The ballad of the woodworm, or ‘reading’ holes in woodblocks

Thank you for your comments/responses, which are all correct, to last week’s “spot the difference” Folger Mystery!

On one level, these 2 woodcuts are the same: they have the same design depicting the main characters of Titus Andronicus. From left to right in the foreground are Aaron the Moor (depicted as a monstrous creature rather than a human), Titus’ daughter Lavinia holding with her severed arms a bucket full of the blood of queen Tamora’s sons who have been killed by Titus, and finally Saturninus, the emperor, with Tamora unknowingly eating the flesh of her own sons concealed in pies. In the background is Shakespeare’s Globe theatre.

Both woodcuts were also printed from the same woodblock (their slightly different measurements are probably related to the different sheets of paper on which they were printed and its dampness during printing).  

These woodcuts are different though because the one in ballad v.b.35 (19) printed by T. Norris shows considerably more woodworms holes (the little white dots) than in the ballad PR1181.B2 no.1 Cage printed by W.O. 

Thanks to Blair Hedges’ study, it is possible to identify the culprits of these dots as the furniture beetle, Anobium Punctatum, located in Northern Europe, which creates small round holes in wood unlike its relatives who live South of the Loire Valley and who make elongated holes.¹

Culprit or block carver? Although woodworms, and not humans, created these white dots, one can argue that through their activity, they produced 2 different states of this image. As a matter of fact, by looking at extant copies of Titus Andronicus ballads in the English Broadside Ballad Archive one can identify at least 6 different states of this image. 

The earliest one extant is in a ballad printed for the publishers F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke. In this print, the woodcut shows only a few traces of woodworm activity: you can actually see what is happening. The irregular thin white line going from the left of the woodcut to the head of Lavinia indicates that the crack in the woodblock, visible in the Folger ballads, already existed at an earlier printing stage.

A later edition by the publishers I. Clarke, W. Thackeray, and T. Passinger shows a greater number of white dots. Clearly woodworms were hard at work while the woodblock passed from one printshop to another. This proprietary change did not affect them in any way.

Likewise, they kept carving out through the woodblock while it moved to W.O’s printshop. By then all the depicted subjects were affected by their work.

Some parts of the frame border were now hatched lines, and white lines were enlarged. Worms helped Titus slay Lavinia’s sons by making a hole in one of their eyes.  

The Folger’s ballad PR1181.B2 no.1 Cage was printed by W.O. as was the British Library copy but with a slightly different imprint. The additional dots in the copy of the British Library indicates that it was printed later.

Within the same printshop, these ballads could go through multiple issues as they were most likely printed on demand. 

By the time the ‘Titus’ block had reached the printshop of T. Norris, worms had created a few more holes/dots and the crack around Lavinia’s face had widened. The black lines are also thicker than in the earlier impressions. This may be due to the heavy inking of the block to cover some of the holes. Such a technique seems to have worked in several areas including in the upper right corner of the block where the Globe theatre has now recovered one of its turrets.

Another issue of this ballad at the Houghton Library shows that the heavy inking was located in areas with the largest number of white dots.

Still, a few additional dots in the Houghton copy show that the worms kept working through the woodblock. By then it really was a woodcut ‘in the dot manner’…

Below is a list of extant ballads of Titus Andronicus including the woodcuts with this design and an attempt at organizing them by chronological and ‘state’ order. The dates attributed to these impressions, found in records, are based on the activity of the printers and publishers since none of these were printed on the ballads themselves.

1. British Library, Huth50.(69.) Printed for F. Coles, T. Vere, J. Wright, and J. Clarke. 1674-1679 ?
2. Oxford University, Magdalene College – Pepys, Pepys Ballads 2.184-185. Printed for I. Clarke, W. Thackeray, and T. Passinger. 1684-1686.
3. Folger Shakespeare Library, PR1181.B2 no.1 Cage. Printed by and for W.O. and sold by E. Brooksby, at the Golden-Ball in Pye-Corner, [1703?].
4. British Library, –Bagford. C.40.m.10.(11.)– LONDON: Printed by and for W.O. and sold b the Booksellers of Pye-corner and London-bridge. 1688-1709?
5. Folger Shakespeare Library, v.b.35 (19): Printed by T. Norris, at the Looking-Glass on London-Bridge and sold by J.Walter, at the Hand and Pen in High Holborn, [1720?]
6. Houghton: LONDON: Printed by T. Norris, at the Looking-glass on London-bridge. / And sold by J. Walter, at the Hand and Pen in High Holborn. 1687-1732?

Later printers and publishers of Titus ballads decided that it was time to change the image. Interestingly, they did not choose to make a copy of this block. The Houghton copy, thus, seems to be the last extant ballad using it.

The Titus ballads are an extreme case of reuse of a woodblock until it is more or less no longer usable. They also show how woodworms could affect the image and how they can help date a ballad. It remains to be seen if we should call the different impressions created by their work different “states”. It would be useful though to find a uniform way to describe these differences and acknowledge the work of these little creatures.