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Journal article
A Survey of the Art Works Connected to Adam Gumpelzhaimer with Revelations about his _Compendium musicae_
This study contains the first detailed survey of the art works connected to the influential Augsburg _Kantor_, composer, teacher and music theorist Adam Gumpelzhaimer (1559–1625) and demonstrates that they are much more plentiful and widespread than previously realized. For instance, this survey examines nineteen portraits of Gumpelzhaimer whereas only four...Charteris, Richard
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Journal article
Sir Robert Knolles and the Patronage of the Carmelite Missal (Add. MSS.29704-5, 44892): Assessing the Visual Evidence
This article reviews the question of who patronized the London 'reconstructed' Carmelite Missal (Add. MSS. 29704-5, 44892). This has been raised before, and Sir Robert Knolles (d. 1407), a major patron of London Whitefriars, suggested. However, his connection to the Missal has not been examined in any detail. Through consideration...Collins, Alexander
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Journal article
Samuel Doody and his Books
The title page inscriptions 'J. Doody' or 'John Doody' in several volumes held in the Sloane Printed Books collection, have typically been taken as indicating ownership by either John Doody (1616-1680) or John Doody (1687-1753), his grandson. In fact, I suggest that these items found their way to Sloane from...Thorley, David
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Journal article
The 'Continuation' of the Thomason Tracts? The British Museum's 'Political Tracts' Series of Pamphlets Relating to English Political History, 1542–1807
This article examines the history, scope and provenance of the 'Political Tracts' series of 3000 early modern pamphlets that was assembled by the British Museum c. 1790-1807, during the so-called 'synthetical arrangement', when the library of printed books was reorganized along subject-based lines. The series was designed as a repository...Taylor, Edward
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Journal article
'Everything Curious': Samuel Hieronymus Grimm and Sir Richard Kaye
The British Library's Manuscript Collections contain a wealth of British topographical drawings which reflect the collecting instincts of antiquarians with a passion for recording, in word and image, the urban and rural landscapes around them. One such collector was the ecclesiastic and baronet Sir Richard Kaye, who recorded his thoughts...Dolman, Brett
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Journal article
William Plate, an Unknown Acquaintance of Karl Marx at the British Museum: A Biographical Sketch
Though much has been written on Marx's association with the British Museum, the circumstances of his admission to that institution have remained undocumented. A recent find in the British Museum Archives throws some light on the subject, and reveals for the first time the name of the remarkable gentleman who...Henderson, Bob
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Journal article
'A Poet Given to Compulsive Self-Revision': Reflections on Walt Whitman, Hypertext, and the 1855 Edition of Leaves of Grass
A discussion of the iconic first (1855) edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, of which the British Library holds a rare early copy, and its place in the author's literary development. Following the sesquicentenial anniversary of the work's publication, the experience of reading this celebrated volume in print is...Hayes, Dorian
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Journal article
'Peculiar Circumstances': Catholic chaplains of the Victorian British Army in India
Documents from the Indian Office Records paint a picture of the employment and conditions of Catholic chaplains in the British Army in India, chiefly among the Irish regiments and the Indian Labour Corps (previously known as coolies). Despite opposition from the Protestant Alliance, a live-and-let-live policy was largely followed.Mulvihill, Margaret
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Journal article
'One of the Most Remarkable Things in London': A Visit to the Lord Treasurer's Library in 1713 by Samuel Molyneux
Between December 1712 and April 1713 Samuel Molyneux (1689-1728) witnessed at first hand some of the finest antiquarian collections in London, Oxford and Cambridge. For the benefit of his learned uncle he described what he saw in seven meticulously written letters, later transcribed into a copy-book and now held in...Holden, Paul
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Journal article
'I Have Neither Interest nor Eloquence Sufficient to Prevaile': The Duke of Shrewsbury and the Politics of Succession during the Reign of Anne
On 13 April 1710 Queen Anne deprived the marquess of Kent of the office of lord chamberlain and appointed in his stead Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury. Many have seen in this event the opening salvo in Robert Harley's assault on the ministry of the duumvirs, Godolphin and Marlborough, which...Eagles, Robin
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Journal article
'The Most Important Books which I Would Strongly Recommend to Acquire': Petr Kropotkin and Vladimir Burtsev in Correspondence with the British Museum Library
The community of Russian émigré intellectuals who settled in London in the 1880s and the 1890s continued their scholarly and revolutionary activities in England, congregating around the British Museum. Two leading figures, Prince Petr Kropotkin (1842-1921) and Vladimir Burtsev (1862-1942), made donations to the Library and wrote to the Library’s...Rogatchevskaia, Ekaterina
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Journal article
The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library
A coloured woodcut portrait of Mikolaj [Nicholas] Krzysztof Radziwill (known as Sierotka, 'The Orphan') (1549-1616) is included in the album amicorum compiled c. 1563 by Hieronymus Köler of Nuremberg (BL, Egerton MS. 1184). An uncoloured version of the portrait also occurs in a volume of Greek poems by Martinus Crusius,...Letkiewicz, Ewa
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Journal article
'In this signe thou shalt ouercome hem alle': Visual Rhetoric and Yorkist Propaganda in Lydgate's Fall of Princes (Harl. MS. 1766)
With its much abridged text and impressive visual scheme, Harl. MS. 1766 (c. 1450-60) is unique amongst the extant manuscripts of Lydgate’s Fall of Princes (c. 1431-38/39). This paper identifies and explores a rhetoric of kingship developed by the rearranged text and amplified through the design of the visual scheme....Pittaway, Sarah
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Journal article
'I am sending herewith' – First World War Ephemera at the British Library
This article explores two guard books containing First World War ephemera (shelfmark Tab.11748.aa.4) held at the British Library that were catalogued as part of a PhD placement during the summer of 2016. It examines the acquisition of ephemera during the war, what the collection held at the British Library comprises...Foster, Ann-Marie
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Journal article
'I Who Speak Always Unpremeditately': The Earl of Mulgrave's Speeches Against Corruption and in Defence of His Honour, 1692 and 1695
In December 1692 John Sheffield, 3rd earl of Mulgrave, intervened in the House of Lords to speak in favour of the Place Bill – a measure aimed at limiting the numbers of MPs permitted to hold offices in the armed forces and central government. At one point Mulgrave equated the...Eagles, Robin
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Journal article
Navigating Brave New Worlds: A Close Analysis of Anne McLaren's Laboratory Notebook
Dr Anne McLaren (1927–2007) was a leading developmental biologist with a decorated career that spanned more than fifty years. In particular, McLaren was interested in the ways in which an individual is always connected to, and a part of, its many environments. This interest led her to the study of...Moynihan, Bridget
in vitro fertilization, women in science, developmental biologist, laboratory notebook, and IVF
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Journal article
'A Programme for the Reign': Press, Propaganda and Public Opinion at Russia's Last Coronation
Russia's last coronation took place in Moscow in May 1896. To the click of camera shutters, the rattle of telegraphs and the whirring of the earliest cine machines, the twenty-eight-year-old Nicholas II crowned himself as absolute autocrat, inheritor of the spiritual-political legacy of Byzantium. But the world-wide publicity Nicholas sought...King, Greg ; Ashton, Janet
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Journal article
Codicological Clues to the Patronage of Stowe MS. 39:A Fifteenth-Century Illustrated Nun's Book in Middle English
Stowe MS. 39 is well-known for its Middle English texts (The Abbey of the Holy Ghost, and The Desert of Religion) and illustrations. An examination of its physical make-up leads towards the identification of its original patroness, a Yorkshire nun.Kidd, Peter
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Journal article
From the Bombast of Vachel Lindsay to the Compass of Noise: The Papers of Bob Cobbing at the British Library
The article introduces the paper archive of Bob Cobbing (1920-2002) at the British Library, and contextualizes his influential contribution to British poetry – as an avant-garde performance poet, printer and publisher – over the course of more than fifty years. The archive evidences the continuity between Cobbing’s formative experience as...Beckett, Chris
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Journal article
The Harleys as Collectors
To understand the nature and origins of the Harleian collection it is necessary to go back well beyond the date usually given for its foundation (the early 18th century), beyond the first evidence of Robert Harley’s collecting in the 1680s, to the time of his father and even his grandparents;...Harris, Frances
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Journal article
The Lady Eccles Oscar Wilde Collection
This article looks at the generous bequest made in 2003 by Mary Viscountess Eccles of her extensive collection of books, manuscripts and ephemera relating to Oscar Wilde. Containing works pertaining to Wilde, his friends and family and the literary and artistic world of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Great Britain,...Lloyd, Andrea
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Journal article
The Keyes Papers at the British Library
This article describes the papers and career of Roger Keyes (1872-1945), one of the most important naval figures of the first part of the twentieth century. The papers cover his long career from pre-World War One submarine service, through active service in World War One, the tense inter-war years, his...John-McAlister, Michael St
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Journal article
The First British Performances of Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony: The Philharmonic Society and Sir George Smart
The Philharmonic Society of London commissioned a new symphony from Beethoven in 1823. After some delay, still not entirely explained, it received a manuscript score of the Ninth Symphony late in 1824. The Society immediately set about preparations for a private ‘trial’ performance of the work, and for its inclusion...Searle, Arthur
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Journal article
Panizzi, Gladstone, Garibaldi and the Neapolitan Prisoners
This article tells how Antonio Panizzi of the British Museum Library worked with William Ewart Gladstone in the pursuit of Liberal causes in the reactionary Kingdom of Naples, ruled by Ferdinand II, in the 1850s. Their collaboration culminated in the release of 66 political prisoners from the island of Santo...Reidy, Denis V.
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Journal article
A. W. Franks and Armorial Bookbindings: Including a List of British Armorial Bookbindings Contained within the Franks Collection
A list of the British armorial bookbindings collected by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826-1897) purchased by the British Museum Library in 1900; the circumstances of its acquisition and subsequent cataloguing and an account of the previously unrecorded material associated with it.Marks, P. J. M.
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Journal article
The Progress of the Text: The Papers of J. G. Ballard at the British Library
The article provides an overview of the archive of J. G. Ballard, acquired by the British Library in 2010. The successive drafts of Ballard’s novels, in manuscript and typescript, comprise the majority of the archive, with the exception of Ballard’s first novel (The Wind from Nowhere) and The Unlimited Dream...Beckett, Chris
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Journal article
Tambimuttu and the Poetry London Papers at the British Library: Reputation and Evidence
The papers of the most influential literary magazine of the 1940s, Poetry London (1939-51), and the associated papers its Sri Lankan editor, M. J. T. Tambimuttu, were long considered lost until they came to light in 2005, when they were passed to the British Library. The papers of author Richard...Beckett, Chris
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Journal article
Henry Fox's Drafts of Lord Hardwicke's Speech in the Lords' Debate on the Bill on Clandestine Marriages, 6 June 1753: A Striving for Accuracy
Before Hansard, the records of debates in the Commons and Lords were personal ones taken by members or visitors to Parliament. The problem facing historians is the accuracy of these accounts for all necessarily reflected the agenda and views of the compiler. Two drafts in the BL's Holland House papers...Jones, Clyve
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Journal article
John Locke, Thomas Sydenham, and the Authorship of Two Medical Essays
Two medical essays in the hand of John Locke survive amongst the Shaftesbury Papers in the National Archives (National Archives PRO 30/24/47/2, ff. 31r-38v and ff. 49r-56r). Since the 1960s their authorship has been disputed. Some scholars have attributed them to the London physician Thomas Sydenham, others have attributed them...Anstey, Peter ; Burrows, John
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Journal article
Confronting Cook
A pronged fishing spear, a twisted bark shield with a handle and a length of timber used to propel spears. Those famous explorers James Cook and Joseph Banks picked them up from a beach after the first skirmish between Australian Aborigines and British voyagers. These objects, probably those now in...Smith, Keith Vincent
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Journal article
Most Secret and Confidential': The Pressed Copy Nelson Letters at the British Library
This article reports the contents of nine volumes of the correspondence of Lord Nelson in press copy letter books (BL. Add. MSS 34952-34960). Of these 1099 letters, written from 1796 to 1805, 593 are unpublished. Largely private or personal letters to family, friends and naval colleagues and official letters concerning...White, Colin
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Journal article
A Fresh Look at Harley MS. 1413: ‘A Book … fairly written in the German or Switz language’
Although described extensively in the British Museum's printed catalogue of Harleian manuscripts Harl. MS. 1413, a 16th-century manuscript containing Books VII-X of an illustrated German warfare treatise, has remained unidentified and virtually unnoticed since the catalogue was published soon after the beginning of the 19th century. In this article the...Porter, Pamela
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Journal article
Wolfenbüttel HAB Cod. Guelf. 51. 9. Aug. 4º and BL, Harley MS. 3542: Complementary Witnesses to Ralph Hoby's 1437 Treatise on Astronomical Medicine
Two manuscript copies of a 1437 treatise on medical astronomy are by Ralph Hoby, Franciscan of Hereford and Oxford: Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek Cod. Guelf. 51. 9. Aug. 4º, ff. 123-33 (W), and London , British Library Harley MS. 3542, ff. 103-10 (H). The text in W occurs in a...Voigts, Linda Ehrsam
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Journal article
A Late Renaissance Music Manuscript Unmasked
In the early seventeenth century, the Augsburg church of St Anna owned one of the largest collections of music editions and manuscripts in southern Germany. Most of these materials, a considerable number of which are now lost, were obtained during the tenure at St Anna of the prominent German composer...Charteris, Richard
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Journal article
God in All Things: The Religious Outlook of Russia's Last Empress
A set of manuscript letters in the British Library (Add. MS. 46721) which consist of the correspondence between Aleksandra Feodorovna, the last Empress of Russia, and the English Bishop William Boyd Carpenter are used with other sources to illuminate the Empress's very personal ideas on religion. These were of considerable...Ashton, Janet
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Journal article
Early Eastern Algonquian Language Books in the British Library
A history of printing in the Eastern Algonquian groups of languages of North America, with a check-list of thirty-eight items in the British Library collection printed between 1634 and 1851. The majority of speakers of these languages were traditionally located around the Great Lakes, the north-eastern coast of the United...Edwards, Adrian S.
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Journal article
Sir Frederic Madden and the Battle of the Brass Rubbings
In 1844, brass-rubbings made by Lewis Pryce Madden in the west of England were acquired for the British Museum at the behest of his brother Sir Frederic Madden, Keeper of Manuscripts. No record of them survives in the current catalogues of either the British Museum or the British Library. The...Wright, C. J.
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Journal article
The Ingenious Mr Dummer: Rationalizing the Royal Navy in Late Seventeenth-Century England
Edmund Dummer (1651-1713) joined the Royal Navy in 1668 and rose to become its Surveyor from 1692 to 1698. His period of service coincided with the 'Scientific Revolution' and efforts made by early Fellows of the Royal Society to apply scientific principles to the processes of navigation and ship design....Fox, Celina
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Journal article
Leandro Fernández de Moratín's La Mogigata: The Significance of the Holland Manuscript in the Light of Comments from Elizabeth, Lady Holland's Spanish Journal (BL, Add. MS. 51931)
A comparative study of several manuscripts of Leandro Moratin's La mogigata, with particular reference to that presented by the author in the summer of 1804 to Elizabeth, Lady Holland. Drawing on revelations in the original manuscript of her journal (BL, Add. MS. 51931), which is much fuller than the edition...Kitts, Sally Ann
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Journal article
A Wesleyan Musical Legacy
This article describes the contents of the manuscript music collection Add. 69859 assembled by Ms Rosalind Eleanor Esther Glenn (1834-1909) and presented to the British Library by the firm of Novello & Co. The principal composers represented are Jonathan Battishill (1738-1801) and Samuel Wesley (1766-1837). The album includes several autographs...Pont, Graham
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Journal article
Robert Harley, Christmas and the House of Lords’ Protest on the Attainder of Sir John Fenwick, 23 December 1696: The Mechanism of a Procedure Partly Exposed*
On 23 December 1696 the House of Lords passed the bill of attainder for treason on the jacobite Sir John Fenwick. Many of the lords on the minority side of the division entered a written protest against the vote into the journals of the House. Because the vote had been...Jones, Clyve
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Journal article
The Royal Image and Diplomacy: Henry VII’s Book of Astrology (British Library, Arundel MS. 66)
One of the most intriguing manuscripts associated with Henry VII of England, British Library, MS. Arundel 66 combines astronomical tables and works of so-called judicial astrology with a short collection of political prophecies. As an informal note added at the end of one of its texts suggests, the volume was...Frońska, Joanna
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Journal article
The Charles G. Leland Collection of Romani Books and Manuscripts
The American writer Charles G. Leland (1824-1903) is primarily known for his comic verses. He was, however, also a pioneering linguist who published widely on the languages of the Roma (Gypsy) people of Britain, Ireland and continental Europe. Archival collections in the American north-east hold a range of Leland's literary...Edwards, Adrian S.
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Journal article
Reading Between the Lines: Sir George Smart's Annotated Programmes for Manchester's 1836 Musical Festival
Among the papers of the distinguished conductor Sir George Thomas Smart, held by the British Library in the George Smart collection, are numerous concert programmes covered in his handwritten annotations. Reflecting his punctilious approach, these document in great detail aspects including timings, planned encores, and changes to programme and personnel....Johnson, Rachel
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Journal article
The Only Early English Translation of Giovanni Botero's Della ragion di stato: Richard Etherington and Sloane MS. 1065
Giovanni Botero (1544–1617) was an extremely popular Italian author of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. His works were translated into a number of languages and saw many editions. One of his most famous works, the Della Ragion di Stato (1589), was particularly popular in Europe. This response to...Trace, Jamie
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Hugh James Rose, James Murray and The Foreign Quarterly Review
The identity of the author of the famous article, 'Foreign Views of the Catholic Question', which appeared in The Foreign Quarterly Review in April 1829, gave rise to much contemporary debate. It has traditionally been attributed to the high church cleric Hugh James Rose. However, neither its contents or style...Wright, C. J.
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Journal article
A Mirror for Deaf Ears?A Medieval Mystery
Speculum medicine (The Mirror of Medicine) is the title of several works attested in manuscripts of the High Middle Ages. The present study deals with two of them that share some material, although their exact relationship is not clear at present. The shorter and certainly older text is a compilation,...Fischer, Klaus-Dietrich
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Journal article
Beyond Photography: An Introduction to William Henry Fox Talbot’s Notebooks in the Talbot Collection at the British Library
William Henry Fox Talbot is now primarily remembered as the pioneer of photography. This was reinforced by the disposition of his papers, notably the separation of photographs and the few notebooks which document his photographic innovations from the rest of his archive mostly concerned with other scholarly activities beyond photography....Brusius, Mirjam
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Journal article
From the 'Bibliographical Nightmare'to a Critical Bibliography. Tesori politici in the British Library, and Elsewherein Britain
This is the first critical bibliography of one of the most intricate bibliographical cases of early-modern Europe: the Tesori politici (1589-1618). For the first time, printers involved in the publication, dedicatees, and many authors of the various texts have been identified; the complete content of the various editions, reprints, and...Testa, Simone
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Journal article
A Collection of German Occasional Verse, 1701-1743, Mostly from East Frisia
An introduction to some of the noteworthy features of a recently-acquired collection of occasional verse from the former German principality of East Frisia. The collection forms a fascinating resource for the study of this material, its writers and printers, and the society in which its subjects lived. A listing of...Reed, Susan
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Journal article
Lord Nelson, HMS Victory and Sardinia - A Forgotten Episode?
This article describes the circumstances of Nelson's gift of a solid silver crucifix and two candlestick holders to the church of Santa Maria Maddalena, La Maddalena, Sardinia, in 1804.Reidy, Denis V.
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Political Verse in Late Georgian Britain: Poems Referring to William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806)
Political verse has been part of political discourse in England since before the invention of printing. It was probably past its peak by the early nineteenth century but still played a significant role in the dissemination of ideas, and provides important evidence regarding contemporary attitudes. This annotated check-list of poems...Johnson, Miles ; Harvey, A.D.
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Journal article
Effigies ad Regem Angliae and the Representation of Kingship in Thirteenth-Century English Royal Culture
The Effigies ad Regem Angliae is an unusual manuscript depicting images of the Kings of England from Edward the Confessor to Edward I. A deluxe volume, with its brief Anglo-Norman texts and its narrative scenes, it is unlike any other illustrated English historical work produced in this period. The images...Collard, Judith
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Journal article
A Franciscan Bible Illuminated in the Style of William de Brailes
The decoration in Harley MS 2813, a Bible hitherto unpublished except for an inaccurate three-line description in the Harley Catalogue, is here attributed to the famous 13th-century Oxford illuminator William de Brailes. In addition to biblical texts it contains a selection of masses which show that it was probably made...Kidd, Peter
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Journal article
George Ellis of Ellis Caymanas: A Caribbean Link to Scott and the Bronte Sisters
A biography and genealogical account of George Ellis (1753-1815), Jamaican land-owner, Whig politician and man of letters, friend of Sir Walter Scott, Richard Heber and George Canning. It is also possible that via Scott he was the inspiration for Emily Bronte's choice of the nom de plume Ellis Bell.Gawthrop, Humphrey
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‘Swifte and Secrete Writing’ in Seventeenth-Century England, and Samuel Shelton’s Brachygraphy
In the autumn of 2006 the British acquired S. Shelton's Brachygraphy of 1672, the only copy now known to be extant. This article sets Shelton's invention in the general context of seventeenth-century shorthand and considers its importance in understanding contemporary attitudes to the new fashion of short-writing both then and...Henderson, Frances
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Journal article
A Knight Hospitaller's Nostalgia for Italy during the 1790s
With the intention of making better known some manuscripts acquired by the British Library in 1987, this article introduces travel journals written by a French Knight Hospitaller of St John in the late eighteenth century and focuses on Goujon de Thuisy's nostalgia for Italy and its past during the 1790s.Allen, David Frank
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Journal article
Confiscated Nazi Books in the British Library
The British Library possesses eleven or twelve thousand books seized from German libraries and institutions between June 1944, when Anglo-American forces invaded western Europe, and 1947. Nearly half the confiscated books came from a single library, that of the German Army's Kriegsschule (known in the British Library as the Hanover...Harvey, A.D.
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Journal article
A Fragment of the Library of Theodore Haak (1605-1690)
In 1703, as part of his ongoing donations to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Hans Sloane (1660-1753) sent from his London collection some 95 volumes exclusively in German or Dutch. This article demonstrates that these books were in fact not, like his other gifts, duplicates from Sloane's library, but form...Poole, William
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The Harleian Medical Manuscripts
The article offers an overview of the contents and chronological and geographical range of the medieval medical manuscripts in the Harleian collection which has recently been the object of a full cataloguing project sponsored by the Wellcome Trust. It also provides information regarding the provenance of the manuscripts highlighting the...Nuvoloni, Laura
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Journal article
Sarah Jones and the Jacob-Jessey Church: The Relation of a Gentlewoman
Sarah Jones was a leading member of the semi-separatist Jacob-Jessey Church, in trouble with High Commission in 1632. She is here identified as Sarah Hayes, daughter of Thomas Hayes, an Alderman and Mayor of London (1614-15). She married Thomas Jones of Lambeth in 1606 and was the author of two...Wright, Stephen
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Thomas Smith, Humfrey Wanley, and the 'Little-Known Country' of the Cotton Library
Although there were many handwritten, often informal catalogues of Sir Robert Cotton's manuscripts and books during his lifetime and in the years afterwards, the desire for an official printed catalogue which could be circulated in the public realm did not really bear fruit until the late 1600s. And when two...Joy, Eileen A.
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Tupaia's Sketchbook
A group of watercolours in the British Library painted during the Pacific Ocean voyage of HM Bark Endeavour has long been attributed to the 'Artist of the Chief Mourner', sometimes identified as Joseph Banks. This article identifies the true artist as an indigenous Polynesian, Tupaia.Smith, Keith Vincent
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Emigration, Abolition and the Atlantic World in the Revolutionary Era
The upheavals of the French Revolution not only affected France and Europe, but heralded crucial consequences for the Caribbean. Revolution in Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti) led to the collapse of slavery and the creation of Haiti as an independent republic. 'Jacobin' slaves fleeing the island carried word of Revolution to British...Shaw, Matthew J.
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Using a Collection to Discover Reading Practices: The British Library Geneva Bibles and a History of their Early Modern Readers
This paper uses the British Library's entire collection of Geneva Bibles, dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to investigate their early modern readership. A survey of both the paratextual material of the vast range of editions in the collection, and of the marks which men and women from this...Molekamp, Femke
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Journal article
Caricatures from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the Paris Commune
This article identifies and illustrates some little-known collections of caricatures on the subject of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the Paris Commune of 1871.Daniels, Morna
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The English reception of Hugh of Saint-Victor's Chronicle
Explicit evidence for the reception of Hugh of Saint-Victor's Chronicle, a twelfth-century Biblical, historical and geographical compendium, has previously been limited to mainland Europe, predominantly France, Germany and Italy. This list can now be extended to include the British Isles, based on the identification of a further seven manuscripts of...Harrison, Julian
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Journal article
The Library of Henry Oldenburg
This article presents three hitherto unpublished listings of books in the library of Henry Oldenburg (c.1619-1677), the first Secretary of the Royal Society. The main list is a catalogue of his collection, first drawn up in 1670 and augmented in 1677 by his friend John Pell, who surveyed the library...Malcolm, Noel
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Journal article
A New Parallel to the Prayer 'De tenebris' in the Book of Nunnaminster (British Library, Harl. MS.2965, f.28rv)
This article studies and edits the text of the prayer 'De tenebris' as preserved in the Book of Nunnaminster (BL, Harl. MS. 2965).Raw, Barbara
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The Potter Almanacs
On the occasion of the British Library's purchase of fourteen items from Colonel W. A. Potter's collection of rare English almanacs, this paper places these new acquisitions on the context of the genre of popular ephemeral publications of the 16th and 17th centuries.Capp, Bernard
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Journal article
The Tale of Charles Perrault and Puss in Boots
The publication in 1697 of Charles Perrault's Histoires ou contes du temps passe, better known by their subtitle of Contes de ma mere L'Oye, was to prove a seminal event in the history of children's literature. Often assumed subsequently to be folk tales, these stories were, in fact, the product...Daniels, Morna
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Little Red Riding-Hood
The history of the tale of Little Red Riding-Hood from Charles Perrault's manuscript of 1695, via illustrated editions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to the present day.Daniels, Morna
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The British Museum Library and the development of the international exchange of official documents
In 1867 the United States Congress empowered the Smithsonian Institution to negotiate complete reciprocal exchanges of official publications with foreign governments. The impetus to such international exchanges was eventually embodied in two Brussels Conventions of 1886, although the United Kingdom was not a signatory. This article traces how, despite this,...Sternberg, Ilse
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George Chowdharay-Best: a bibliography
Until his death in April 2000, George Chowdharay-Best was a familiar figure in the reading rooms of the British Library. For many years he was on the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary, rising to be a Senior Assistant Editor. While most of his scholarly work was subsumed in this...Beedell, A. V. ; Harvey, A.D.
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Journal article
England's Populist Pindars
During the Regency of 1811-1820 English readers were regularly and abundantly supplied with racy narrative poems that digested and satirized the news of the day, poems with such titles as The Royal Brood, The Cork Rump, A Peep at the Pavilion, The Disappointed Duke, and The German Sausages. Many of...Jackson, H. J.
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Witnesses to Medieval Medical Practice in the Harley Collection
The new Wellcome Trust funded catalogue of medieval medical manuscripts in the Harley collection brings to light some of the critical documents for understanding how medicine was actually practised in fifteenth-century England. Thomas Fayreford and John Crophill both kept notes of their cures in manuscripts they owned, while the anonymous...Jones, Peter Murray
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Journal article
Henry VIII and British Library, Royal MS. 2 A. XVI: Marginalia in King Henry's Psalter
The book which Henry VIII most heavily annotated is the manuscript Psalter Royal MS 2 A XVI held in the British Library. This note records and comments on one previously overlooked feature - the omission of numerous verses from Psalm 77. It also records the findings of a more detailed...Christie-Miller, Ian
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Journal article
'Handsomely bound in cloth': UK Book Cover Designs 1840-1880
A review of the many varied cover designs made for cloth trade bindings, with reference to signed cover designs, together with a review of online resources for the further study of these.King, Edmund M. B.
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The British Library, Europeana 1914-1918 and the Memorialization of the Great War
Europeana 1914-1918 digitised a wealth of material in various formats (stories, films and historical material, manuscripts and printed items), all of which are directly related to World War I. A feature of the collection is that it brings together the holdings of cultural institutions (among them the British Library) and...Jenkins, Jeremy
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Journal article
Sloane's Portuguese Books
This article aims to systematize and briefly analyse the collection of books printed at Portuguese presses which once belonged to Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753). Portuguese books (or Portuguese printing) are here defined as early books and other materials printed in Portugal (including overseas territories during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth...Costa, Júlio
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Journal article
Writing-Tables and Table-Books
On the occasion of the British Library's purchase from the collection of Colonel W. A. Potter of the only known copy of a set of writing tables (or pocket notebook) issued by John Hammond and published in 1618, this paper describes this new acquisition and and surveys references to writing...Woudhuysen, H.R.
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Journal article
The First Manuals of English History: Two Late Thirteenth-Century Genealogical Rolls of the Kings of England in the Royal Collection
The reign of Edward I (1272-1307) witnessed the creation of numerous genealogical rolls of the kings of England from Egbert to the reigning king, initially in Latin (for instance BL, Add. MS. 30079), but then more often in Anglo-Norman. As Thomas Wright first intuited in 1872, these much innovative aide-mémoire...Laborderie, Olivier de
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Journal article
Henry of Blois's Gift Lists in Add. MS. 29436: Why the Discrepancies?
Folios 46v-48r of Add. MS. 29436 contain two lists of the gifts donated by Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester (1129 – 71) to his cathedral church. The shorter list post-dates Bishop Henry's death, the longer list probably belongs to the last decade of his life. This article examines the...Munns, John
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Journal article
Philip Harris: Accomplished Librarian and Acclaimed Historian of the British Museum Library
An appreciation of the life and work of the author of A History of the British Museum Library, 1753-1973 (London, 1998).Phillips, Andrew
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Journal article
The Reading Room in Literature
A survey of references to the Reading Rooms of the British Museum Library from its foundation in 1753 to the 1960s, with some personal memories.Harris, P. R.
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Journal article
A New Witness to Henry of Avranches's Vita Sancti Oswaldi in London, British Library, Cotton MS. Faustina B. VII
Cotton MS. Faustina B. VII. contains a previously unexamined piece of parchment inscribed with several verses taken from Henry of Avranches’ Vita Sancti Oswaldi, composed c. 1230. The article highlights the value of this textual witness in relation to the transmission of the Vita and discusses the function of the...Ispir, Cristian N.
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Journal article
An Overlooked Connection of Anne Boleyn's Maid of Honour, Elizabeth Holland, with BL, King's MS. 9
BL, King's MS. 9 is one of only three Books of Hours with a connection to Henry VIII's second wife, the controversial Anne Boleyn. This prayer book provides an intimate insight into Henry VIII's courtship of Anne, but its historical significance does not end here. It has been hitherto overlooked...Zupanec, Sylwia Sobczak
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Journal article
The Bibliographical History of The Spectator
The bibliographical history of The Spectator 1712-2016 is a list of all complete editions and extracts in English (published in England, Scotland, Ireland, and the American colonies – later the United States of America) and French. It is intended to be comprehensive, but it may be that some extracts have...Bernard, Stephen
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Journal article
A Collection of Georg Rhau's Music Editions and Some Previously Unnoticed Works
Georg Rhau (1488–1548) was an important figure in the Reformation, the beginning of which is celebrated in this quincentenary year. Rhau published for the famous German theologian, author and teacher Martin Luther (1483–1546) and his circle a substantial body of works, many of which enjoyed considerable popularity. A close friend...Charteris, Richard
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Journal article
The Catholicon Anglicum (British Library, Add. MS. 89074): An Analysis of the Physical Evidence of its Production and Binding
On 27 February 2014, the British Library acquired the only known complete surviving copy of the Catholicon Anglicum, one of the earliest Middle English-Latin dictionaries, and thereby secured for the nation a key source for the study of English language and lexicography. The manuscript had been in the possession of...Freeman, James
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Journal article
Scribes, Kings, and a Roll Chronicle: Dating and Provenance of British Library, Add. MS. 30029
Created in a period of political transition, as England moved from the end of Henry III’s reign towards that of Edward I, British Library Add. MS. 30079 is an important witness to the historical events of the late thirteenth century. This manuscript was one of the first chronicle rolls written...Bellato, Giulia
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Journal article
The Annotated Amleth: Belleforest in the British Library
The account of Amleth in François de Belleforest’s Le Cinquiesme Livre des Histoires Tragiques is a recognized source for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The British Library copy of the Lyon 1576 edition (C.8.a.5) bears various manuscript annotations which reveal an early reader’s approach to Belleforest’s text: one possible author of these annotations...Casson, John
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Journal article
Tambimuttu: Re-Inventing the Art of Poetry Illustration
M. J. T. Tambimuttu, the much maligned Ceylonese editor of Poetry London and Editions Poetry London, was in fact consistently admired at home and abroad during the Second World War. Both his periodical and books were held in high esteem by his peers for their aesthetic innovations: his judicious commissions...Boselli, Sandra
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Journal article
'The Most Bogus Ideas': Science, Religion and Creationism in the John Maynard Smith Archive
The science and religion question is one of continued interest in academia and in the non-academic public. In terms of biology, discussions almost inevitably revolve around evolution and (human) origins, contrasting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by means of natural selection to the Biblical account of creation and origins in...Piel, Helen
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Journal article
Disembodied: Additional MS. 8785 and the Tradition of Human Organ Depictions in Medieval Art and Medicine
While Bartholomaeus Anglicus’s De proprietatibus rerum – a popular medieval encyclopaedia describing the properties of ‘things’ – has attracted the attention of scholars for centuries, far less well known is the British Library’s unique copy in the Mantuan dialect. This manuscript, Additional MS. 8785, was translated by Vivaldo Belcalzer, an...McCall, Taylor
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Journal article
The Theodore Psalter and the Rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
The Byzantine decorated psalters form a particularly rich source of knowledge about cultural life. One such manuscript is the Theodore Psalter (London, BL Add. MS 19352), which was made in Constantinople in 1066. It is one of a group of psalters that have been studied in various contexts, including that...Hennessy, Cecily
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Journal article
From West Country Farmers to W. H. Ireland, the Shakespeare Forger: The Previous Owners of Thomas Tusser's Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1599), BL, C.122.bb.40
This article examines the provenance of a rare sixteenth-century copy of Thomas Tusser’s Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie (Edinburgh, 1599), an agricultural manual that, unlike previous guides, was aimed at tenant farmers at the lower end of the social order. These rural farmers had relatively modest levels of literacy...Smith, Maddy
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Journal article
Nautical Charts, Texts, and Transmission: The Case of Conte di Ottomano Freducci and Fra Mauro
The article addresses an unstudied nautical chart made by Conte di Ottomano Freducci in 1529 (British Library Add. MS. 11548) which is unusual for its long and non-traditional legends (descriptive texts). Following a discussion of what we know about Freducci and a survey of all his surviving works, I supply...Duzer, Chet Van
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Journal article
A Fragmentary Draft as the Groundwork for Bloodthirsty 'Sir Cauline' in Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: British Library, Add. MS. 39547, f. 157v
This article takes a novel approach to Thomas Percy's draft on 'Sir Cauline' in his ballad collection Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, which is stored in the British Library (Add. MS. 39547, f. 157v). Very little attention has heretofore been paid to the conflation of the draft with the romance...Mihara, Minoru
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Journal article
The Watermarks on the Northumberland Manuscript and Hand D: Research Findings and Reflections on the Shakespeare Authorship Question
Key manuscript documents relevant to the Shakespeare Authorship Question are examined for the watermarks on the paper. Manuscripts of ten contemporaries are examined, revealing that variations of a generic watermark of a pot were used by the paper manufacturers. Elements of this watermark are analysed and examples compared. This process...Casson, John