Norbert Wiener slept here
I’m spending this week in New Hampshire, getting some much needed R&R. The house I’m staying in is fairly remote but it’s quite nice. And it was once owned by Norbert Wiener, the brilliant mathematician who coined the term “cybernetics.”
Not much remains from when Wiener lived here, but the bookshelves are filled with his old books. So I’ve gone through some of the shelves and picked out a few of the more interesting titles. Here’s a selection of what Mr. Wiener read:
Lots of dictionaries: Appleton’s New Spanish Dictionary; Cassell’s German Dictionary; Cassell’s French Dictionary; Dutch (A “Teach Yourself Book”); Nuevo Diccionario Enciclopedico Ilustrado de la Lengua Catellana; Graglia’s Italian-English and English-Italian Dictionary;
Various songbooks including: A booklet called “Patriotic Songs of America” with lyrics and music to The Star Spangled Banner, Hail! Columbia, Yankee Doodle, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Dixie Land, America the Beautiful, Tenting on the Old Camp Ground, etc.; “A Book of Songs - Words and Melodies Only - For Unison & Part Singing For Grades IV, V and VI (Student’s Edition)”; “The Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics”; and “An Elizabethan Songbook - Lute Songs: Madrigals & Rounds; Sing!”
A German Historical Atlas; The Bartholomew World Pocket Atlas
Lots of math books, obviously. They mainly have titles that suggest they would be far over my head, including: “Mathematical Tables from Handbook of Chemistry & Physics”; “Four Place Tables - Unabridged Edition”; “Plane and Spherical Trigonometry” by Ashton and Marsh; “Wentworth’s Plane and Solid Geometry”; “A Survey of Modern Algebra”; “Geometry in Three Dimensions”
“An Essay on Man” by Ernst Cassirer
“The Science of Health”
“Basic Course in Botany”
“An Outline of General Zoology”
“Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates”
“Beyond Hypnosis” by Hugh Lacy in 1952, including a chapter called “Dianetics” which criticizes L. Ron Hubbard but only with regards to his thoughts on hypnosis.
“Emily Post’s Etiquette - The Blue Book of Social Usage”
“The Standard Book of British and American Verse”
“Hotel Berlin ‘43” by Vicki Baum
“The Mutineers” by Charles Boardman Hawes with a lovely illustrated cover
“Scaramouche” by Rafael Sabatini
“The City of Open Air and Other Verse” by Charles Poole Cleaves
“This I Believe: The personal philosophies of one hundred thoughtful men and women in all walks of life — twenty of whom are immortals in the history of ideas, eighty of whom are our contemporaries of today — written for Edward R. Murrow.” This is the second volume, and is inscribed “To Professor Norbert Wiener” and I can’t read the signature. It looks like “Ward Wheeler” or something like that. I figured out what the inscription says. It reads, “With great thanks for your outstanding contribution” and is signed “Ward Wheelock.” Mr. Wheelock was a friend of Edward R. Murrow’s and was the one to come up with the idea for a “This I Believe” series. Norbert Weiner is one of the people who contributed an essay for this book.
“Posthistoric Man - An Inquiry” by Roderick Seidenberg
“Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo. In five volumes.
“Departmental Ditties” by Rudyard Kipling.
“Praha Guidebook”
“The Black Arrow” by Robert Louis Stevenson
“The Hunting of the Snark and Other Poems”
“New Arabian Nights” by R.L. Stevenson
The College Entrance Examination Board’s “Comprehensive Examination Questions” for June and September 1918, including sections on Chemistry, English, French, German, Greek, History, Latin, Mathematics, Physics, and Spanish.
A beautiful 1921 leather-bound copy of “The Astronomer-Poet of Persia” that’s sadly falling apart.
“History of European Morals” Third Edition, Revised, in two volumes.
“The France of Today” from 1916
“The Pleasures of an Absentee Landlord and Other Essays”
“The Mechanics of Writing” which has the very long subtitle “A compendium of rules regarding manuscript-arrangement, spelling, the compounding of words, abbreviations, the representation of numbers, syllabication, the use of capitals, the use of italics, punctuation, and paragraphing.”
And many, many more. How many have you read?
Comments
you could create a librarything.com bookshelf for him.
Posted by: jason | August 18, 2006 5:16 PM
“Ward Wheeler” could be “John Wheeler”, whom I believe Dr. Wiener knew. It’s a sketchy assumption, because Wheeler isn’t so uncommon a last name, but a possibility nonetheless.
Posted by: Alex | August 19, 2006 12:46 PM
I updated the entry, but I’m following up in the comments anyway because I figured out what the inscription says. It reads, “With great thanks for your outstanding contribution” and is signed “Ward Wheelock.” Mr. Wheelock was a friend of Edward R. Murrow’s and was the one who came up with the idea for a “This I Believe” series. Norbert Weiner is one of the people who contributed an essay for the book.
Posted by: David | August 19, 2006 5:37 PM
Amazon.com doesn’t know of a book called:
“The Science of Health” ????
Posted by: Kim | August 20, 2006 2:50 AM
Kim, the book is by Florence L. Meredith, Professor of Hygiene, Tufts College, and has a copyright date 1942. According to the preface, “This volume is the second edition of ‘Twelve Hours of Hygiene,’ the title having been changed with the change in scope and organization of the material… it is for use in one-hour-one-semester college courses in hygiene.” -David
Posted by: David | August 20, 2006 10:57 AM
What town is the house in?
Is it a B&B, by any chance?
Posted by: max | August 21, 2006 6:00 AM
interesting, but s/Weiner/Wiener. (you have no idea how stupid that typo looks to my german reading eyes *g*)
Posted by: nex | August 21, 2006 8:43 AM
Max,
Norbert Weiner’s house is in Sandwich, NH. It was his summer house, and he did a lot of his work there, although it should be mentioned that after his three kids proved extremely distracting, he moved his operation to a small cabin about a hundred yards from the main house.
The house is not a B&B. Built in 1830 and named “Maple Knoll,” it is now owned by the Butters family. Gerard Butters is a mathematician and economist. I guess houses were like ships back then, what with the naming and all.
Posted by: Ellen | August 22, 2006 10:51 AM