Commonplace books are essentially collections of any written material the owner finds interesting, all in one place. The most typical pieces of writing they contain are quotations, chosen because either their phrasing or the content resonated with the compiler. But throughout history, recipes, facts, jokes, pieces of gossip, and even housekeeping advice have all made their way into what inevitably becomes a hodge-podge project reflecting the owner’s values and interests.
~ Marla Mackoul
(Mental Floss, September 30, 2025, “How to Keep a Commonplace Book: The Renaissance-Era Practice That’s Making a Comeback”)
I had never heard of a commonplace book before reading an article found in my newsfeed one morning, although I had unknowingly stumbled across a few of them in the piles of paper inherited from our families. Light bulb moment! There is actually a term for these personal collections. Tim’s great-grandfather collected jokes and humorous cartoons from newspapers and newsletters, and an unidentified ancestor copied by hand reams of religious poems, presumably for personal reflection.
When I was a young mother I used to enjoy looking back over my photo albums every year or so, savoring the memories the pictures of growing children brought back to mind. I don’t keep photo albums any more, but it seems my blog has taken their place because now I enjoy looking back over my old posts to remember things I have seen, especially on my walks. And it is also a place I like to collect quotes and poetry and art that resonate with me. So it seems that’s what this hodge-podge blog has evolved into, a digital commonplace book/photo album.
Back in 2012 I recognized one direction in which this blog was heading. (selecting and collecting words) Surely a commonplace book is what Emerson had in mind when he wrote:
Make your own Bible. Select and Collect all those words and sentences that in all your reading have been to you like the blast of trumpet…
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Journal, July 1836)
In her article Mackoul mentions quite a few famous men who kept this type of journal: Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Thomas Jefferson, and John Locke. Commonplace books were found in ancient Greece and Rome, and after the printing press was invented, the practice became very popular during the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
Now knowing what a commonplace book is I understand that my desire to capture and organize knowledge and art is timeless. And rather than just consuming the ideas of others, I have a great way to share them with my readers!
I love the realization that we have a common human connection through time, we collect words that inspire and teach. I collect recipes and inspirational quotes!
Since you collect recipes I wonder if you follow Sheryl’s A Hundred Years Ago blog? She finds old original recipes and tests them out and then updates them for modern cooks, posting both versions, with interesting commentaries.
https://ahundredyearsago.com/
Thanks, I’ll check it out. 🙂
You’re welcome. 🙂
I had read that the late Salvadoran-Nicaraguan poet Claribel Alegría kept a “semillero”– her seed garden, seedbed, incubator. She described it thus in an interview I found in English: “Well, you know, I dream and then I wake up, and I say, ‘This line, this is a line of poetry,’ and I write it down. I have a little pad on my night table, and I write it down. And sometimes it stays there, and sometimes I put it in my workbook, where I put down scenes like today, scenes that will stay with me. Or I write down scenes or passages that I read in another book, or that come to me in dreams.” I’d never heard the term commonplace book before either. It reminds me of Claribel’s semillero.
Thank you for introducing me to another poet, Susan! I love the idea of a “semillero” as a seed garden, seedbed, and incubator. I read a little about Claribel Alegría on Wikipedia and there it says she began composing poetry before she could read or write, dictating her poems to her mother who would write them down. She must have been delighted when she learned how to write down her thoughts for herself. I agree, her “semillero” was her commonplace book! I’d love to read some of her poetry. Couldn’t find any of her books translated in the library but might get a used copy of Halting Steps: Collected & New Poems online.
I’ve never heard the term “commonplace books,” but I totally relate to the idea! My late mom collected all sorts of interesting snippets (mostly from things she read or heard on TV0, and it seems I’ve inherited the practice. Nice to know it’s not craziness, ha!!
Indeed, it’s nice to know we’re not crazy and that the urge to collect tidbits of inspiration seems to be almost universal! It’s so interesting the different sorts of things that different people choose to keep in their commonplace books, and how revealing of their personalities.
I agree with you that your blog has evolved into, a digital commonplace book/photo album. It is a great way to organize tid-bits that speak to you and talk about how they have meaning for you with others. Great find!
One never knows what interesting articles will show up in a newsfeed. Leonardo da Vinci wasn’t mentioned in the article but I think he had the most amazing commonplace book of all time, called a “zibaldone” in Italian.
It’s great that you can look back at the past 15 years with merely a mouse click while scrolling through your blog. I like that your blog memorializes all the stages of your blogging years. I have learned about poets and authors and famous artists through these posts Barbara!
And I have learned many things from you and your posts, too, my friend! The internet is truly an amazing tool when used properly, it’s too bad it’s been abused at the same time. It is so useful connecting people and ideas for beneficial purposes. Being able to click that mouse and find so much is such a precious gift.
We are both wiser for the knowledge gleaned from each other’s posts and also from the internet, info that is available to us in a heartbeat. I remember evenings spent at the library for school papers in junior high and high school, my father snoozing on a couch while he waited for me as I wrote furiously and fed dimes into the copy machine to speed up the process.
I didn’t go to the library as a child because my parents invested in a top-of-the-line Encyclopedia Britannica that came complete with its own bookcase, a huge and unwieldy dictionary, and an atlas. I guess they figured that would save them trips to the library for school work! For other reading they let us order from the Scholastic Books pamphlets sent home with us from school. I didn’t get to put dimes (or quarters) into a copy machine until I was an adult and wanted to copy parts of books from genealogy libraries in Hartford and Boston.
You were lucky Barbara and you therefore had all the resources at your disposal and no one had to spend their evenings at the library. My mom didn’t drive so it was on my dad to take me there after dinner. The library closed at 8:00 p.m., so I had to write fast and furiously and xerox the rest of the info. Having a set of encyclopedias and other resources at your disposal made for enriched learning. My parents bought a handy one-volume encyclopedia for me – I forgot the name – maybe “World Book of Knowledge” and it was paperback, but it was thousands of pages, but such fine print, like a telephone book, all black and white, with no photos, but pen and ink illustrations. It was good for quick look-ups and gleaning statistics, etc. so that probably saved a few library trips. My father worked Saturdays until noon, so sometimes when I was older I would walk there and he’d pick me up later when he got home from work. We had “National Geographic” magazines for years as well and my parents saved them in case I had book reports pertaining to nature.
Did you also use microfiche as an adult for your genealogy work? I remember using the machine while in college for term papers – what a painstaking job that was to search for info then ask the librarian for the film once you located the page(s) you needed to put it on the screen. I don’t think there was a way to xerox your findings either and that was long before phone cameras were a thing.
I do remember using microfilm readers to find genealogical tidbits in old newspapers and out of print books. Wow, that takes me way back. While you were working on college term papers I was digging for traces of my ancestors…
It takes me back awhile too Barbara. I’d say around 1976 to 1978-ish. I once had a journalism class where we had an actual “beat” for “x” number of weeks, including Detroit’s main police station reading the crime reports and doing summaries, Recorder’s Court for sitting in on a murder trial and also sitting in on Detroit City Council Meetings. If we reported on a story, we had to go research similar stories … sometimes hours in the microfilm room. You were digging for traces of your ancestors as you have many – I have so few, it could be done in a few hours I’d say. My friend Carol spun out my mom’s ancestors on Ancestry – it was interesting. Marge had done it earlier, but this was more through.
I love the term “commonplace books.” This post brought back warm memories of my mother pasting recipes from newspapers and magazines into a notebook.
I wonder what your mother would have thought about the collection of recipes you’ve gathered and adapted for modern cooks on your blog. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. 🙂