
[Baillet, Adrien], Auteurs déguisez sous des noms étrangers, empruntez, supposez, feint à
plaisir, chiffrez, renversez, retournez, ou changez d’une langue en une autre. Paris: Dezallier,
1690. On this work by Baillet, see Waquet (2013); see also Cochetti (1995).
6
[Mallet, Edmé-François] Anonyme, in Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raissonné des arts et
des métiers, vol. 1, Paris: Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand, 1751, 488–489: “On donne
cette épithete à tous les ouvrages qui paraissent sans nom d’auteur, ou dont les auteurs sont
inconnus.” On the entry “anonyme” of the Encyclopédie, see Tunstall (2011, 676–682).
7
[Mallet, Edmé-François] Anonyme (see footnote n. 7), 488–489: “comme une bassesse
et comme une espèce de deshonneur (il fallout plûtot dire comme un sot orgueil) de passer
pour auteur.”
8
Ibid.:“un mépris mal fondé pour des ouvrages sans nom d’auteurs.”
 1 INTRODUCTION. THE ABSENT AUTHOR: FUNCTIONS AND USES… 7

exploiting the success of anonymous books to which readers were attracted

(and here he seemed to be alluding to the livres philosophiques in the broad-
est sense): “an anonymous book is always an interesting book, even though
it is actually inconsistent or dangerous.”9
In the mid-eighteenth century, Mallet still seemed to share Baillet’s
opinion to a great extent. Anonymity was always a laudable choice, a sign
of reserve and modesty, except in the case of authors who wrote danger-
ous anonymous works: “only in the latter case can anonymous authors be
condemned.”10
Mallet’s entry reveals that in the eighteenth century it was not possible
to associate anonymity only with clandestine production connected with
the trade in prohibited books: the scope of its use was much wider and
could refer to the practice of the self-effacing honnête homme. The term
“anonymous” was not, therefore, only a synonym for “unauthorised,” but
rather a much more articulated concept, with many more nuanced appli-
cations and modes of expression.
It should also be said that there are texts which, due to their own par-
ticular characteristics (popular texts, prayers, recipes of various kinds,
poems), do not always require an author: their authorship is conferred by
the very fact of becoming a book, having a market, coming into contact
with one or more readers.11 In other words, authorship is not always to be
referred to the creator of an original text, but it can be “an instance”
inherent in the text itself, as Alain Brunn suggests, overturning the terms
of the Foucauldian “author function.”12 In fact, there is not always an
opposition between declared identity and anonymity, but rather a playing
with positions, since even anonymous texts generate the projection of a
presence (Griffin 2003, 10). For example, in numerous travel accounts,
the anonymous authors speak of their “personal” experience—anonymity,
however, clashes with a type of text in which the writers declare they are
depicting something “original,” seen “with their own eyes,” something
never observed before by other travellers. The use of anonymity, however,

9
Ibid.: “un livre anonyme est toujours un ouvrage intéressant, quoique réellement il soit
faible ou dangereux.”
10
Ibid.: “ce n’est que dans ce dernier cas qu’on peut condamner les auteurs anonymes.”
11
Cf. Braida, Infelise (eds.) (2010).
12
“If there are texts without an author, there is no text without authorship, if only because
the text endlessly nourishes the author’s fictions, which are so many elements that reveal this
desire for authorship that characterises the practices of literature,” Brunn (2007).
8 L. BRAIDA

is almost never accidental and has an effect on how one’s actual “author-
ship” is communicated.
It would be of great interest to analyse the long-term use of anonymity,
starting with the establishment of the printing press in Europe, through-
out the whole period of the ancien régime, but studies and bibliographical
attention are still lacking and it is not possible to develop a comparative
perspective over a broad chronological span. Here, therefore, a more
­limited spatial and temporal context has been chosen, the Italian eigh-
teenth century, given the numerous transformations that took place in the
century of the Enlightenment with regard to the expansion of book circu-
lation and the new possibilities affecting access to reading.13 These two
elements of slow but significant change make it possible to observe the
behaviour and strategies of authors in a publishing market where, com-
pared to the past, it was becoming easier, albeit prudently, to circumvent
ecclesiastical censorship.
Here we focus on certain authors of literary texts, both famous and less
well known, who, in different ways, have resorted to anonymity. Space is
also given to two successful genres, travel books and novels, often pub-
lished without any indication of intellectual responsibility or under false
imprints. The fact that readers approached many books without being able
to attribute a name to these texts is no trivial fact. This silence of the
author has its own historical, social and cultural relevance, in the same way
as the voice of those who, by contrast, did everything possible to docu-
ment and protect every aspect of their artistic creation, in some cases even
attempting to react against the dishonesty of printers who had published
their works without their consent. Carlo Goldoni, as will be seen later,
following a complaint from his publisher, takes matters to court; while
Alfieri distances himself from a pirated edition through a terse and straight-
forward announcement in a journal.
If the author’s “voice” leaves various traces, the choice of silence, and
the reasons for this, are more difficult to document. Anonymity, especially
when there are no doubts about the attribution of a work, is, as men-
tioned, a theme that literary history does not address. Many critical studies
also show a lack of bibliographic sensitivity: in most cases, in footnotes,
anonymous works where the author is known are indicated without
reporting the author’s name in square brackets, thus producing, involun-
tarily, a falsification of the edition’s data. The absence of the name from

13
On recent studies in these fields, cf. Braida, Tatti (eds.) (2016).
 1 INTRODUCTION. THE ABSENT AUTHOR: FUNCTIONS AND USES… 9

the title page is not considered relevant data in itself. What matters is the
association between the text and a name to which intellectual ­responsibility
is to be attributed, regardless of the materiality of the edition. In reality,
the title page and other paratextual spaces (prefaces, indexes, dedications)
contain information regarding how the author and printer perceived the
work and how the author constructed or denied his or her identity. The
impression, gained from the certainty of the bibliographic data that l­iterary
history provides, is that the link between the author and the work had
been an established fact since the first edition. This is often not the case,
though: years might pass before the work carried the author’s name on the
title page, and in some cases it was necessary to wait until the author’s death.
Classical philology, which traces the entire manuscript tradition of a
work in order to establish a text as close as possible to the author’s wishes,
or which, in the absence of manuscript evidence, evaluates all the variants
in the different editions supervised by the author, often does not take into
account that in many cases the text completely escaped the writer’s con-
trol, arriving in readers’ hands through pirated editions, at much lower
prices than the first edition.
Also in terms of what analytical bibliography in the English-speaking
world has come to define as the “ideal copy text,” the printed text, stripped
of all “corruption” deriving from the oversights and carelessness of the
printers,14 appears idealised in an immobility that has nothing to do with
practices common in early modern printing, where, as Donald McKenzie
has pointed out, the only norm was, paradoxically, “the normality of non-­
uniformity” (McKenzie 1969, 13).
The social history of the book therefore recounts a different story: the
story of a proliferation of editions controlled neither by the first printer
nor by the author, of a mobility of texts, transformed into different edi-
tions, sometimes merged with others, sometimes enriched by illustrations
and new paratexts, sometimes impoverished by the neglect of printers.
And, unlike the idealisation of texts assigned, in literary tradition, to an
author, the social history of the book also invites us to take into account
the denial of intellectual responsibility. In other words, the silence of
the author.

14
In Principles of Bibliographical Description (1949, 113) Fredson Bowers writes: “an ideal
copy is a book which is complete in all its leaves as it ultimately left the printer’s shop in per-
fect condition and in the complete state that he considered to represent the final and most
perfect state of the book.”
10 L. BRAIDA

The intention here is not to propose a history of anonymity, but only

to identify certain characteristics of a significant publishing phenomenon
on which no studies yet exist in Italy, despite the fact that anonymity and
the use of pseudonyms have always been frequent. There is, for example
the recent case of Elena Ferrante, author of the best seller L’amica geniale
(My Brilliant Friend), whose mysterious identity has been the subject of
numerous hypotheses from literary critics (one of which is particularly
plausible), always denied by those who have been named. After all, the
search for the possible name of the author is a functional part, in this case,
of the work’s success.
For the period we are dealing with here, it should be noted that ano-
nymity was not linked exclusively to a logic of control—it did not, in other
words, only concern the genres that ecclesiastical censorship had con-
demned as immoral or irreligious, such as the so-called livres philos-
ophiques.15 It also concerned genres with a wide circulation, not so much
out of fear of censorship (often these were perfectly legitimate books), but
above all because writing books with a low cultural profile could harm the
good name of the author: it was preferable, therefore, to take refuge in
anonymity.16 This was the case with almanacs, texts for the first stages of
literacy, books of ancient practical knowledge linked to trades, and in gen-
eral books that did not receive a great deal of care during the printing
process. This was also the case for some successful genres, such as novels
and travel literature. Whereas, in the case of novels, authorial silence is also
linked to the fear of ecclesiastical censorship, in the case of travel books it
is more difficult to understand the reasons. However, it is surprising that
the numerous critical studies have never paid attention to the fact that a
not inconsiderable part of this fashionable genre was published with no
indication of the author’s name.
It should also be remembered that even with regard to anonymous
books, each edition has a story of its own and it is not enough to study the
editio princeps. In some cases, new editions reveal important details of the
subtle game played by the author as, absent from the title page, he reveals
his name, or simply his initials, in the dedicatory text. This is a further sign

15
On the definition of livres philosophiques, see Darnton (1988, 1995a and 1995b).
16
Sabine Pabst (2018, 161–162) has observed that the refuge in anonymity was also used
by young German authors to protect themselves from possible criticism: an anonymous text
would have concentrated any negative reaction on itself, while the author, who remained
unknown, would have been able to modify and refine his text.
 1 INTRODUCTION. THE ABSENT AUTHOR: FUNCTIONS AND USES… 11

that a rigid approach, limited to the duality of presence-absence of intel-

lectual responsibility, is not suitable for the study of anonymity, because
there are numerous ways in which the author, translator or editor leaves
his or her traces. As some studies on French and English publishing show,
numerous possibilities emerge between the total absence of the name on
the title page and its clear indication: the use of pseudonyms, anagrams,
initials, the inclusion of the name in a poem preceding the actual text or in
a dedicatory letter. These are strategies, if they can be defined as such,
which do not have the same value as the name on the title page, but which
provide information regarding the author’s wish to at least partially reveal
his own identity.17
There are also cases involving great authors, celebrated figures in liter-
ary history, who for various reasons have chosen not to let their names
appear on certain works, at least not on the title page, but only allow them
to be known in the cultured circles of academies and literary salons. The
case of Giuseppe Parini seemed a suitable one to examine here, for a num-
ber of paradoxical reasons. All histories of Italian literature make reference
to Il Giorno (The Day), but rarely do they explain that the work is an
abstract, or rather platonic, concept, given that it was not finished while
Parini was still alive. Of the work, only Il Mattino (The Morning) and Il
Mezzogiorno (The Afternoon) were published in Milan, under the control
of the author, in 1763 and in 1765 respectively, re-edited in the same years
by the author himself—something that emerged from rigorous twentieth-­
century philological work, starting with Dante Isella’s fundamental edi-
tion in 1969 up to the recent national edition.18
Immediately after the author’s editions, printers in different cities, and
Venice in particular, competed to appropriate the texts, so that separate
reprints of the two poems began to proliferate, though the author’s con-
sent was never sought and he was never given the opportunity to correct
the text. Moreover, in the absence of a law on literary property, the risk of
having one’s work counterfeited and published in other states was very
high. Authors knew they could do little about it. For Parini, however, the
situation was even more complex. Not only was he a victim of the “greed”
of printers, as he himself bitterly admitted, but he was also the target of a
literary fraud—something on which he never commented. His two poems

17
Parmentier, Introduction to Parmentier (ed.). (2013, 5–16); Vareschi (2018, 16–20).
18
Parini (1969) (Dante Isella’s critical edition); Parini (2013) (national edition). On new
philological research after Isella’s edition, see Biancardi (2011).
12 L. BRAIDA

were continued by the hand of another author, who took advantage of the
fact that readers were waiting impatiently for La Sera (The Evening), which
Parini himself had promised he would write in the “Dedication to Fashion”
that prefaced Il Mattino. This continuation was also made possible by
what can be defined as the ambiguity of the “author function”: while La
Sera was published anonymously, it is known that the writer, who imitated
the free-verse hendecasyllables of the “real” author with some skill, was a
Veronese lawyer, Giovanni Battista Mutinelli, who genuinely admired
Parini. His behaviour here was not very different from that of the self-­
styled Avellaneda who, in 1614, had, without Cervantes’s knowledge,
published a continuation of Don Quixote.19
It is surprising that critics have remained almost completely silent20 on
a publishing case that also provides a great deal of information on the
extent to which this appropriation influenced the behaviour of Parini him-
self, who, during his lifetime, published no continuation of his two poems
and, in the parts of the poem that remained in manuscript form, no longer
used the title La Sera. Indeed, he silently allowed printers to go on making
money from his work with reissues of Il Mattino and Il Mezzogiorno, even
when Mutinelli’s La Sera was added to them and, with anonymity main-
tained for all three poems and a continuity of page numbering. In this way,
they were published as if they were a unified work produced by the same
pen. There were numerous editions of the work entitled Il Mattino, Il
Mezzogiorno e La Sera. Poemetti tre, but no critical-literary study has ever
taken them into consideration. Nevertheless, these editions circulated and
reached thousands of readers. Ironically, only after Parini’s death did this
combination of the three poems come to an end and La Sera fall into
oblivion. Analysis of the French, German, English and Spanish transla-
tions paradoxically reveals that the European market published the two
Parini poems and excluded La Sera, indicating the author’s name on the
title page or in a translator’s note. As recent studies have shown, each
translation is a world unto itself, in which the text is adapted to the culture
that appropriates it.21 Moreover, the four translations of Il Mattino and Il

19
On the continuation of Don Quixote by Avellaneda see Chartier (2014 Chap. 5,
Préliminaires, 158–165).
20
The only essays to have posed the problem that the publication of La Sera represented
for Parini’s continuation of the poem are those by Leporatti (1993) and by Fido (1998).
21
See Burke, Po-chia Hsia (eds.). (2007); Chartier (2020); Chartier (2021).
 1 INTRODUCTION. THE ABSENT AUTHOR: FUNCTIONS AND USES… 13

Mezzogiorno involve very different interpretations, starting with the choice

of titles.
The term “absent author” is employed here not only in reference to the
use of anonymity, but also to indicate that the path that brought Italian
authors to the recognition of copyright has been a long one.22 There are
no considerations amongst eighteenth-century Italian scholars on the
author as the owner of his work: while complaining about the wrongdo-
ings of printers and the constant pirating they had to endure, none of
them thought they could profit from a book market that was growing in
strength. Authors, with the exception of Carlo Denina, paid little atten-
tion to what happened when their work left the creative phase of writing
to become, in the print shop, a book, a product destined to enter the
homes of private readers. Only one great man of letters, Carlo Goldoni,
breaks the silence by challenging the rules of ancien régime publishing and
laying claim to control over the editions of his texts. Goldoni is, indeed,
the exception that confirms the rule.
The problem of the recognition of literary property is once again a very
topical issue—new technologies are forcing us to review many certainties
we had grown accustomed to, including copyright: a creation of
eighteenth-­century Europe, thought to be firmly regulated and interna-
tionally accepted, today it is profoundly called into question. A stream of
pamphlets and texts of various kinds runs across the web, defending or
attacking the rights of the author. For many today, copyright is an unac-
ceptable monopoly that has for centuries held back, and continues to hold
back, cultural innovation and the dissemination of information.23
Sometimes, over the centuries, these reconstructions appear teleological
and anachronistic: the past, read through today’s needs, looks crushed by
a judgement that tends to see copyright as anything but a fundamental
part of an individual’s freedom of expression. It is often forgotten that, for
the whole of the ancien régime and, for Italy, until after unification (which
took place in 1861), the intellectual property of authors was not recog-
nised and anyone could publish their work, without asking for their con-
sent, altering it or breaking it up into anthologies. Something very similar
happens today, as the digital revolution allows the large web platforms,
Google, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, functioning as information
aggregators, to take content from other sites, and, with the advantage of

22
On the difficulties that beset the introduction of copyright in Italy, see Palazzolo (2013).
23
Cf. Boldrin, Levine (2008).
14 L. BRAIDA

their dominant position in the market, weaken those who first produced
such content. The European Union initiated a discussion on precisely this
subject, online copyright, and then approved a resolution, on 12 September
2018, to place a limit on the excessive power of large web platforms. This
resolution introduces, among other things, the principle that online plat-
forms, if they create links from news, images and texts produced by others,
must pay a fee to the producers/publishers of these contents. Attention
today is therefore no longer focused on publishing “piracy” on paper, but
rather via the web.24 However, paradoxically, the risk of the “absent
author” is with us once again—this time, in the sense of him/her being
“irrelevant.” In other words, authorial voice and identity are too weak to
prevent omnivorous platforms from appropriating the contents produced,
using them in part, fragmenting them and exploiting their appeal as they
gain more likes.

Acknowledgements This book owes a great deal to the generosity of friends and
colleagues who have provided useful suggestions through their observations, criti-
cal readings and discussions: in particular Pedro Cátedra, Patrizia Delpiano,
Gigliola Fragnito, Mario Infelise, Mariolina Palazzolo, Tiziana Plebani, Giuseppe
Ricuperati and Corrado Viola.
Some seminars in recent years, and in particular those at the University of
Pennsylvania in April 2018 (one of which concerned Carlo Goldoni and the ways
in which he defines his identity as an author), were immensely inspiring in relation
to the discussion on the construction of authorship. There, I had the opportunity
to heed the stimulating comments of Roger Chartier, John Pollack, Peter
Stallybrass and Eva del Soldato: my deepest gratitude goes to all of them for creat-
ing an atmosphere of great serenity and sharing.
I would also like to express my gratitude to Jonathan Rose and Shafquat
Towheed for accepting my book in this series.

24
On the relationship between piracy and intellectual property doctrines, cf. Johns (2009).
 1 INTRODUCTION. THE ABSENT AUTHOR: FUNCTIONS AND USES… 15

The translation of this work, funded by Dipartimento di Studi Storici of

University of Milan, is due to Stuart Wilson: to him, too, I would like to offer my
thanks.25

References
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pseudonymes français et latins. Paris: Imprimerie Bibliographique, 4 vols (with
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25
Six sections of this book, now extensively revised and with an updated bibliography, have
previously appeared in some books and journals. These are Sects. 1, 2 and 4 in Chap. 2, sec-
tion 2 in Chap. 3 and sections 3 and 4 in Chap. 6. They refer to the following essays respec-
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approche génétique, Colloque international, Paris, 19–20 Mars 2015, monographic edition of
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(1731–1813). Un piemontese in Europa, 135–156. Bologna: Il Mulino; Vittorio Alfieri e la
“terribile prova dello stampare.” In Benedetti, Marina, and Maria Luisa Betri (eds.). 2010.
Una strana gioia di vivere. A Grado Giovanni Merlo, 411–442. Milan: Edizioni Biblioteca
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———. 2020. Le migrazioni dei testi. Scrivere e tradurre nel XVI e XVII secolo.
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Darnton, Robert. 1988. Livres philosophiques. In Enlightenment Essays in Memory
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———. 1995a. The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Pre-Revolutionary France. New York;
London: W.W. Norton & C.
———. 1995b. The Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France, 1769–1789.
New York; London: W.W. Norton & C.
Del Vento, Christian. 2016. Come le biblioteche private si trasformano nelle bib-
lioteche d’autore. In Il libro. Editoria e pratiche di lettura nel Settecento, eds.
Lodovica Braida, and Silvia Tatti, 97–105. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e
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XVIIIe siècle: une approche génétique. Colloque international, Paris, 19–20 Mars
2015, Monographic Edition of Rassegna della Letteratura Italiana.
Del Vento, Christian. 2019. La biblioteca ritrovata. La prima biblioteca di Vittorio
Alfieri. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.
Fido, Franco. 1998. Le sudate carte della “Sera”: una continuazione apocrifa del
“Giorno”. In F. Fido, La serietà del gioco. Svaghi letterari e teatrali nel Settecento,
60–74. Lucca: Pacini Fazzi.
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LXIV: 73–104).
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Pseudonymous Publication from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century.
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———. 2007. Working on Anonymity. A Theory of Theory Vs. Archive. Literature
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1926–1934). Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of
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 CHAPTER 2

The Ambiguities of the “Author Function”

1   Reflections on the Book Market

Of all the professions related to the world of books, there is one that cul-
tural historians have tended to neglect, mostly leaving it to the consider-
ations of literary scholars: the author. This absence is also due to the type
of sources available: throughout the ancien régime, there is hardly a con-
tract, agreement or correspondence documenting the relationship between
an author and his publisher with any continuity. Furthermore, the author’s
progress towards affirmation did not move at the same pace or in the same
way everywhere, and thus the presence or absence of sources is also linked
to the weight and importance that the “author function”1 assumed in dif-
ferent contexts.
Whereas in Britain and France the eighteenth century represents a
time when authors, after long and wearisome debates, achieved recogni-
tion of their literary property (in 1710 in England and 1793 in France),2
the situation in the states of the Italian peninsula was very different. Not
until the Napoleonic period did literary property rights arrive in Italy, and

1
Foucault ([1969] 1977).
2
Cf. Rose (1993); for a comparative perspective on copyright in Britain and France, see
Izzo (2010); on the French debate, as expressed through the works of Diderot and
Condorcet, cf. Chartier (2007b). See also Moscati (2012).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

Switzerland AG 2022
L. Braida, Anonymity in Eighteenth-Century Italian Publishing,
New Directions in Book History,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03898-3_2
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 From the ski-factory, “Johansen and Nilsen A/S., Fin Schiander,”
we received the present of the most beautiful skiing equipment that
any one could wish for—skis with staves, and ski-sledges. On the old
ice the snow lay so deep that without the skis we should have sunk in
well over the knees. Had we to cross the water-lane to fetch provisions
and petrol from N 24, we were forced in many places to cross new ice,
which was in such bad condition that it would not have borne us unless
we had worn skis. For transport we made use of the ski-sledges. The
transport of the 200 kg. heavy petrol cans over the ice was, for the
sledges, a hard test which they successfully passed. (It was with
intention that we did not spare the sledges from the greatest strain
during these transportations. We learned, therefore, by experience
what we could safely expose them to, in the event of a possible march
towards land, during which we would have to avoid all possible loss of
time, caused by having suddenly to unstrap the sledges if we had to
cross over icebergs.) Had the sledges been affected adversely by
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have been much worse if they had failed us during the march. The
sledges, moreover, were made with a wide surface so that the canvas
boats could stand in an unfolded position, “all clear” to be put into the
water-lane in the shortest possible time that necessity might demand.
As the boats in this position had to be protected against jagged ice on
the icebergs, we would have had to cut aluminium plates away from
the flying boats’ bottoms before we left—using them as a protecting
screen for the canvas boats.
The reins and harness were made by Rönne, designed in such a
way that they could be placed both on the hips and on the shoulders.
We took for our cooking needs two kinds of stoves; namely, the
Meta apparatus and the ordinary Primus. When I say ordinary Primus,
it is not quite correct. It was really extraordinary so far as quality and
utility go. The Meta apparatus, with plates, was a gift from the factory’s
Norwegian representatives, the Brothers Klundbye, Oslo, in the same
way as the Primus was a gift from the Christiania Glasmagasin, Oslo.
The Meta apparatus was used by us for cooking during the time
when we were divided into two camps, but afterwards, when we were
re-united (making six in all), we found it more convenient to use the
Primus.
 In the way of weapons each flying boat had one gun for big game,
one shot-gun for fowl, and a Colt pistol. The last named we had taken
in case of a chance visitor coming to the tent in the form of a polar
bear; the pistol was also a lighter weapon to handle than a gun. We
had seen on landing that there was animal life in this district, so the
guard always carried a pistol on his nightly round. Polar bears are not
quite such friendly creatures as people are inclined to believe, and so
far north as we were they would most certainly be of an exceedingly
hungry type. However, during the whole expedition we did not see a
single one.
It was fortunate that we had taken pistols with us, for we found that
all our heaviest things had to be jettisoned to lighten the load, and we
came to the conclusion that if the worst came to the worst, after letting
the heavy guns go, we at least had the pistols left.

THE EDGE OF THE POLAR ICE PACK

 We had two kinds of smoke bombs with us. A smaller kind for
throwing out onto the snow immediately before landing to show us the
direction of the wind. A larger type had been brought for the following
purpose: We thought there might be a possibility of one machine
having to make a forced landing and that the other might have to
search for it while trying, at the same time, to find a suitable landing
place. To aid the crews in finding each other these smoke bombs were
really intended. As we had to economize in every gram of weight, we
had to keep the weight of these bombs so small that they proved
hardly big enough for our needs. We used a bomb the first day on
board N 25 when we did not know where N 24 was. The wind,
however, was so strong that the smoke lay in a long strip over the
snow plains. Had the weather been calm we might have had a more
helpful result.

OUR LAST HOPE FOR A TAKE-OFF, FIVE PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS HAVING

FAILED
People will no doubt say that we should have tested these bombs
before leaving, and had they proved too light, we should have ordered
others of the necessary weight. This was, in the first place, our
intention, but the order we gave for new bombs was unproductive, and
it was only owing to the great kindness of the firm, J. P. Eisfeld
Silberhütte (who undertook in the course of a few days to make our
bombs and deliver them to us), that we had them at all. I should have
felt very uncomfortable if I had started on a flight of this kind without
bombs to determine the exact direction of the wind in case we might
have to make a forced landing in difficult circumstances.
There has been a lot of talk about the possibility of using aniline for
marking the snow, and I should like to express an opinion on the
question. We had discussed the possibility of being short of petrol
during the return flight to Spitzbergen, and that we might have to land
and take all the petrol into one machine and continue the journey with
that one only. If the abandoned machine did not lie too far to the north,
we would return later to fetch it. In order to make it easier to find it our
intention was at certain distances from the machine to make a number
of marks by throwing out quantities of aniline at certain spaces apart to
mark the course of our continued flight to Spitzbergen. Last winter we
made a number of experiments by throwing out large quantities of the
powder at intervals from a flying machine, but got no satisfactory
results. During our stay in Spitzbergen we experimented with marking
the snow by scattering powder out by hand. The result of this test was
that if the snow was damp or quite wet the effect was successful. If, on
the contrary, there was frost and the snow was dry no sign remained to
aid us. The aniline powder requires damp, therefore, before it can fulfill
the purpose of marking a track. As we might expect to find these
conditions further south in the Arctic Sea, and as we thought of the
possibility of making such marks during the return journey, we took
with us a small quantity of aniline. In connection with this we are
indebted to the Badische Soda & Anilinfabrik for the interest which they
and their firm’s representative, Erik Berrum (who gave us the idea),
took in the experiment.
Our ice-anchors were made by the factory in Marina di Pisa
according to Amundsen’s designs. We had at that time, however, no
idea that these would be considered later to be our best tool for
hacking the hard ice. As ice-anchors they were also particularly
effective. It happened that during the worst of the drifting we had to
fasten the flying-boat to hold it safe from the encroaching ice. When
the ice edges were almost setting together it was not so difficult to hold
the nose direct against the pressure. The trend, however, changed in
the shortest space of time so that the one ice-border “set” in an angle
directly frozen into the other, both pressing together sideways and
overlapping like the teeth of a ruminating cow. This was where we
found it difficult to raise the boat.
The footwear presented an important side of our rig-out. It might
happen that we should have to make a march of many hundred
kilometers back again. We were prepared to find that there would be
deep mush on the ice, as it was the warmest time of summer, and we
would often have to take off our skis for the purpose of clambering
over the icebergs and ice-banks. Skiing boots were therefore needed,
knee-high, with watertight legs. The long legs made the boots very
heavy for anything but skiing, for which they proved they were
admirably suited when we tried them in Spitzbergen. For ordinary
wear, when we should be resting, in a district where skis would not be
of use, each man had an extra pair of boots. We therefore took with us
to Spitzbergen many different kinds of footwear, so that each man
could choose those which he considered would suit him best. (If a man
has had the opportunity of choosing his footwear, he will find them
much easier to wear when on a long march and exposed to hardship.)
In order that we might have the opportunity to form an opinion of
our own we obtained samples of every suitable type. In the
accompanying photograph there is a complete row of the different
kinds. From the left it will be seen that we had long-legged boots—
skiing boots (fashioned like the Norwegian “lauparstövler”). These we
could either choose or reject. The next in the row are a pair of long-
legged kamikker, of which we had a considerable choice as also some
with shorter legs. By the side of these, stand boots designed for flying
and they are the kind which Roald Amundsen has described. Beside
these you will see a pair of Laplander’s boots and a pair of Canadian
lumber-man’s boots. In the foreground lie a pair of long rubber boots.
When I asked Ramm to take a photograph of this miscellaneous
footgear which—“we required at Spitzbergen”—he, like the humorist
he is, could not let such an opportunity pass without a joke, and
therefore placed on the extreme right a pair of dancing shoes!
 The result of the selection was that Amundsen, Omdal and Feucht
chose Laplanders’ boots; the two latter because this type of boot was
practical when they had to climb from the motor gondola to the tank
compartment. Ellsworth and Dietrichson chose short-legged kamikker,
whilst I took the long-legged rubber boots. As every one, during and
after the flight, was particularly well pleased, and praised his own
selection in loud tones, it goes without saying that the original purpose
of individual selection was thus attained.
In accordance with the request of Rolls-Royce, we used Shell
Aero-petrol, and Wakefield’s Castrol R. oil. We cannot speak too highly
of both. The fact that N 25’s engine always started instantly on the
many occasions when we had to free the flying boat from the clutch of
the ice, without the use of naphtha, is a credit which Feucht and Rolls-
Royce must share with the petrol.
I come now to our provisions. There are many people who do not
know what pemmican is, so I shall tell them about it shortly here.
Pemmican is not a bird, as several people have asked me, nor has it
anything to do with a pelican. The preparation of it is as follows: Beef is
dried in the lowest possible temperature in such a manner that it shall
not lose its tastiness. It is then ground to powder. This powder is mixed
with dried pulverized vegetables. The whole is mixed together in
melted fat, filled into molds and allowed to set. That this is nutritious
fare is shown by the fact that five kilograms of beef make only one
kilogram of beef powder. Our pemmican was a gift from the Danish
Wine and Conserves Factory. It was analyzed by Professor Torup and
was found to be in excellent condition. By cooking it with water, the
pemmican will make either soup or a kind of porridge, or something
between the two like gruel. Eighty grams of pemmican per man made
a most delicious cup of soup. In the ice regions pemmican tastes
equally good in its uncooked state. The little extra ration of forty grams
which we got during the last days for the evening meal we ate like
bread with our cup of chocolate.
The Freia Chocolate Factory made our chocolate according to a
special recipe and presented us with it. We were, however, unable to
follow the factory’s directions, which, inscribed upon the packet,
informed us that we should use 125 grams (one tablet) to half a liter of
water. We used a third part of a tablet to 400 grams of water, and it
seemed to us most excellent chocolate. As we later had to reduce our
bread ration from five oatcakes, we balanced it by adding Molico dried
milk to the chocolate (a gift from the Norwegian Milk Factories). Even
now as I write I see again the scene which was enacted each morning.
We came creeping out of our sleeping bags, tumbled to our places in
the mess, then sat and shuddered in our clothes as though to dispel
the cold, while we rubbed our hands together. The Primus stoves’
kindly glow was warm and pleasant; we bent nearer to them, anxiously
looking into the chocolate pan to see if it would not soon begin to
bubble and steam. Soon it would bubble up in the middle, and a
delightful steam rising from the little pan, came streaming out into the
tiny room and enveloped us. We closed the trap doors to keep the
warmth in the mess. The three small breakfast biscuits were passed
round to each man; the cups were filled and sent after them; six pairs
of hands clasped themselves involuntarily round the six cups. (I can
still feel the warmth circulating from my hands up into my arms.) Faces
were bent over the cups to be warmed by the rising steam, while
hungry mouths cautiously and gratefully drank in the chocolate, which
heated the body as it glided downwards. After this we started to talk.
Many readers will be asking themselves the question, “Didn’t they
take any coffee with them?” No, we had no coffee with us, and even if
we had had it, it would not have been touched so long as any
chocolate remained. We five “new-beginners in the ice,” were almost
ready to say when we came back that we should never have anything
but chocolate for breakfast. We did say it in fact, but Amundsen only
smiled and reminded us that the moment we boarded the “Sjöliv,” on
the evening of June 15th, it was difficult for us to wait until the coffee
was poured into the cups.
The oatcakes were also specially made and supplied by Sætre
Kjæksfabrik, Oslo. In addition to the specified biscuit ration we should
have taken with us, Director Knutsen gave us a box of “Fru Clausen’s
cakes” for each machine. How grateful we were later for these! Not
only were the cakes delicious, but they helped us to continue our long
and tedious work, and augmented our rations in such a way that we
were provisioned for some time longer, thereby postponing the
possible need of our setting off on a march to Greenland, which we
should have had to do had we failed to start the machine.
 In addition to this, Amundsen’s good friend, Mr. Horlick, had sent
us to Spitzbergen a supply of Horlick’s malted milk (malted milk in
tablet form). When we felt a little weak we took ten of these tablets per
man per day. The intention was that we should take one at a time at
equal intervals during the day’s course. I began by taking one as I
crept into my sleeping bag in the evening. In a few days I had got so
used to these tablets that I had to get out of my sleeping bag to fetch
another one. This course became burdensome, so I placed the box
beside me. Soon I found that I had to take five or six of them before I
could stop. They tasted like good sweetmeats, and the next step was
to take the box into my sleeping bag with me because I found it too
tiresome to crawl halfway in and out every time I wanted to reach a
tablet. The result was that I could sleep peacefully for the rest of the
night. At that time if one of us was on guard all night, he got an extra
ration of ten malted milk tablets, and could make a warm drink with
them which we called “a cup of tea” because it looked like tea with milk
in it and because it had a similar taste. We placed an incalculable
value on these tablets and felt how greatly they strengthened us.
Our full ration list comprised the following:

Per Man
Pemmican 400 grams per day. For 30 days 12.00 kg.
Chocolate 2 tablets each 125 grams 7.50 „
Oatcakes 125 grams per day (12 cakes) 3.75 „
Molico dried milk 100 grams per day 3.00 „
Malted milk 125 grams per day 3.75 „
In all per man for 30 days 30.00 kg.

The list of our additional equipment per man:

Rucksack, which held a change of underclothes (comprising
woolen vests, drawers, pair of stockings, a pair of goat’s-hair socks).
Matches in a waterproof bag. Automatic lighter. Housewife. A cup and
a spoon. One can. Tobacco. Pipe. Diary. Telescope and all small
personal belongings.

In footwear we had ski boots and a pair of boots of our own selection.
One pair of skis, two staves, one set of reins.
Every man should have a clasp knife.

List of “Mutual Belongings for Flying Boat

Equipment”
One canvas boat.
One sledge.
One medicine chest.
One tent.
Reserve ski straps.
Reserve pig-skin reins for sledges.
One Primus with cooking vessel (large).
One box, reserve screws, etc., for Primus.
Thirty liters petroleum.
Meta cooking vessel with case of plates.
One kilogram Dubbin.
Sail-cloth gloves, syringes, large nails and sail thread.
One sextant.
One pocket sextant (for sledge journey).
One spirit level.
One chart ruler.
Navigation tables.
One log-book.
Pair of compasses.
Two T squares.
Pencils.
Binoculars.
Six large and four small smoke-bombs.
Smoke-bomb pistol.
One leeway measure.
One solar compass.
One shot gun with 200 cartridges.
One rifle with 200 cartridges.
One Colt pistol with fifty cartridges.
One electric pocket lamp.
 Motor reserve parts.
Motor tools.
One ax.
One snow shovel.
One rucksack.
Ropes.
One ice anchor.
One reserve ski pole.
One petrol bucket.
One petrol funnel.
One oil funnel.
One kilogram aniline.
One half sack senna grass.
Ski Dubbin.
Three pilot balloons.
Three pairs of snow-shoes.

On account of weight we were debarred from taking any reserve

ski equipment with us. In the event of our requiring new ski parts
before the end of a march, the sledges were arranged with a lower part
like skis, which could be detached and rigged out as skis with reserve
strappings. The idea was that towards the end of such a march
everything could, in the event of trouble, be put onto one sledge,
leaving the other free for us to dismantle and use. Should any
misfortune occur at the beginning of the journey, we would be in a
much worse position. For such an eventuality we took snow-shoes with
us.
Of these we took a generous number as they weighed so little.
Strange to say we did meet with a misfortune. Dietrichson lost both his
skis; and one of Omdal’s, which he kicked off, fell through the ice,
disappeared in the water, and was carried away by the current.
With the weight divided equally between the two machines we had
the following load:

One large and one smaller cinematograph apparatus.

Six hundred meter film.
Two cameras with films and plates.
One petrol pump with long hose.
 Behm sounding apparatus with charges.
Arctic maps.

* * * * *
The next thing I am going to write about is:—

The Transport of the Machines from Italy to

Spitzbergen
The name of the ship broker, Axel B. Lorentzen, should be
inscribed at the beginning of this section of my story in large capital
letters. Without his help I don’t know how things would have gone. The
work we first set about was to find a means of conveying our large
machine cases and all our extra equipment from Norway to
Spitzbergen. Considering the time of year it was necessary that we
should have a ship which could cope with the ice conditions. Should
we charter any other kind we would risk incalculable delay. Out of the
six large crates the engine-cases must in every event find room in the
hold. It was out of the question for these to be stowed on deck.
Lorentzen got for us the “blueprints” of ship after ship, and I sat at
home for hours studying the plans and working out the dimensions of
the cases and the hatches. In the end we got a sketch of “Hobby,” just
when I had almost given up the idea of ever being able to get the
motor cases down into the hold, for it seemed that the only way would
be to take the engine gondolas out of the crates, and at least stow
them safely in the hold. In the case of “Hobby,” from the figures given,
it appeared that the crates could just be passed through the hatches
and lowered. Our joy was great. The four other crates could be stowed
on deck, so we chartered “Hobby” to be taken over on the 5th of April.
We had believed that it would be an absolutely simple matter to get
the machines home to Norway from Italy, but we had miscalculated.
We learnt this very quickly! The regular lines went to ten or twelve
different ports taking on board parcels here and parcels there.
Therefore this means of transport was of no use to us. A Dutch line
offered to take the machines for 50 per cent of the ordinary freight to
Amsterdam. This was very tempting, but we should be under the
necessity of transporting them to Rotterdam in order to join the ore-
boat leaving for Narvik. We also tried other ways, but without result.
Then came Lorentzen one day and brushed all our troubles aside
by saying, “All we need to do is to arrange something for ourselves.”
He calculated that if a boat of the size of the usual coal-boat,
sailing from England to the Mediterranean, could carry our wing cases
and propellers on deck, taking the engine cases and extras in the hold,
there would be sufficient space left for the boat to carry 200 tons of
salt. Thus he calculated that the round tour—England, Mediterranean,
Norway (West Coast) (even after allowing for the unloading of the coal
and the journey to Sicily for the salt)—would only leave a reasonable
sum to be paid by us for our goods’ transport,—namely, the difference
in freight,—to which cost we agreed.
The next move was to examine plans of boats which were “in
position” (so far as jargon goes I became a perfect shipping man!), and
to find out if the holds were big enough to take our wing cases and
propellers, or if they could get protected positions on deck. The
crossing of the Bay of Biscay had also to be taken into consideration.
At last there was a suitable boat on the market, namely, the S. S.
“Vaga,” in charge of Captain Eriksen. The boat was “due Liverpool,” at
a suitable date, and belonged to the Norwegian-Russian Shipping
Company. They took the freight without haggling, and showed extreme
willingness to assist us in every respect.
In the middle of January Dietrichson went to Marina di Pisa and
made a trial flight with N 24. Omdal went to Pisa after he had spent
some time at the Rolls-Royce Factory. Dietrichson returned home in
the middle of February, but Omdal remained behind to make a wider
study of the machines, and to accompany them and all our belongings,
on the S. S. “Vaga,” on the voyage to Norway. I myself went down to
Marina di Pisa in February and made a trial flight with N 25. Just
before the end of my stay there Amundsen returned from America and
joined me. And thus our lengthy conferences by correspondence came
to an end, and matters could at last be arranged by word of mouth.
 disembarking from the Sjoliv at king’s bay
Following a speedy journey home, word went round that our
extensive outfit should be sent at once by the different suppliers to
Tromsö. In the days which followed cases and crates bearing our
address could be seen being transported to us on most of Northern
Europe’s routes of communication; goods even came from over the
Atlantic, while Oslo, Bergen, and Trondhjem were the critical points.
The Storthing consented to supply the means to allow the naval boat
“Fram” to be placed at our disposal, and thus a large quantity of the
goods arriving at Oslo was re-directed to Horten so that we could save
the extra carriage. I learned in those days to set great value on the
telephone, regarding it as a marvelous institution. Indeed I felt I had
not valued it sufficiently, for the Oslo exchange appeared to be working
day and night. Roald Amundsen, for instance, would ring me before
eight o’clock in the morning to give me the day’s orders. At that hour
Amundsen had already breakfasted and was ready to begin his day,
whereas I had hardly finished with the night.
 MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION AFTER THEIR FIRST
DINNER ASHORE

OUR FIRST SOLID CAMP

There was not the slightest use in trying to turn round for another
little five-minute snooze, for immediately after eight Dr. Ræstad would
come on with his orders. I was therefore very impressed by the
earliness of the hour at which the Doctor started his day, but it was not
very long before I learned just exactly what attire he was in when he
rang! (The last remark, to use a flying expression, was a “side-slip.”)
Back to the spot where I began to glide.
None of our goods were delayed anywhere, not even the tiniest
little case. And for this we owe much gratitude to the Railway Goods
Managers, the Bergen Steamship Company’s Despatch Managers,
and the Nordenfeld Steamship Company’s Despatch Managers in
Trondhjem, and also Einer Sundbye of Oslo, and to Horten’s Quay.
In Tromsö our “Goods Manager,” Zapffe, collected and stored
everything. When we checked our lists everything was in order.
We should have taken over “Hobby” on the 30th of March. At that
date it lay at the shipyard without cylinders in the engine, but by
Tuesday the engines were in order. When, however, the boat should
have proceeded to the quayside to begin loading, the engines refused
to turn the propeller round. The explanation was that they had changed
the propeller for a new one which was too large. The boat went back
into dock and was fitted again with its old propeller. Fortunately the
S. S. “Vaga” was belated on account of stormy weather. This delay,
therefore, did not inconvenience us. As there were no cranes in
Tromsö we had had to order the S. S. “Vaga” to Narvik.
During Wednesday, the 1st of April, “Hobby” finished loading
everything which should go into the hold, and we left at night for
Narvik, arriving Thursday evening. On Friday, April the 3rd, “Vaga”
arrived at 6 a.m. The cases were undamaged to our great joy. The
“Vaga” had indeed had bad weather on several occasions during the
journey, but Captain Eriksen forgot the interests of his owners and
steamed slowly on account of our goods.
By Friday afternoon we had all our cases ashore and on the
railway to be run along under the cranes, and the loading of S. S.
“Hobby” began. The cases with the reserve parts went down into the
hold.
The engine cases should also have gone down into the hold, but
we found that my measurements were for the outer edge of the
hatches instead of for the actual dimensions of the opening. The cases
would not go down, not even when we tried them on the slant. We took
the engine gondolas out of the cases, thus dividing them in two, and
placed the first part down in the hold, with the second part stowed on
top of it.
On Thursday we had one case stowed away in the large hold and
speedily set about building a foundation for the wing cases, which
should lie on top of that hatch. The aft mast stood a foot further
forward in one sketch than it did in reality, therefore we could not get
sufficient room to lay the wing cases behind each other alongships.
This was a bad business. Either we must lay the cases across the
decks where they would stretch out one and one-half meters each
side, or we must charter an additional ship. I approached a Shipping
Company, which had a small boat lying at Narvik, but as they wanted
20,000 kronen to carry one wing case to Spitzbergen, I had no choice
left in the matter but to carry on as well as possible with S. S. “Hobby.”
During Sunday night the whole expedition nearly came to a
sudden end. A hurricane of tremendous force suddenly arose. The
wing cases and the propellers, alongside the engine cases, stood
directly in the wind on a railway wagon on a branch line near by. The
watchman called for help and ran to the rescue, assisted by the
despatching staff, and in a short time they managed to get the cases
securely fastened to the railway wagon, which in turn they secured to
the quay. Just as they finished, the wagon which held the engine cases
decided to set off on its own account, and tore away, driven by the
wind, at the very moment when the brake was released inadvertently
by some one during the course of operations. Fortunately, in the center
of the quay it collided with a shed and came to a full stop by running
into a stack of timber.
Had the watchman not called for help immediately, undoubtedly
some of the cases would have been blown out to sea. The wind got
stronger and stronger during the time that people were busy securing
the cases, and they all had to move with the greatest caution to
prevent themselves being blown off the quay. The explanation of this
strong wind lies, I believe, with the high hills which surround the
harbor.
Several ore-boats drifted off in the dock and were damaged. As it
continued to blow all Sunday we had to discontinue loading. During
Monday we got the second engine case and both wing crates on
board. Those which were loaded aft we had managed to place
alongships, but we decided to lay the forward ones crosswise on the
deck, well forward, where they (on account of the curve in the boat’s
build) lay higher and out of line of any waves which the boat might ship
and which would leave her decks awash.
On Thursday, the 7th, by midday both propellers were on board,
stowed above the wing cases. It was a long, tedious piece of work, but
the main point was that everything went well. S. S. “Hobby’s” deck
cargo looked alarmingly high and when one realized that our course
lay amongst the ice, it made one apprehensive. For my part, when I
thought of what a bill for damages would mean to us—the sacrifice of
the expedition for that year—it was little wonder that I trembled. There
were plenty of people to utter cautions, but “Hobby’s” captain (Captain
Holm) and the ice pilot Johansen both said things would be all right “if
only luck went with us.”
The top weight was not alarming, but it was an anxious moment all
the same when we saw the deck cargo piled so high. As soon as we
got away from the quay and got up a little speed, we put the rudder
hard over to see if the boat was specially “tender.” S. S. “Hobby” listed
over considerably less than I had expected. I trusted we should have
only a small swell before we reached Tjellsund, but fortunately we
found smooth water. In view of what we learned later we have great
reason to be glad of this, for had we had an example there of
“Hobby’s” rolling abilities, we should certainly never have assailed the
ice conditions ahead. We should certainly have chartered the extra
ship which I mentioned and would have had 20,000 kronen bigger debt
to-day.
We arrived at Tromsö on Wednesday, the 9th, at 9 a.m. It was a
great day for us all, and for me especially. Roald Amundsen and the
other members of the expedition had arrived. S. S. “Fram” was there
as well. For the first time we were all gathered together. I felt so
confident when Amundsen took over the direct leadership, that I went
off to do a little business of my own.
During the day Amundsen went through the whole outfit, and
everything which had been ordered in Tromsö was placed on board.
The entire day was given up to work and it was late at night when we
began to make ready for sea. All questions in connection with transport
insurance were attended to with the greatest of skill and of kindness by
my friend, Herr R. Wesmann.
In Narvik, during the loading, I had stepped inadvertently on a nail
which had penetrated my right foot. The day in Tromsö therefore
proved a very hard one, as I suffered extreme pain with every step I
took. The worst part of my affliction, however, was that so many people
showed their sympathy with me by relating all the dreadful things
which had happened to this acquaintance or to that one who had had a
similar accident, and they threatened me with blood-poisoning or
something equally unpleasant. Blood-poisoning would have rendered
me useless for flying and I swore to myself that I would go right round
the old boat many times in future without trying to take a near cut in
rubber-soled shoes along a plank or something similar, running the risk
of treading on another nail.
A newspaper suddenly made the discovery that Thursday was the
expedition’s lucky day, as we started from Spitzbergen on a Thursday
and came back with the “Sjöliv” on a Thursday! I can supplement these
facts by adding that some of us traveled home on a Thursday and the
expedition left Tromsö on a Thursday, which was also a day full of
fateful happenings during the entire course of the expedition.
On the morning of Thursday in Easter week at five o’clock we left
Tromsö with “Fram” just ahead of us. On board S. S. “Hobby” we were
busy fastening the last lashings to the deck-cargo, until 7 a.m., when I
went to bed. At 9:30 I was awakened suddenly by some one shouting,
“‘Fram’ is signaling.” Expecting something of the kind to happen, I had
gone to bed fully dressed, and was therefore prepared to rush on deck
almost before my eyes were opened. A man on board the “Fram” was
semaphoring ... I signaled that I was ready, and the communications
started. I had just received the words “We are going to ...” when the
“Fram’s” rudder was put hard over, and the rest of the sentence was
lost by the aftermast swinging round in my line of vision, cutting off the
signaler and his message from view. He missed my “repeat” signal
probably because I had not taken my flag with me in the hurry, and
was only replying with my arms. He must apparently have seen
something which he took for confirmation that his signals had been
understood, for he hopped away seemingly quite satisfied and the
“Fram” continued on her way. If “Hobby” had had her steam whistle in
readiness I would at once have blown the “repeat” blast, but it would
have been necessary to have got in touch with the engine-room first in
order to get air into the whistle. I gave it up, therefore, and came to the
conclusion that the “Fram” had no more serious intentions than merely
to maneuver. I had heard something about a good landmark on the
other side of the fairway, and thought thus that they were making a
deviation from the usual course. Knowing that the “Fram,” with her
greater speed, could soon overhaul us again, we continued straight on
to prevent delay. S. S. “Fram” in the meantime hurried across the fjord
and, as it turned westwards out of its course, I knew it had some
special move in view. We turned as quickly as possible, following
behind with all possible speed, but it was too late and “Fram”
disappeared in the distance. We believed it would appear again
westward of Fugleö and stood by in the hope of meeting it.
We had not been long in the open sea before we met heavy
weather. How the “Hobby” rolled! The wing-cases which lay across the
decks were dipped in the water at each side. I carefully surveyed the
various lashings to see that none were working loose as the boat
tossed and rolled. It was midday and a heavy sea was striking us
abeam. Soon I noticed that the securing-ropes of the forward case had
slackened, and it was sliding a couple of feet backwards and forwards
as “Hobby” continued rolling. We “hove to,” therefore, until we
managed to fix the cases with new lashings.
The situation was unpleasant. The “Fram” was not to be seen, and
it had the meteorologists on board and would thus get weather reports.
I would have given anything I possessed to have learned whether the
weather would get better or worse. I gravely considered the advisability
of turning back, but this proceeding would have meant giving up the
idea of “Hobby” carrying everything to Spitzbergen, as the ice-pilot’s
only hope was that we would find better weather to get through the ice
at this time of year with our high deck cargo. Much valuable time would
be lost if we had to go in search of an auxiliary ship, remove some of
the heavy cases from the “Hobby” and re-load them on the new boat.
On the other hand the welfare of the whole expedition was at stake,
and my thoughts turned to Amundsen. Had the cases only contained
ordinary goods, the sea could gladly have had them, but they
contained our flying machines! When we “hove to” to secure the
lashings I noticed how much steadier S. S. “Hobby” lay on the waves
and decided that we could perform the same tactics again at any
moment if things got too bad. The Meteorological Institute had
promised us good weather so we decided to continue in the present
position for a little while even after the cases were secured, until we
should see if conditions were likely to improve. Another thought came
to me when things were at their worst. Just before leaving Oslo I had
been called before the Admiralty, and it was pointed out to me that
they had doubts about sending the “Fram” amongst the ice at that time
of year—not on account of the vessel itself, but on account of the crew.
I replied that “Fram” and “Hobby” should always remain together so
that “Hobby” would always be at hand to render any necessary
assistance. Simultaneously we got a message from “Hobby’s” brokers
to say they were very doubtful whether the Board of Trade would
permit “Hobby” to leave with a deck-cargo—not on account of the
vessel, but on account of the crew. I calmed them down by assuring
them that “Fram” and “Hobby” should remain together so that “Fram”
could go to “Hobby’s” assistance if necessary. Tragic as the situation
was, I could not help smiling, for both vessels instead of being able to
help each other had enough to do to look after themselves.
It seemed to me in one respect that it was a good thing the “Fram”
was out of our immediate neighborhood, as it would have been
dreadful for Amundsen to see how frightfully we rolled from side to
side, without being himself on board with us to know that in all the
“happenings” we remained masters of the situation.
Between Thursday night and Friday morning the weather improved
—the wind had lowered, but there still remained a heavy swell on the
water. If the “Hobby” got a little off the right course now and again, she
was steered round with a tremendous pull which brought me flying on
deck to see how things were going. Thus there was little sleep the
whole night, certainly never more than an hour at a time. On Thursday
morning we passed Björnöen to the westward without seeing the
island, as there was a thick fog. Here we passed the first ice, which
was typical pancake-ice.