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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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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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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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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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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