[DCRM-L] How should a rebus be transcribed?

[Erin Blake]

Has anyone transcribed a rebus? While talking about disguised dates in chronograms, the DCRM(G) editors wondered about other kinds of disguised information. For example, the print at http://dcrmg.pbwiki.com/Rebuses might be dealt with using one of the following options:

Option A:
Title: The [boot i.e. Bute] interest in the [city], or the [bridge] in the [hole]
Imprint: [London] : Sold in May's [Buildings] Covent [Garden] [by George Bickham, 1760]
Note: Title and publisher's address in the form of a rebus.

Option B:
Title: The [rebus for boot, i.e. Bute] interest in the [rebus for city], or the [rebus for bridge] in the [rebus for hole]
Imprint: [London] : Sold in May's [rebus for buildings] Covent [rebus for garden] [by George Bickham, 1760]

Option C:
Title: The Bute interest in the city, or the bridge in the hole
Imprint: [London] : Sold in May's Buildings, Covent Garden [by George Bickham, 1760]
Note: Title in the form of a rebus, with pictures for Bute (a boot), city, bridge, and hole. Publisher's address in the form of a rebus, with pictures for Buildings and Garden.

The print in question could also be catalogued as a broadside, but the other two examples linked to from http://dcrmg.pbwiki.com/Rebuses are clearly graphic materials.

What do you think?

   EB.

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Erin C. Blake, Ph.D. | Curator of Art & Special Collections | Folger Shakespeare Library | 201 E. Capitol St. SE | Washington, DC 20003-1004 | office tel. 202.675-0323 | fax 202.675-0328 | e-mail: eblake at folger.edu