I can tell you precisely whose hand provided the commentary -- the book belonged to my great-grandfather. He never published any translations; I do own a half-dozen manuscripts that he started but never completed, and about thirty or forty books that belonged to him. He was a perfectionist and an inveterate scribbler -- it's why he never finished any translations of his own, but why his notes in others' books tend to be so interesting.
You'd be welcome to come browse my library the next time you're in London. I'm hesitant to allow the manuscripts to leave the premises, but you'd be welcome to spend some time at my house reading if you have any free time over the next set of holidays, and you'd be welcome to borrow some of the other books he made notes in. (Actually, it's possible the unfinished translations would be amenable to a copying spell -- it's not something I've thoroughly investigated in part because they'd never been of interest to anyone beyond the family. You have quite a bit more expertise in that area than I do.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Private Message to Dominic Selwyn
Date: 2012-09-06 03:29 am (UTC)I can tell you precisely whose hand provided the commentary -- the book belonged to my great-grandfather. He never published any translations; I do own a half-dozen manuscripts that he started but never completed, and about thirty or forty books that belonged to him. He was a perfectionist and an inveterate scribbler -- it's why he never finished any translations of his own, but why his notes in others' books tend to be so interesting.
You'd be welcome to come browse my library the next time you're in London. I'm hesitant to allow the manuscripts to leave the premises, but you'd be welcome to spend some time at my house reading if you have any free time over the next set of holidays, and you'd be welcome to borrow some of the other books he made notes in. (Actually, it's possible the unfinished translations would be amenable to a copying spell -- it's not something I've thoroughly investigated in part because they'd never been of interest to anyone beyond the family. You have quite a bit more expertise in that area than I do.)
Yours in arcane scholarship,
Dominic