Illuminated Manuscript: Royal and Pilgrim Ancestry.

[Lawrence, MA]: N.p., [ca. 1905]. Original manuscript. Quarto. [78] leaves with calligraphic text and many paintings and illuminations on rectos only. Royal part with 10 full page hand-colored illustrations of shields etc and 11 historiated initials and arabesques; all in color. Pilgrim part all in dense cursive and with red borders to the pages. Almost surely created and given as a present to her father, Arthur Demerick Marble, by Marion Wright Marbles. Excellent.Arthur Demerick Marble was born at Hingham, Massachusetts to Deborah Hawkes and Demerick Marble (1819-1898). Arthur became a civil engineer and worked in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He married Mary O. Richardson in November 1876 and the couple had a daughter Marion Wright Marble in 1871. Arthur D. Marble became City Engineer in 1879. Arthur was the family historian and Yale has two volumes of genealogical and related materials of the Marble-Richardson family from the Hingham area of Massachusetts. The work was compiled by Arthur Demerick Marble of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Included are family charts, pictures, drawings, clippings, biographical sketches, letters, copies of diaries and legal documents. Prominent figures are Gershom and Demerick Marble, Thomas Burr, represented by diaries from the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars, Abijah Richardson, Jr. who travelled to California in 1851, and John Lewis writing from Maine in 1746-1747. This would lead one to believe that Arthur created this album but in no instances do we find mention of illumination and calligraphy in his notebooks. In the illuminated genealogies in this volume all lines end in Marion Wright Marble. The book also bears the bookplate of Arthur D. Marble. If it had been the other way around we would expect the bookplate to be that of Marion. As was probably the custom of the time, this genealogy begins with characters from the bible. On the Royal side she traces their ancestors to King Alfred, Hugo Capet and Kenneth Macalpin. She traces her pilgrim roots to Jonathan Brewster and Thomas Clarke. Both of whom arrived in America in the 1620s. There are two plates and one newspaper article [dated 1901] incorporated as part of the book. Marion was a very skillful artist and calligrapher, making this short genealogy a pleasure to read.