eBLJ 2010
eBLJ 2010
eBLJ 2010
The Journal is published continuously throughout the year, with one volume per year. Articles undergo production as soon as they are ready, to ensure minimal delays in publication.
Collection Details
Language
English
Now showing 1 - 10 of 14
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Item type:Journal article, A Lost Manuscript of the 'Rymes of […] Randolf Erl of Chestre'(2010)Spence, JohnThe 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, as the protagonist. This article discusses a previously unnoted catalogue entry recording an early lost manuscript copy of verses about the deeds of Ranulf, earl of Chester. The lost copy once existed in Cotton MS. Otho B. III, which was badly damaged by fire at Ashburnham House in 1731.2 2 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Beyond Photography: An Introduction to William Henry Fox Talbot’s Notebooks in the Talbot Collection at the British Library(2010)Brusius, MirjamWilliam 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. Talbot’s interest was vast, ranging across the natural sciences, classical scholarship and Assyriology. The aim of this article is to explore his interest beyond photography by examining his scholarly notebooks that have been donated to the British Library by the family of Talbot’s descendents in 2006 as part of a larger archive.1 3 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Fortunate Survivors: Maps and Map Fragments in the Bagford Collection(2010)Harper, TomThe 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 of maps and fragments known as Harl.5935. It will chart the volume’s journey through various Museum departments during the nineteenth century, accounting for the treatment it has received during these years, and allowing for reflection on particular attitudes to cartographic material. The article will then turn to the maps themselves, drawing comparisons between them, establishing where they came from, and seeking to understand why Bagford might have thought them interesting. It will focus in particular on the fragments of three maps published in Antwerp in the sixteenth century which are revealed to be of special significance to the history of cartography. Establishing the importance of these maps will lead to a further rehabilitation of Bagford’s reputation as a collector of prints.7 3 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, From the Bombast of Vachel Lindsay to the Compass of Noise: The Papers of Bob Cobbing at the British Library(2010)Beckett, ChrisThe 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 a youth leader in the Wesley Guild, his work in the 1950s as a teacher and organizer of local community arts programmes in the London boroughs of Hendon and Finchley, and his subsequent participation in the counter-culture of the 1960s. The origins of Cobbing’s radical practice are discussed, from the sonorous rhythms of Vachel Lindsay and American Beat poetry to the aesthetics of Futurism and Dada. Uniting personal material with documentation of Cobbing’s publishing, performance and promotional activities, the archive is a rich and coherent record of a strand of British poetry that has not always been generally visible but continues to flourish.2 4 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, A Scottish Whig View of the Character of Robert Harley,Earl of Oxford, in 1713(2010)Jones, ClyveThe 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 of the (often unknown) bias of the author. Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, who was lord treasurer from 1711 to 1714, is a particularly difficult man to analyse and had the reputation with his contemporaries of being a ‘trickster’. The historian is fortunate that several descriptions of his personality have survived and a recently discovered letter in the correspondence of the Rev. Robert Wodrow, probably written by Thomas Smith, MP for Glasgow 1710-16, gives the historian a fresh, Scottish and whig opposition view of Harley, which reinforces the general view of him as a tricky, untrustworthy man.3 3 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, Edward Angelo Goodall (1819-1908): An Artist's Travels in British Guiana and the Crimea(2010)St John-McAlister, MichaelIt 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 who became a Royal Academician, and their celebrated father. In 2007 the British Library was presented with a small collection of Goodall's sketchbooks and letters, and a journal of an expedition in British Guiana.2 2 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, The First British Performances of Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ Symphony: The Philharmonic Society and Sir George Smart(2010)Searle, ArthurThe 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 in the subsequent 1825 concert season. Using the surviving documents from the Philharmonic Society’s archive, this article examines the circumstances of these first performances of Beethoven’s best-known work, of the further trial performance staged in 1828 in the wake of the composer’s death, and of the performance given in 1830 by largely Philharmonic forces as part of Charles Neate’s benefit concert. All four performances were conducted by Sir George Smart, who had taken the trouble to visit Beethoven in Vienna in the summer of 1825 to consult him on problems he had encountered in performing the work. Nevertheless, following the private trial early in 1828, it was not included in that year’s concert season, and the Philharmonic Society did not perform the Ninth Symphony again until 1837.5 5 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type: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(2010)Jones, ClyveThe 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 back through numerous contemporary report, mainly by his family, friends and fellow politicians to show that the waistcoat was made of brocade and was not embroidered with any golden thread and that the other items of clothing, notably a thick brown coat, he was wearing broke the force of the blow, the penknife finally breaking on Harley’s breastbone. The original source of the story of the embroidered waistcoat appears to have come from a pamphlet written by Jonathan Swift written in 1714, which contradicts what Swift wrote at the time of the assassination attempt. However, the story passed down by subsequent historians may have come from their inability to distinguish between brocade and embroidery, but this examination also shows that such historians often vary in their accounts of what was responsible for saving Harley’s life, and it further shows that the assassination attempt formed an important part of the family myth that Harley had been afforded divine protection.2 3 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type: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(2010)Poole, WilliamThis 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 contexts of Hakewill’s work, and then on three extant manuscript witnesses to portions of his text. Two of these, Bodleian MSS Ashmole 1284 and 1510, demonstrate that Hakewill initially circulated in manuscript variant versions of the material he would eventually edit and add to the 1635 edition. Most importantly, British Library Sloane MS. 2168, an incomplete Latin translation of the Apologie, shows not only that Hakewill was independently developing a Latin translation of his work, but also that he continued to work on this Latin text after the publication of his final English edition. The two texts therefore diverge, with the Sloane manuscript representing the final expression of Hakewill’s text, a book that has hitherto been considered solely as an English, and a printed, work. - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Journal article, 'A Poor Jonah': John Osborne's Roads to Freedom(2010)Andrews, JamieWhile 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 (briefly) staged before 1956, as well as the deposit of previously unseen letters in the Osborne Archive in Texas, now allow for a fuller consideration of Osborne's long apprenticeship in the theatre, and of the seven plays written before his 'overnight' breakthrough with Look Back in Anger in May 1956.