The Book of Days (1864)
The Book of Days was Robert Chambers's last publication, and perhaps his most elaborate. It is a huge collection of short, largely factual pieces that today might be bracketed as "trivia", but very interesting trivia. The formula has been much repeated. It is supposed that his excessive labour in connection with this book hastened his death. [3]
The book was published in two large volumes, each over 840 pages long, and, for its day, was well-illustrated with engraved drawings linked to the articles. Its full title is The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar: Including Anecdote, Biography, & History, Curiosities and Literature, and Oddities of Human Life and Character. It is well-indexed, adding much to its value as a reference tool.
Each day, listed in chronological order, gives a short list of saints connected to the day and famous persons born on that day or dying on that day. Individuals are then selected from these lists for more detailed articles. With six or seven articles each day, the total number of articles, which are in the form of erudite essays, runs to around 2,000. The book has frequently been quoted in other reference books.
Chambers carried out his research for the book in 1860 and 1861, primarily in the British Museum in London. He then spent 1863 and 1863 organising the assembled essays into chronological order and editing the work. The task is said to have mentally ruined him. [4]
Robert Chambers was a Scottish publisher, geologist, evolutionary thinker, author and journal editor who, like his elder brother and business partner William Chambers, was highly influential in mid-19th-century scientific and political circles.
John Nichols was an English printer, author and antiquary. He is remembered as an influential editor of the Gentleman's Magazine for nearly 40 years; author of a monumental county history of Leicestershire; author of two compendia of biographical material relating to his literary contemporaries; and as one of the agents behind the first complete publication of Domesday Book in 1783.
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
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Chambers is a reference publisher formerly based in Edinburgh, Scotland, which held the property rights of W. & R. Chambers Publishers.
John Day is the first recorded death in an accident with a submarine. Day was an English carpenter and wheelwright. With the financial support of Christopher Blake, an English gambler, Day built a wooden "diving chamber" without an engine. He attached his invention to the deck of a 50-ton sloop named the Maria, which Blake had purchased for £340. The sloop's hold contained 10 tons of ballast, and two 10-ton weights were attached beneath the keel which could be released from inside the diving chamber. An additional 20 tons of ballast would be loaded on the Maria after Day had been locked inside the diving chamber.
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William Paget was an English actor and author in the 18th century who played alongside David Garrick and was a member of John Rich's company, playing in the first season of Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (1732). He was also an "eminent" Tobacconist on Fleet Street, London. Toward the end of his life he served time in Fleet Prison, writing the poem The Humours of the Fleet among others. He then agreed to participate in the establishment of Halifax, Nova Scotia, dying there in 1752.
Sir John Bonham was a mercer of the City of London, revered as one of the Nine Worthies of London by Richard Johnson in his 1592 biography of eminent citizens.
Sir Christopher Croker was a vintner of the City of London, revered as one of the Nine Worthies of London by Richard Johnson in his 1592 biography of eminent citizens.
Saint Gildas the Albanian also known as Gildas the Scot, is a spurious early British saint. Apparently identical with Saint Gildas, he was invented in the 17th century to explain away inconsistencies in mediaeval sources.
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