The Art of the Commonplace Book
The internet, computers, and the ubiquitous smart phone have become for many an invisible umbilical cord that connects users to a vast array of voices around the globe. Each of those voices insist that their version of the truth become our own. While the miracle of modern technology allows access to a vast array of facts and figures, many are asking, “Is this true for me?”
Before the birth of social media and the 24-hour news cycle, anyone who needed to remember a fact, a formula, an address, or any other important fact; had only themselves to reply upon. Those individuals kept handwritten notes, often in a notebook they carried with them. This practice, known as commonplacing, has been in use since antiquity to compile personal knowledge.
A common place book serves as an exploration of both the internal world and the external universe. It is a place into which memorable or important extracts from other works are copied or noted for future personal use. Aside from everyday notations, a commonplace book might contain proverbs, quotes, poems, prayers, tables of weights and measure, recipes, lists, cures, curses, spells, sketches, multiplication tables, formulas, observations and musical notations.
Writers are famous for maintaining commonplace books. Henry David Thoreau recorded his thoughts on a wide variety of subjects from 1837 until his death in 1862. His observations on nature and man came to be what many consider his finest work: Walden.
From Thoreau’s notes:
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone.”
Henry David Thoreau
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) was known to commission small leather-bound notebooks with his name embossed in gold on the cover. Neil Gaiman, the author of Stardust, American Gods and much more, has been observed with a small black notebook which he tucks into his jacket pocket. And from his notes, director Frank Capra created a treasure trove of memorable films including, It’s a Wonderful Life.
Leonardo di Vinci actually used the term commonplace book to refer to his notebooks; which he organized with headings on the subjects he was studying.
From the notes of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin came much of the Declaration of Independence. And explorers Lewis & Clark carried notebooks to record observations and draw maps during their expeditions. A few other notable individuals who have used commonplace books are: George Lucas, Charles Darwin, Ludwig van Beethoven, General George S. Patton, Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Newton, Pablo Picasso, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Edison, Virginia, Woolf, Oscar Wilde, and Sir. Francis Bacon.
A commonplace book is intimate and personal. It is a private and inward-facing consideration of the world. It can be a record of our own observations and the unique thoughts we about them. Commonplacing can remember thought-provoking ideas, interesting occurrences and foster intellectual curiosity. The act of keeping such a notebook can serve to clarify the relationship between the writer and their external world. It can also help to refine one’s thinking about important topics. The farmers, housewives, authors, educators, soldiers, merchants, and others who used commonplace books were all, in effect, separating the wheat from the chaff in their lives; and in doing so, came to know their own minds better.
While the notion of commonplace books is centuries old, Roger Hudson’s book An Englishman’s Commonplace Book (Slightly Foxed, 2020, 112 pages) shows that commonplace books are as valuable now as they have ever been. Author and musician, Hudson has been commonplacing for 40 years. He says in the introduction to his book:
“You should find the process of writing down these
Roger Hudson
passages gives you physical pleasure; you might even start using that expensive fountain pen you bought, to indulge in this entirely free pastime …”
The thread that runs through every one who has ever kept a commonplace book is that they were people who, through the recording of their readings, their observations, their investigating, their questioning, and thoughtful poking about in the details of life — came to better understand their singular relationship with the world.
A commonplace book will remember the details of what inspired you. It can become a personal encyclopedia of your inner world and may gift the writer with the ability to find unexpected connections and insights. Using the concept of commonplacing allows the writer to surrender, not to the din of someone else’s ideas, but to their own unique thoughts.
