Ross G Caldwell
Mary Greer has invited me to post something on this subject (thanks Mary!)
In a recent entry on her Tarot Blog,
http://marygreer.wordpress.com/
Mary K. Greer gave an account of a book published in 1896, which claimed to be an edited version of a book originally published at some time between 1731 and 1740. This is E. Irenaeus Stevenson's "Square of Sevens" (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1896), and it is discussed in two of her posts - "Origins of Playing Card Divination" (April 1, appropriately) and "A Hoax Revealed: Update on the "Square of Sevens"". In the first, Mary invited readers to comment on their impressions of the work and its claims.
Always eager to dig into a mystery, I decided to find out what I could.
As Mary pointed out on her blog, the author seems to be winking at the reader right from the beginning, by quoting Hamlet - "'Tis easy as lying" (Act. III, sc. 2). But I didn’t feel the import of this quote until well after my suspicions were raised - which then seemed to confirm them. I also didn't notice the significance of the last "Prince Artius" quote - no such play is known to google. Also, I don't know any plays with 51 acts, let alone 51 scenes in an act; the phrase "Act. LI sc. li" might then be read "Actually silly".
But impressions might be misleading. My method of research was therefore more prosaic; I investigated the facts as much as I could.
None of the facts check out. The alleged original book is untraceable. The alleged author is untraceable. The alleged publisher is untraceable. All of the alleged subsequent citations or allusions in literature are untraceable. And finally, a very big giveaway mistake exists.
Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson (1868-1942) was a man of letters known chiefly today for his writings on male gayness ("uranian"). He wrote under several pseudonyms (naturally in those days). He has a chapter in Vern L. Bullough, "Before Stonewall", pp. 35-40 that you can read online.
http://books.google.fr/books?id=A7x...re+stonewall"&sig=B7ayXzpICT2XHnUjp6emn5QLoro
There is also some discussion of him in James Clifford, "American Homosexual Writing 1900-1913" pp. 105-117. Our book isn't mentioned in either of these sources. But it is interesting that Prime-Stevenson's first novel was "White Cockades; A Story About An Incident Of The '45" (i.e. concerning the Scottish Jacobite uprising 1745-1746) published in 1887. He had a deep interest in the 18th century, which gives context for his apparent erudition in citing Horace Walpole, the Countess of Bute in the "Scotch castle" and Lady Morgan (all apparently apocryphal quotes, as is the "Bentijack Correspondence").
My first course of action was to look at Robert Antrobus. There are three or four of them in various genealogies and what-not all over the web, but none match the date of death 1740. However, there was a Robert Antrobus who influenced Walpole's circle: this Antrobus was a teacher at Eton, who died in 1730. This date is interesting as Stevenson places the events in his book "prior to the year 1731". Stevenson appears to have based his character on the real Antrobus, and he notes Antrobus being mentioned frequently in the correspondence of Pitt, Johnson, Byng etc. (as the real Antrobus may very well be). We might add Thomas Gray to that list.
He must have encountered the word "dukkeripens" in Lavengro by George Borrow (1851). Borrow was interested in Gypsy language and culture and published a dictionary with forms of this word (1874), although not exactly this word, and in the novel "dukkeripens" just means "fortunes", not card-reading in particular.
Horace Walpole's letters are collected into editions of both 4 and 2 volumes, and they are all on line, and the quote Stevenson attributes to him is not present in any of them.
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/w#a358
The Bentijack Correspondence doesn't seem to exist - the word "Bentijack" itself only brings up references to Stevenson's "Sqaure of Sevens". Google doesn’t know an “Archbishop Dacre” outside of the Square of Sevens.
John Gowne doesn't seem to be a name of a known printer outside of the "Square of Sevens".
It appears this a literary joke of the same kind as John Opsopaus' "Praefatio ad lectorem"
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/AV/praefatio.html
but given the era, it might be better compared to Robert Chambers' "The King in Yellow" (referring to an apocryphal play that drives its readers mad), Crowley’s “Bagh-i-Muattar”, or Lovecraft's Necronomicon (itself perhaps inspired by Chambers). It might be noteworthy that Chambers’ “King in Yellow” appeared a year before Prime-Stevenson’s, and that the second chapter is called “The Mask” (allegedly the name of John Gowne’s bookshop in the “Square of Sevens”); and of course, Chambers inserts a few quotes from his imagined play, just as Prime-Stevenson does.
A more modern hoax like this is the "Tablero de Jesus" game, which was debunked by Thierry Depaulis.
Also, reading it better in the light of these endless dead-ends (*something* should check out or be solid in this story, but nothing is), the introduction feels to me very much like such a literary hoax. The bracketing quotes just put icing on both sides of the cake.
However, none of the dead-ends, untraceable volumes and quotes, or vague feelings of suspicion, are themselves *conclusive* evidence that Prime-Stevenson’s “Editiorial Preface” is a sheer fabrication. Walpole could have written other letters; Lady Adelaide’s diary could exist, and the story could be in there; there might have been an Archbishop Dacre and a Bentijack Correspondence, etc.
I did however finally catch Prime-Stevenson red-handed in the introduction – he gives us the name of a *second* piece written by Robert Antrobus. This was a "brochure" on the "Cock Lane Ghost" (in the penultimate paragraph) -
I was sure I was going to find that this ghost story was another untraceable concoction, but to my surprise it really did exist - but it took place in 1762, 22 years after Antrobus' alleged death!
Google "Cock Lane Ghost" for numerous accounts of the hoax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_Lane_ghost
http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Wood-NuttallEncyclopaedia/c/cocklaneghost.html
etc.
Since Prime-Stevenson unambiguously gives Antrobus’ year of death as 1740, attributing to him a brochure on an event that wouldn’t happen for another 22 years is either the punch-line in this increasingly absurd litany of invented sources, or it is an incredibly sloppy mistake. But most importantly, it is proof that the story of the Editorial Preface is an elaborate fiction.
Whether Prime-Stevenson fabricated the text of the "Square of Sevens" as well remains an open question. One mode of research would be to compare the divinatory meanings of the cards with other known methods, to see if any similarities point definitely to borrowing. There is a quote from "R.A." (Robert Antrobus) in the text itself, alluded to by Prime-Stevenson in the Preface, so the text is obviously a fake, but it may not have been by Prime-Stevenson himself. Since he dedicates the book to a "John Davis Adams", I wonder if (presuming he existed) they might not have worked together to produce it, and the latter is the author of the text.
Ross
In a recent entry on her Tarot Blog,
http://marygreer.wordpress.com/
Mary K. Greer gave an account of a book published in 1896, which claimed to be an edited version of a book originally published at some time between 1731 and 1740. This is E. Irenaeus Stevenson's "Square of Sevens" (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1896), and it is discussed in two of her posts - "Origins of Playing Card Divination" (April 1, appropriately) and "A Hoax Revealed: Update on the "Square of Sevens"". In the first, Mary invited readers to comment on their impressions of the work and its claims.
Always eager to dig into a mystery, I decided to find out what I could.
As Mary pointed out on her blog, the author seems to be winking at the reader right from the beginning, by quoting Hamlet - "'Tis easy as lying" (Act. III, sc. 2). But I didn’t feel the import of this quote until well after my suspicions were raised - which then seemed to confirm them. I also didn't notice the significance of the last "Prince Artius" quote - no such play is known to google. Also, I don't know any plays with 51 acts, let alone 51 scenes in an act; the phrase "Act. LI sc. li" might then be read "Actually silly".
But impressions might be misleading. My method of research was therefore more prosaic; I investigated the facts as much as I could.
None of the facts check out. The alleged original book is untraceable. The alleged author is untraceable. The alleged publisher is untraceable. All of the alleged subsequent citations or allusions in literature are untraceable. And finally, a very big giveaway mistake exists.
Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson (1868-1942) was a man of letters known chiefly today for his writings on male gayness ("uranian"). He wrote under several pseudonyms (naturally in those days). He has a chapter in Vern L. Bullough, "Before Stonewall", pp. 35-40 that you can read online.
http://books.google.fr/books?id=A7x...re+stonewall"&sig=B7ayXzpICT2XHnUjp6emn5QLoro
There is also some discussion of him in James Clifford, "American Homosexual Writing 1900-1913" pp. 105-117. Our book isn't mentioned in either of these sources. But it is interesting that Prime-Stevenson's first novel was "White Cockades; A Story About An Incident Of The '45" (i.e. concerning the Scottish Jacobite uprising 1745-1746) published in 1887. He had a deep interest in the 18th century, which gives context for his apparent erudition in citing Horace Walpole, the Countess of Bute in the "Scotch castle" and Lady Morgan (all apparently apocryphal quotes, as is the "Bentijack Correspondence").
My first course of action was to look at Robert Antrobus. There are three or four of them in various genealogies and what-not all over the web, but none match the date of death 1740. However, there was a Robert Antrobus who influenced Walpole's circle: this Antrobus was a teacher at Eton, who died in 1730. This date is interesting as Stevenson places the events in his book "prior to the year 1731". Stevenson appears to have based his character on the real Antrobus, and he notes Antrobus being mentioned frequently in the correspondence of Pitt, Johnson, Byng etc. (as the real Antrobus may very well be). We might add Thomas Gray to that list.
He must have encountered the word "dukkeripens" in Lavengro by George Borrow (1851). Borrow was interested in Gypsy language and culture and published a dictionary with forms of this word (1874), although not exactly this word, and in the novel "dukkeripens" just means "fortunes", not card-reading in particular.
Horace Walpole's letters are collected into editions of both 4 and 2 volumes, and they are all on line, and the quote Stevenson attributes to him is not present in any of them.
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/w#a358
The Bentijack Correspondence doesn't seem to exist - the word "Bentijack" itself only brings up references to Stevenson's "Sqaure of Sevens". Google doesn’t know an “Archbishop Dacre” outside of the Square of Sevens.
John Gowne doesn't seem to be a name of a known printer outside of the "Square of Sevens".
It appears this a literary joke of the same kind as John Opsopaus' "Praefatio ad lectorem"
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/AV/praefatio.html
but given the era, it might be better compared to Robert Chambers' "The King in Yellow" (referring to an apocryphal play that drives its readers mad), Crowley’s “Bagh-i-Muattar”, or Lovecraft's Necronomicon (itself perhaps inspired by Chambers). It might be noteworthy that Chambers’ “King in Yellow” appeared a year before Prime-Stevenson’s, and that the second chapter is called “The Mask” (allegedly the name of John Gowne’s bookshop in the “Square of Sevens”); and of course, Chambers inserts a few quotes from his imagined play, just as Prime-Stevenson does.
A more modern hoax like this is the "Tablero de Jesus" game, which was debunked by Thierry Depaulis.
Also, reading it better in the light of these endless dead-ends (*something* should check out or be solid in this story, but nothing is), the introduction feels to me very much like such a literary hoax. The bracketing quotes just put icing on both sides of the cake.
However, none of the dead-ends, untraceable volumes and quotes, or vague feelings of suspicion, are themselves *conclusive* evidence that Prime-Stevenson’s “Editiorial Preface” is a sheer fabrication. Walpole could have written other letters; Lady Adelaide’s diary could exist, and the story could be in there; there might have been an Archbishop Dacre and a Bentijack Correspondence, etc.
I did however finally catch Prime-Stevenson red-handed in the introduction – he gives us the name of a *second* piece written by Robert Antrobus. This was a "brochure" on the "Cock Lane Ghost" (in the penultimate paragraph) -
I was sure I was going to find that this ghost story was another untraceable concoction, but to my surprise it really did exist - but it took place in 1762, 22 years after Antrobus' alleged death!
Google "Cock Lane Ghost" for numerous accounts of the hoax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_Lane_ghost
http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Wood-NuttallEncyclopaedia/c/cocklaneghost.html
etc.
Since Prime-Stevenson unambiguously gives Antrobus’ year of death as 1740, attributing to him a brochure on an event that wouldn’t happen for another 22 years is either the punch-line in this increasingly absurd litany of invented sources, or it is an incredibly sloppy mistake. But most importantly, it is proof that the story of the Editorial Preface is an elaborate fiction.
Whether Prime-Stevenson fabricated the text of the "Square of Sevens" as well remains an open question. One mode of research would be to compare the divinatory meanings of the cards with other known methods, to see if any similarities point definitely to borrowing. There is a quote from "R.A." (Robert Antrobus) in the text itself, alluded to by Prime-Stevenson in the Preface, so the text is obviously a fake, but it may not have been by Prime-Stevenson himself. Since he dedicates the book to a "John Davis Adams", I wonder if (presuming he existed) they might not have worked together to produce it, and the latter is the author of the text.
Ross
