ROBY'S COMMONPLACE BOOK 1951

Bernice recently told me she found Roby's Common-Place Book on the top shelf in a closet. She did not know about it, had never seen it and Roby never spoke about it. In what looks like a composition book, it contains 96 pages written in his own handwriting !! Before word processors and computers ! A
treasure ! I looked up  'Common Place Book' on Wikipedia which gives a broad explanation. I peppered Bernice with questions about it and this is what she said.

"In 1951, Roby was at Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The story of why he wrote it is unknown. From what I can tell, most of it is from "The Life of Johnson", written by James Boswell who knew Johnson for a short time, but spent a great deal of that time with him. I read somewhere that James Boswell was considered the first biographer after writing The Life of Johnson. I also found a copy of the book, written from 1709-1784. This particular edition that I have - published in 1946 has been edited to make it shorter and more readable. The original must have been a very lengthy book. I will copy a few pages of the book - dedication, etc. and mail it to you. I will make copies of the "References" and some of the "Index" (all also hand-written) by the amazing Robert Sandler.

The Common Place book in Bob's handwriting is 89 pages - then there are two pages of References and four pages of Index for a total of 96 pages. So that is a short version of what I know about the Common-Place Book of Robert Sandler (1951) English 365."

I asked Bernice to take some pictures of it and she sent me these two photos. I hope to see it one day - Bernice said it is in very fragile condition and does not want to let it out of her hands.