Pagination of the Allen manuscript

Ruskin clearly added his manuscript page numbers after filling the notebook, as an inspection of the blotting on ( Allen 52r) indicates. Consider the last few pages of manuscript that we have in the Allen Manuscript, before the nineteen folios that were later cut out of the notebook. Fol. 53r is numbered 103, 53v is 104, 54r is 105, and 54v is 106. These page numbers - four of only fifteen in all - were possibly inserted in order to facilitate cross-reference, as on fol. 54v (page 106), where he refers back to 'P. 105' (54r). Characteristically, however, Ruskin is slapdash in his numbering, sometimes, as at the beginning of the notebook, numbering each side, as in a printed book, and sometimes counting only the rectos, as between fol. 8r (16) and 9r (17). He makes mistakes in his adding up between fol. 31r (59) and 45r (85) and between 45r (85) and 49r (95, which should be 96). The fact that he numbered fol. 8r 16, as opposed to the normal 15, proves that in these early pages Ruskin included not only both sides of fols.1-7 in his count but also the pastedown inside the front cover, on which he made miscellaneous notes.

MW

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