Three: History & Examples

Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century.

#HeyPresstoConf20


The following all had/kept commonplaces:

  • Charles Darwin
  • Francis Bacon
  • Ben Jonson
  • John Milton
  • Mrs Anna Anderson
  • E.M. Forster
  • John Locke
  • W.H. Auden
  • H.P. Lovecraft
  • Virginia Woolf
  • Joseph Conrad
  • Washington Irving
  • Victor Hugo
  • Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton, a mathematician and physicist, used a “Waste Book” to write his initial conceptualization of the calculus. A digitized copy of this commonplace is held at the University of Cambridge and is freely available to view online.

 

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  1. Three: History & Examples
    Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century.
    #HeyPresstoConf20

    The following all had/kept commonplaces:

    Charles Darwin
    Francis Bacon
    Ben Jonson
    John Milton
    Mrs Anna Anderson
    E.M. Forster
    John Locke
    W.H. Auden
    H.P. Lovecraft
    Virginia Woolf
    Joseph Conrad
    Washington Irving
    Victor Hugo
    Isaac Newton

    Isaac Newton, a mathematician and physicist, used a “Waste Book” to write his initial conceptualization of the calculus. A digitized copy of this commonplace is held at the University of Cambridge and is freely available to view online.

     

    Syndicated copies:

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