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Journal article
Humfrey Wanley and the Harley Collection
In the field of manuscript studies, the name Humfrey Wanley (1672-1726) is well known. Scholars have long recognized his achievements as Anglo-Saxonist, antiquarian, palaeographer, cataloguer, and librarian to Robert Harley and his son, Edward, 1st and 2nd earls of Oxford, who created one of the most outstanding private libraries in...Jackson, Deirdre
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Journal article
Destroyed, Damaged and Replaced: The Legacy of World War II Bomb Damage in the King's Library
In the early hours of 23 September 1940, an incendiary bomb fell on the East Wing of the British Museum, damaging an important part of the King's Library Gallery and destroying many of the books collected by King George III. A contemporary assessment estimated that 124 volumes (96 works) had...Edwards, Adrian S.
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Journal article
Matthew Paris, Visual Exegesis, and Apocalyptic Birds in Royal MS. 14 C. VII
This article argues that the prefatory maps in Royal MS. 14 C. VII act as a visual distillation of the vast system of emblems in the margins of the other Chronica Majora manuscripts. Recently, scholars have discussed Matthew Paris’s visual marginalia as reading devices and finding aids that distill sections...Kim, Dorothy
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Journal article
Harley MS. 3469: Splendor Solis or Splendour of the Sun – A German Alchemical Manuscript
‘Splendor Solis or Splendour of the Sun’ is one of the most beautiful and well known illuminated alchemical manuscripts. The text survives in many witnesses dating from the early sixteenth to the nineteenth century, of which Harl. MS. 3469 is definitely the most famous and best preserved example. Yet the...Völlnagel, Jörg
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Journal article
Accounts of Debates in the House of Commons, March-April 1731, Supplementary to the Diary of the First Earl of Egmont
John Perceval (1685–1748), 1st Viscount Perceval and (from 1733) 1st Earl of Egmont, was an assiduous recorder of his own life and times. His diaries, published by the Historical Manuscripts Commission from manuscripts in the British Library, are the best source for parliamentary debates at Westminster in the 1730s. For...Hayton, D. W.
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Journal article
The Making of L'Abreujamen de las estorias (Egerton MS. 1500)
L’Abreujamen de las estorias (BL, Egerton MS. 1500) is an Occitan diagrammatic chronicle executed in Avignon in 1321-24. It is composed of synchronic tables, regnal lists and genealogical diagrams, and is illustrated with more than sixteen-hundred miniature busts. Written instructions, corrections, sketches and unfinished miniatures attest to different stages in...Botana, Federico
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Journal article
The Westminster Tournament Challenge (Harley 83 H 1) and Thomas Wriothesley's Workshop
On the twelfth and thirteenth of February, 1511 Henry VIII held a tournament to celebrate the birth of his first son, Prince Arthur. The tournament is famously immortalized in the Westminster Tournament Roll (London, College of Arms, Westminster Tournament Roll) – a 60-foot long vellum roll that was painted soon...Walker, Alison Tara
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Journal article
The Discovery of a Watermark on the St Cuthbert Gospel using Colour Space Analysis
Watermarks on paper attached to substrates through which light cannot pass can be observed by converting a high resolution digital image of the region into a suite of colour spaces. An image is comprised of a variety of layers or textures which can be separated. This allows pixels of interest...Duffy, Christina
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Journal article
Understanding a Selection of Medical, Theological and Poetic Diagrams in a Thirteenth-Century Book of Biblical Commentaries: British Library, Harley MS. 658
British Library, Harley MS. 658 is a miscellany of study aids for the Bible from the early thirteenth century, bound together with a collection of scientific, poetic and theological diagrams. The texts were written by different scribes probably at separate times and places, but, apart from two texts at the...Corran, Emily
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Journal article
The Problem of Death: Dr Maurice Ernest and his Longevity Library
Maurice Ernest (ne Ernst, 1872-1955) was a notable student of human longevity. This article studies his life and his extensive library, which was donated to the National Central Library and is now in the British Library at Boston Spa.Evans, Lucy
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Journal article
John Jaffray: Victorian Bookbinder, Chartist and Trade Unionist
John Jaffray (1811-1869) was a journeyman – a qualified binder – who did not own his own business but worked for others. His professional life as a finisher took him to numerous workshops in central London. He was also an historian of his trade, collecting ephemera and the memories of...Marks, P. J. M.
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Journal article
A Donizetti Manuscript in the Zweig Collection
Stefan Zweig's collection of music manuscripts, donated to the British Library in 1986, contains autographs by some of the major canonical composers of European history; from Bach, Mozart and Beethoven through to Wagner and Strauss and Schoenberg. A piece by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) in the collection, which does not seem...Scobie, Christopher
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Journal article
John Wilson Croker's Image of France in the Quarterly Review
Political developments in France provided a substantial topic for British periodicals during the first half of the nineteenth century. The most sustained comment came from the Rt Hon. John Wilson Croker, a close associate of the Duke of Wellington, Canning and Pitt, who was Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809...Morphet, David
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Journal article
Some Greek Gospel Manuscripts in the British Library: Examples of the Byzantine Book as Holy Receptacle and Bearer of Hidden Meaning
The Gospel book is by far the most numerous, and hence the most important and characteristic, genre of book production in Byzantine culture. A detailed survey of the surviving material in the British Library carried by the author provides an overview of the Byzantine perception of the Gospel book, and...Takiguchi, Mika
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Journal article
The Printed Books of the Cotton Family and Their Dispersal: Additions
As a supplement to the author’s ‘The Printed Books of the Cotton Family and Their Dispersal’, in Giles Mandelbrote and Barry Taylor (eds.), Libraries within the Library: The Origins of the British Library’s Printed Collections (London: British Library, 2009), pp. 43-75, the present article identifies five copies and adds two...Tite, Colin G. C.
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Journal article
Newly Catalogued Pamphlets from the India Office Library Collection
This note records the recent cataloguing of a collection of pamphlets received by the India Office Library during the 1920s and 30s, nearly 75% of which are new to the British Library.Pickett, Catherine
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Journal article
Monastic Learning in Twelfth-Century England: Marginalia, Provenance and Use in London, British Library, Cotton MS. Faustina A. X, Part B
BL, Cotton Faustina A.x is a composite manuscript consisting of a late Anglo-Saxon copy of Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary (Part A) and an early 12th-century copy of the Regula Sancti Benedicti in Old English (Part B). This study attempts to shed new light on the question of the composite’s provenance...López, Francisco José Álvarez
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Journal article
Near Vermilion Sands: The Context and Date of Composition of an Abandoned Literary Draft by J. G. Ballard
The literary archive of J. G. Ballard at the British Library includes an unpublished story set in the environs of Vermilion Sands, a fictional desert resort that is the exotic location of nine stories Ballard wrote between 1956 and 1966. The stories were subsequently collected and published as 'Vermilion Sands'...Beckett, Chris
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Journal article
An Unidentified French Incunable: Sir John Mandeville, Le lapidaire en francoys, [Lyon, c. 1495-1496]
The British Library's copy of the Lapidaire en francoys attributed to Sir John Mandeville, previously dated [c. 1530], can be shown on typographical grounds to be an incunable edition printed in Lyon c. 1495 or 1496. The book is printed with a very peculiar Lyon bastarda type whose printer is...Shaw, David J.
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Journal article
A Lost Manuscript of the 'Rymes of […] Randolf Erl of Chestre'
The first ever reference to Robin Hood as a literary character, in William Langland’s Piers Plowman, refers to ‘rymes of Robyn Hood and Randolf Erl of Chestre’. The reference to ‘Randolf’ has intrigued literary historians, as no medieval narrative verse is known to survive which features Ranulf, earl of Chester,...Spence, John
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Journal article
A Genealogy of the Kings of England in Papal Avignon: British Library, Egerton MS. 1500
This article examines the use of Anglo-Norman genealogical rolls in Fra Paolino Veneto’s L’Abreujamen de las estorias (Eg. MS. 1500), a diagrammatic world history that was composed in the Occitan vernacular in papal Avignon, circa 1321-1326 (see eBLJ articles by Botana and Ibarz). That such documents were available as a...Léglu, Catherine
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Journal article
A Medieval Psalter 'Perfected': Eighteenth-Century Conservationism and an Early (Female) Restorer of Rare Books and Manuscripts
Many medieval manuscripts suffered from antiquarian zeal during the eighteenth-century revival of interest in medieval art: enthusiasts often augmented their own albums and private collections by removing attractive illuminations from manuscript pages, leaving wounded books in their wake. Less familiar is the restorative work of their contemporaries, a small number...Drimmer, Sonja
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Journal article
The Evolution of George Hakewill’s Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God, 1627-1637: Academic Contexts, and Some New Angles from Manuscripts
This article examines aspects of the genesis and textual evolution of George Hakewill’s celebrated Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God, published in three ever-expanding editions in 1627, 1630, and 1635. Rather than comparing the three printed texts, however, this study instead focuses first on the political...Poole, William
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Journal article
Past, Present and Future for Thirteenth-Century Wales: Two Diagrams in British Library, Cotton Roll XIV.12
British Library Cotton Roll XIV.12 presents a rich vision of British history from the perspective of its thirteenth-century maker. Over nearly sixteen metres of surviving parchment, human history from Adam and Eve to the reign of William Rufus is presented through an intricate combination of texts and imagery. This article...Cleaver, Laura
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Journal article
Robert Harley and the Myth of the Golden Thread: Family Piety, Journalism and the History of the Assassination Attempt of 8 March 1711
The myth has persisted amongst historians that the life of Robert Harley was saved by the golden embroidery in the waistcoat that he was wearing at the time of the assassination attempt with a penknife by the marquis de Guiscard on 8 March 1711. This myth is examined and traced...Jones, Clyve
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Journal article
A Fourteenth-Century Register of Freizins Rents from Erfurt (British Library, Add. MS. 24637)
Add. MS. 24637 is a register of specially-privileged Freizins rents collected by the archbishop of Mainz at Erfurt from the years 1351-1358. Other registers in the series from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are preserved at the Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt in Magdeburg, and consequently the British Library manuscript has been overlooked...Pope, Ben
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Journal article
Daniel Foote, M.D., of Cambridge: The Evidence in Print and from the Sloane Collection
This article introduces the physician and translator Daniel Foote (1629-1700), predominantly though his little-examined manuscripts in the Sloane Collection. Foote survives in the scholarly memory principally as the translator of the unpublished ‘Observations’ of Francis Mercury Van Helmont (1682) and sometimes as a contributor to a dispute in the Royal...Thorley, David
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Journal article
Bob Cobbing, Visual Art Works (1942-73): A Preliminary Survey
Amongst the papers of Bob Cobbing at the British Library are two lists the poet compiled of his visual art works. Taken together, the lists record 153 works produced between 1942 and 1973. Information from these two documents has been collated to generate a single list, prefaced by an introduction...Beckett, Chris
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Journal article
A Scottish Whig View of the Character of Robert Harley,Earl of Oxford, in 1713
The character and personality of past politicians are difficult to discover. In the absence of a dairy or intimate letters the best source is often a description by a third party, but in early modern British history these can be rare. Such evidence, however, is often difficult to use because...Jones, Clyve
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Journal article
'A Poor Jonah': John Osborne's Roads to Freedom
While recent years have seen increasing critical engagement with British theatre in the years preceding John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, few writers have concentrated on the theatre of Osborne himself before 1956. However, the emergence in the British Library's collections in 2009 of two play-scripts written by Osborne and...Andrews, Jamie
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Journal article
The Metamorphoses of a Late Fifteenth-Century Psalter (Harl. MS. 1892)
This article examines in detail a psalter for the use of Sarum executed in Rouen c. 1490-1500, to which a series of unexpected additions have been made. These include sections painted in the style of the Netherlandish Dark Eyes Masters and added leaves in various hands copied after engravings by...Yvard, Catherine
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Journal article
The Golden Treasury: 150 Years On
The success of the Golden Treasury was immediate and enduring. Buoyed by adroit advertising and burgeoning national literacy, its enthusiastic reception by critics and public led to four editions within the lifetime of its originator, Francis Turner Palgrave, and eventually to a prominent place in schools, households, and indeed the...Spevack, Marvin
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Journal article
Underground London: From Cave Culture Follies to the Avant-Garde
London has had a long love affair with grottos, cellars, and caves. Based on the G. Creed collection, a superb discovery in British Library collections of fourteen large folio volumes on taverns in England and Wales, this essay traces the history from eighteenth century follies like Pope's grotto, to the...Harskamp, Jaap
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Journal article
Edward Angelo Goodall (1819-1908): An Artist's Travels in British Guiana and the Crimea
It is fair to say that Edward Angelo Goodall is one of Victorian Britain's lesser known artists. He hailed from a family of artists and had a relatively successful artistic career, exhibiting regularly. Yet he never seemed quite able to emerge from the shadows cast by a more successful brother...St John-McAlister, Michael
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Journal article
J. M. W. Turner and his World: John Platt (1842-1902), a Late Victorian Extra-illustrator, and his Collection
This essay highlights a recent re-discovery at The British Library: an extra-illustrated copy of George Walter Thornbury's The Life of J. M.W. Turner, London, 1862 (Tab.438.a.1). Thornbury is still a standard source for the history of this great British artist, but this unique copy enhanced with over 1,600 portraits, views,...Myrone, Felicity
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Journal article
Lewis Morris and the Mabinogion
In 1764 the antiquarian Lewis Morris described the medieval Welsh texts known as the Four Branches of the Mabinogi in a notebook now in the British Library (BL, Additional MS. 14024). This is the first description of those texts which were to become the centrepiece of medieval Welsh prose literature...Luft, Diana
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Journal article
John Grose (1744-1771): Correspondence relating to his Career in Bengal, 1763-1771
John Grose (1744-1771): Correspondence relating to his Career in Bengal, 1763-1771. The papers contained in BL, MSS Eur E284, Letters and papers of and relating to John Grose (c. 1744-71), East India Company servant […] chiefly comprising letters to members of his family, formerly formed part of a larger collection...Pedley, Avril
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Journal article
The Royal Music Library and its Handel Collection
On 27 November 1957 Queen Elizabeth II presented the Royal Music Library to the Trustees of the British Museum, a gift commemorating the two hundredth anniversary of King George II's presentation of the Old Royal Library to the recently-established Museum. It was among the largest musical acquisitions ever made by...Burrows, Donald
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Journal article
London, British Library Royal MS. 8 A. XVIII: A Unique Insight into the Career of a Cistercian Monk at the University of Oxford in the Early Fifteenth Century
Royal MS. 8 A. XVIII is an early fifteenth-century Cistercian manuscript of Oxford origin. A scholar’s handbook, it contains Scholastic and legal tracts: a florilegium (primarily comprising sententiae from the Corpus Aristotelicum) and a series of short or abridged works on natural philosophy, juxtaposed with brief tracts on canon law...Fitzpatrick, Antonia
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Journal article
1793: A Song of the Natives of New South Wales
‘A Song of the Natives of New South Wales’, written down in London in 1793, documents the first Australian Aboriginal song heard in Europe. The singers, Bennelong and his young kinsman Yemmerrawanne, were far from their Wangal homeland on the south bank of the Parramatta River in Sydney, New South...Smith, Keith Vincent
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Journal article
The Duke of Newcastle's Letters on the Fall of Walpole in 1742
Thomas Pelham Holles, Duke of Newcastle, secretary of state and effective leader of the House of Lords in Sir Robert Walpole's whig ministry, was accused by Walpole after his fall in 1742 of having failed the ministry, along with Lord Hardwick, the lord chancellor, by not giving the required support....Jones, Clyve
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Journal article
Fortunate Survivors: Maps and Map Fragments in the Bagford Collection
The printing samples collected together by John Bagford have been part of the British Library, formally British Museum, collections since 1753, and yet the few maps amongst them have so far not been studied. The present article will explore the reasons for this through the example of one particular volume...Harper, Tom
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Journal article
Guy of Saint-Denis and the Compilation of Texts about Music in London, British Library, Harl. MS. 281
This paper explores the codicological features, contents and history of BL Harl. MS. 281, an anthology of writings on music theory copied by a single hand in the early fourteenth century, well known inter alia for including one of only two copies of the Ars musice of Johannes de Grocheio....Mews, Constant J. ; Jeffreys, Catherine ; McKinnon, Leigh ; Williams, Carol ; Crossley, John N.
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Journal article
The Library Lists of Francis Lodwick FRS (1619-1694): An Introduction to Sloane MSS. 855 and 859, and a Searchable Transcript
Francis Lodwick FRS (1619-1694) was a merchant of Flemish and French extraction, and an early linguist. Among his manuscripts now in the Sloane collection are two catalogues of books, Sloane MS. 859 and Sloane MS. 855. Together they total well over 5000 titles. Both lists can be securely linked with...Henderson, Felicity ; Poole, William
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Journal article
The Pacific King and the Militant Prince? Representation and Collaboration in the Letters Patent of James I, creating his son, Henry, Prince of Wales
The relationship of King James VI and I with his elder son and heir, Prince Henry Frederick, has received much scholarly attention in recent years. James has often been portrayed as a resentful father whose peaceful policies were at odds with his son’s martial interests and militant Protestantism. With reference...Murray, Catriona
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Journal article
The Provenance of the Abreujamens de las estorias (London, British Library, Egerton MS. 1500) and the Identification of Scribal Hands (c. 1323)
This essay provides an overview of research undertaken on the provenance of a medieval Occitan (Old Provençal) translation of an unedited diagrammatic chronicle of Paolino of Venice (Marciana, Zanetti 399). It confirms the existing suspicion that the manuscript was produced in Avignon, and provides a possible dating of 1321-1323; it...Ibarz, Alexander
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Journal article
Who was Mozart's Laura? Abendempfindung and the Editors
Mozart's song Abendempfindung (K523) was written in 1787. This article challenges the editorial decision of the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe (1963) to rename it Abendempfindung an Laura.Paisey, David
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Journal article
Early Northern Iroquoian Language Books in the British Library
This article surveys seventy-six antiquarian materials in or about Northern Iroquoian, a group of indigenous North American languages from the eastern side of the United States and Canada. The languages covered are: Laurentian, Huron/Wyandot, Susquehannock, Tuscarora, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk. The aim is to survey what can be...Edwards, Adrian S.
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Journal article
Good Morals for a Couple at the Burgundian Court: Contents and Context of Harley 1310, Le Livre des bonnes meurs of Jacques Legrand
London, British Library, Harley MS. 1310 has received no scholarly attention for decades, perhaps even centuries. The aim of this article is to frame more precisely the early owners whose arms are painted in the lower margin of the frontispiece folio and to contextualize the manuscript and especially its illumination....Wijsman, Hanno
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Journal article
Mad Dogs and Scotsmen: A Plain Tale from the Military Collections of the India Office Records Section of the British Library
The Military Collections of the India Office Records of the British Library document the experiences of four Gordon Highlanders sent to the Institut Pasteur in Paris for treatment for rabies in the summer of 1896.Mulvihill, Margaret
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Journal article
Manuscripts Supplied to Robert Harley by John Bagford: Further Information from BL, Harl. MS. 5998
The London bookseller, John Bagford (? 1650/1-1716), transferred – probably by sale – many parts of his collections, printed and manuscript, to Sir Robert Harley (1661-1724), with the assistance of Harley’s librarian, Humfrey Wanley (1672-1726), and Harley’s son, Edward Harley (1689-1741). BL, Harl. MS. 5998, once thought to be an...Tite, Colin G. C.
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Journal article
Advising France through the Example of England: Visual Narrative in the Livre de la prinse et mort du roy Richart (Harl. MS. 1319)
Some time between November 1401 and March 1402 Jean Creton wrote an eyewitness account of King Richard II’s deposition in 1399. Around 1405 Duke John of Berry, the uncle of the French King Charles VI, was given the only richly illuminated copy of the text to survive. This article examines...Hedeman, Anne D.
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Journal article
Sir Thomas Jewell Bennett (1852-1925)
An account of the personal papers of Sir Thomas Jewell Bennett (1852-1925), editor/principal proprietor of the Times of India and Conservative MP for Sevenoaks. They form an interesting source for politics and other issues in British India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.O'Brien, John
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Journal article
The Library Catalogues of Sir Hans Sloane: Their Authors, Organization, and Functions
This article undertakes a detailed examination of the library catalogues of Sir Hans Sloane, whose collections formed the basis of the British Museum and thus of the British Library. These are now held in the British Library: Sloane MS 3972B, Sloane MS 3972C, Sloane MS 3972D and an interleaved copy...Blakeway, Amy
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Journal article
Kissing Images, Unfurling Rolls, Measuring Wounds, Sewing Badges and Carrying Talismans: Considering Some Harley Manuscripts through the Physical Rituals they Reveal
This article considers how early users of prayer books handled and interacted with their manuscripts. Deploying evidence from signs of wear within the manuscripts themselves, the author argues that medieval believers used manuscripts ritually in such a way that they blurred the distinction between images and their referents. Votaries treated...Rudy, Kathryn M.
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Journal article
Beyond the Template: Aesthetics and Meaning in the Images of the Roman d'Alexandre en prose in Harley MS. 4979
The Roman d’Alexandre en prose is the translation into Old French of a Latin text known as the Historia de preliis. The processes of language conversion and transcription during the Middle Ages allowed patrons and manuscript-making ateliers to adapt and bring classical works up to date with medieval tastes and...Pérez-Simon, Maud
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Book
Animals: Art, Science and Sound
Artworks, manuscripts, printed works and wildlife sound recordings come together in this major compendium of the greatest and strangest representations of animals on record. Published to accompany a 2023 British Library exhibition. Eighty detailed case studies highlight celebrated works, including John James Audubon’s The Birds of America, Matthew Paris’s Liber...Roy, Malini ; Sharp Jones, Cam ; Tipp, Cheryl
animals, sound, exhibitions, art, and science
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Research report
UK Railway Archive (AR-UK)
Archive The Railway UK (AR-UK) is a comprehensive digital platform designed to enhance the online archives of the UK rail network. This initiative, developed in collaboration with Living with Machines, is primarily focused on research, historical preservation, and providing public access to railway history. As a centralized resource, it caters...Sheppard, Joanne
digital humanities, Victorian, rail, data visualisation, and Living with Machines
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Research report
The Devils After the Fall
This is a report by Nicola Baldwin of a Digital Residency at Living With Machines, on the dataset: Crowdsourced accidents data from Newspapers, working in line with the LWM aims for Radical Collaboration, New Perspectives, Analysing at Scale. The following document is a personal account of work done, thoughts arising...Baldwin, Nicola
Living with Machines, accidents, Victorian, film, crowdsourcing, newspaper, and digital humanities
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Research report
Visualising press politics in the United Kingdom
This project's main goal, as outlined in the initial proposal, was to develop an interactive, open-source web app that visualizes data from the Press Directories dataset alongside historical general election results. In this report, I will delve into the challenges encountered, the interesting findings uncovered, and the potential avenues for...Bonato, Nicolò
historcial newspapers, digital humanities, Victorian, politics, data visualisation, and Living with Machines
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Research report
An Etiquette For Minor Time Travel
A report documenting the Living with Machines Digital Residency project called "An Etiquette for Minor Time Travel" by Robert Sherman. Via an open call and running from to July 2023, six Digital Residencies were funded by the Living with Machines project to support researchers and practitioners devising creative approaches to...Sherman, Robert
art, Living with Machines, Victorian, rail, data visualisation, digital humanities, and poetry
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Research report
Publishing updated version of ‘R for Newspaper Data’
My Living with Machines Digital Residency, which I carried out between May and July 2023, allowed me to update and publish an online book on accessing and analysing newspaper data. The goal of the book is to make available an end-to-end set of instructions and tutorials which would allow researchers,...Ryan, Yann Ciarán
digital humanities, Victorian, historical newspapers, and Living with Machines
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Disentangling Digital Preservation Risk: An Interdisciplinary Exploration and Solution
Memory institutions such as the British Library face the important challenge of preserving their digital collections for future generations. Disciplinary efforts to address this challenge are extensive but demonstrate significant inconsistency and uncertainty about how the field understands risk, as well as what it considers to be a valid response....Pennock, Maureen
libraries, risk, risk science, archives, digital preservation, reference model, and design science
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Journal article
Working at scale: what do computational methods mean for research using cases, models and collections?
Open access, peer-reviewed article published in Science Museum Group Journal, as part of a double-length special issue for the AHRC TaNC discovery project, 'Congruence Engine'. The article gives a critical overview of how 'scale' operates as a keyword within computational humanities as well as reviewing a number of cognate fields,...Wilson, Daniel C S
machine learning, AI for GLAM, STS, scale, computational humanities, history, and congruence engine
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Journal article
J. G. Ballard's 'Elaborately Signalled Landscape': The Drafting of Concrete Island
The archive of J. G. Ballard at the British Library contains two very different draft texts for 'Concrete Island': an undated typescript substantially revised by hand, and a 'first draft screenplay' dated 20 September 1972. The screenplay is, in the author’s words on the title page, 'from the novel of...Beckett, Chris
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Journal article
Harley MS. 2979 and the Books of Hours Produced in Avignon by the Workshop of Jean de Toulouse
This contribution is centred on Harley MS. 2979, a Book of Hours illuminated in the last decade of the fourteenth century in Avignon, the capital of the antipopes during the Schism. Although now rather worn, it seems to have been one of the finest and most expensive of the Books...Manzari, Francesca
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Journal article
A Transcription and Translation of Sloane MS. 2131, Robert Ashley’s (1561-1641) Vita: with Additional Biographical Details
British Library Sloane MS. 2131, Vita, is an autobiography written in Latin by Robert Ashley (1565-1641), bibliophile, lawyer, and translator. Ashley bequeathed his collection of approximately 5000 books to establish a library at Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court. This is the first full transcription and translation...Kelser, Astrid ; Nelson, Jennifer K. ; Satterley, Renae
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Journal article
The Spiral-Locked Letters of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots
This article presents evidence about the use of the ‘spiral lock’, a highly secure letterlocking mechanism used by Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and other letter-writers in early modern Europe, to secure their correspondence shut. After explaining the concept of letterlocking, a centuries-old communication security technique, we demonstrate how...Dambrogio, Jana ; Smith, Daniel Starza ; Pellecchia, Jennifer ; Wiggins, Alison ; Clarke, Andrea …
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Journal article
The Alice N. Hays Notebook: A Tour of Early Twentieth-Century Library Methods in the UK and Europe
In the summer of 1909, Stanford librarian Alice Newman Hays embarked on a journey to visit libraries across England and Europe, compiling a record of cataloguing practices to share with her colleagues back in California. Among the stops on Alice's journey were prestigious institutions like the Bodleian Library and British...Jordan, Jessica Camille
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Journal article
The Formation, development and curation of the Tapling Collection at the British Museum Library in the Nineteenth Century
In 1891 Thomas Keay Tapling bequeathed his near complete, worldwide collection of stamps and postal stationery to the British Museum Library. To celebrate the 130th anniversary of this event which created the British Library's Philatelic Collections, this article provides an overview of the Tapling Collection's formation, development and early curation...Morel, Richard Scott
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Journal article
Consul Joseph Smith’s Gold-Tooled Leather Bookbindings
To some researchers Consul Joseph Smith's (1682-1770) favoured binding style would comprise plain white/cream parchment covers and coloured spine pieces. There are many examples in the library of George III. This tells only part of the whole story, however, as more elaborate styles exist. As a bibliophile Smith would at...Marks, P. J. M.
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Journal article
James McNeill Whistler to Richard D’Oyly Carte: A Letter Comes to Light at the British Library
Recently catalogued papers of the Doyly Carte family held at the British Library have brought to light a ‘lost’ letter from the American artist James McNeill Whistler to theatrical impresario and hotelier Richard D’Oyly Carte. The letter refers to Whistler’s decoration scheme for Carte’s home at No. 4 Adelphi Terrace...Beckett, Chris
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Journal article
The Papers of Edward Scott, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum 1888-1904
Edward Scott (1840-1918) was a member of the Department of Manuscripts, British Museum for just over forty years, 1863-1904. From 1888 until his retirement he was Keeper of Manuscripts and yet he is not as well remembered as his predecessors or successors. In 2014 the British Library acquired a small...Wright, C.J.
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Journal article
From popular to rare: Acquisition and preservation policies at the British Museum Library in Panizzi’s time
Large quantities of Italian early modern books were dispersed on a vast scale mainly from the 1760s onwards as a consequence of the decline of the local aristocracy, the French Revolution and the suppressions of religious libraries. Increasing interest in the Italian Renaissance and its historical importance strongly influenced the...Carnelos, Laura
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Journal article
Edward Spencer Dodgson, the Basque language, and the British Museum Library
Edward Spencer Dodgson (1857-1922) studied Classics at Oxford University, but there is no evidence that he sat his Finals. A visit to the Basque Country in 1886 began a life-long, passionate devotion to the Basque language and bibliography. He published new editions of important early texts and a series of...West, Geoffrey
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Journal article
Hans Sloane, Samuel Pepys, and the Evidence of a Lost Pepys Library Catalogue
This article examines the relationship between Hans Sloane (1660–1753) and Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), two celebrated book collectors of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Pepys's and Sloane's connection is traced back to the mid 1680s and to their attendance at the Royal Society. A mysterious leaf in Sloane's papers...Loveman, Kate
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Conference paper (unpublished)
Balancing public-private partnerships with responsibilities to our communities
The Living with Machines project (2018-23) was a data science and digital history project between the British Library and The Alan Turing Institute. Its focus on the impact of mechanisation in the long 19th century was in part inspired by the Library's access to newspapers digitised for The British Newspaper...Ridge, Mia
digitisation, research project, newspapers, and Living With Machines
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Conference paper (unpublished)
Investing in the future of open infrastructure
Kaitlin Thaney, Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI), discusses the challenges and strategies involved in fostering community-centered open infrastructure, emphasising the importance of sustainable, accessible, and open systems to advance research and knowledge sharing. Kaitlin outlines the work of IOI, focusing on their research-driven approach, the development of a catalogue of...Thaney, Kaitlin
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Conference paper (unpublished)
Networks of libraries supporting open access book publishing
It is becoming increasingly clear that libraries, acting collectively, can have a major role in creating and sustaining non-profit, community owned, open access infrastructures as public goods. These networks may provide support indirectly, via collective financial support for third party entities, or directly by inter-connecting their existing physical infrastructures to...Gatti, Rupert
open book publishers, Thoth, open scholarship, COPIM, open book collective, and library networks
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Conference paper (unpublished)
Where do I stand? Deconstructing digital collections [research] infrastructures: a perspective from Towards a National Collection
This presentation sheds light on the critical challenges of establishing a sustainable digital infrastructure in the United Kingdom. The work conducted by TaNC plays a crucial role in addressing key factors within the realm of digital infrastructure, including: Tools and Pipelines: This encompasses software and related components. User Knowledge Needs:...Pereda, Javier
digital infrastructure, GLAM, and Towards a National Collection
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Conference paper (unpublished)
"This is not IP I'm familiar with." The strange afterlife and untapped potential of public domain content in GLAM institutions.
Cultural institutions are vital stewards of public domain works and artefacts, billions of which have now been digitised and placed online. Yet few institutions release this content for free and unrestricted reuse. Why? In this talk, Douglas will illuminate this complex landscape and show how open access can unlock opportunities...McCarthy, Douglas
open scholarship, GLAM, copyright, and intellectual property
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Conference paper (unpublished)
The critical role of repositories in advancing open scholarship
There are thousands of repositories worldwide, which collectively preserve and provide access to hundreds of millions of scholarly resources. These repositories - mainly hosted by libraries, universities, governments and research centres - represent critical public infrastructure enabling researchers, students and the general public can reap the benefits of research. Yet,...Shearer, Kathleen
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Conference paper (unpublished)
The Turing Way: Community-led resources for open research and data
The Turing Way is an open-source, community-led, and collaboratively developed project on making data science and research skills accessible, comprehensible, and beneficial for a wider research community. We bring together individuals from diverse fields and expertise to develop practices and learning resources that can make data research comprehensible and useful...Karoune, Emma
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Conference paper (unpublished)
Open online tools for creating interactive narratives
With the increased availability of new tools, platforms, technologies and formats to create and distribute digital publications, the British Library has been researching and collecting examples of digital storytelling as part of its Emerging Formats work. This presentation will introduce some of the freely available and open-source online interactive...Rossi, Giulia Carla ; Wisdom, Stella
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Conference paper (unpublished)
The not so quiet rights retention revolution: research libraries, rights and supporting our communities
This talk examines the growing rights retention movement within UK research libraries, outlining its importance for authors and researchers and noting a significant increase in institutions adopting rights retention policies. The conversation delves into the role of libraries in supporting researchers' rights, advocating for a shift in the academic landscape...Nixon, William
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Conference paper (unpublished)
AHRC, digital research infrastructure and where we want to go with it
This presentation charts AHRC’s journey towards defining and creating a cohesive, community-focused digital research infrastructure for arts and humanities research and asks the audience: are we on the right track, or have we got it completely wrong?Chang, Tao
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Journal article
American Political Pamphlets 1917-1945 at the British Library
The twentieth century was a golden age of pamphleteering in America, especially during the period between the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945. Pamphlets were vital tools for radical organizations in educating and communicating with their own members and persuading the public...Collins, Jodie
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Journal article
A Sense of Place: The ‘London’ Cityscapes of BL, Royal MS. 13 A. III
The British Library, Royal MS. 13 A. III, containing a copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie, was likely produced in southeast England in or around London between the late thirteenth century and the first quarter of the fourteenth century. The only manuscript with an extended series of illustrations,...Chunko-Dominguez, Betsy
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Journal article
Orwell’s Political Pamphlet ‘Solar System’: A Network Interpretation of a British Library Collection
This article examines the network of publishers, authors and topics included in George Orwell’s Collection of Political Pamphlets at the British Library (shelfmark 1899.ss.1-49.), some of which were catalogued as part of a Ph.D. placement in 2019. It explores how the pamphlets came to be held at the British Library,...Treacher, Claudia
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Journal article
British Library Additional Manuscript 8537 as a Source for Florentine/Pisan University History
British Library Additional Manuscript 8537 contains a selection of statutes related to the university of Florence and Pisa from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The manuscript was originally produced to specifically document rulings between the institution and Florentine government, suggesting it may have been a personal vademecum of...Rossi, Elena
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Journal article
Sir Hans Sloane’s Books: Seventy Years of Research
The library of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), became one of the foundations of the British Museum, but was dispersed among other collections within the Museum, and for over 250 years it has not been possible to view it as a whole. The Sloane Printed Books Project aims to provide a...Walker, Alison
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Journal article
Facts, Fictions, and Fascism: A Life of Actor Mary Taviner (1909-1972)
Despite an acting career spanning both silent film and talkies, as well as London and regional theatre, Mary Taviner was not a household name. In fact she attracted more press coverage for her political views, being an active fascist from the 1930s to the 1960s. She fell in with, and...St John-McAlister, Michael
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Journal article
Selected English Masonic Bookbindings
Books as artefacts, as well as the texts that they contain, play a fundamental role in English freemasonry. The esteem in which they were held is shown in paintings. This detail comes from a portrait of freemason Dr Robert Crucefix (1797-1850) who is shown with significant items of regalia as...Marks, P. J. M.
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Journal article
A Gold Girdle Book and its Connection with Anne Boleyn
The miniature prayer book with the shelfmark Stowe MS. 956 has long attracted attention because of a story associating it with Anne Boleyn. According to an oft-repeated account, this tiny girdle book with a gold metalwork binding was handed by Anne to one of her maids of honour on the...Jackson, Eleanor
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Journal article
Italian Futurist Books (1909-1944) at the British Library
The Futurist book was instrumental in the circulation of Futurist ideas and represents a very experimental phase in book production, paving the way for the book object, the artist’s book, advertising and design. The purpose of this article is to produce a survey of the Italian Futurist collections held at...Mirabella, Valentina
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Journal article
The London Stage 1660-1800: A Short History, Retrospective Anatomy, and Projected Future
The London Stage, 1660-1800, a day-by-day performance calendar spanning 140 years, was for its time a magnificent achievement published in eleven volumes (1960-1968 [recte 1970]) running to 1058 pages of introductory matter and 7182 pages of text, plus 672 pages of volume indexes. A one-volume cumulative index compiled from scratch...Hume, Robert D.
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Journal article
The New Media Writing Prize Special Collection
This article introduces the New Media Writing Prize (NMWP) special collection (https://www.webarchive.org.uk/en/ukwa/collection/2912) created on behalf of the six UK Legal Deposit Libraries and hosted by the UK Web Archive. It is divided into two sections, presenting the perspectives of the archivists and the organizers of the prize respectively. The first...Rossi, Giulia Carla ; Pyke, Tegan ; Pope, James ; Skains, R. Lyle ; Wisdom, Stella