Working with the Coventry Patmore Collection

This is a guest blog by School of English Placement student Louise Roberts, who in 2023 worked on cataloguing additional papers of Coventry Patmore (1823-1896) When learning about Victorian literature, there is no doubt that Coventry Patmore’s poem The Angel of the House will be mentioned as one of the most influential pieces of literature …

Prose Responses to Editing DH Lawrence

On 5 May 2022, 14 writers from the Writer Highway group, led by Cathy Grindrod, were invited to respond to our exhibition Editing DH Lawrence. Here are the prose responses, check our other blog-post for poetic responses! D.H. Lawrence Exhibition, Lakeside by Bobbie Prime [including 4 poems by DH Lawrence] The exhibition revealed how hypocritical …

What is ‘censorship’?

This is a guest post by Gregory Walker, Midlands4Cities Doctoral Student. ‘I would emphasize, first of all, that there is in England no censorship of books’.[1] These were the words of Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks in the same year (1929) that he seized two typescripts of D. H. Lawrence’s poetry collection, Pansies, in the …

From Reader to Volunteer: an exciting, satisfying, and inspiring experience

This is a guest post written by former UoN MA English Literature student, and now University of Birmingham PhD student, Buxi Duan. Hi, my name is Buxi Duan. Since this June, I’ve been working as a volunteer at UoN’s Manuscripts and Special Collections, cataloguing thirteen boxes of materials related to (one of) the most famous …

Cataloguing Connie: Part 1

Connie Ford – veterinarian, poet, supporter of the arts, traveller, political activist, correspondent, sailor – left behind an enormous personal and literary archive. We are pleased to announce the completion of the Connie Ford catalogue which is now open to view on our website. Over the next few months our blogs will highlight specific aspects …

Mapping Modules

This is a guest post by Sasha Gardner, undergraduate student undertaking a placement to identify rare books and archives useful for students taking modules in Classics and English. As a first-year English student, discovering the vast array of books and journals available at Hallward and other libraries on campus was an exciting moment. But many …

A Token of Childhood

Are the souls of your children of no value? Are you indifferent whether they be damned or saved? They are not too little to die…not too little to go to hell….not too little to go to heaven. And so begins James Janeway’s cheerful book, ‘A Token For Children: An Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and …

Silence

The grumpy 13th century scribe who couldn’t help but open his story by reminding his audience how underpaid and underappreciated the arts (especially storytellers) are would probably despair if he had known similar complaints would still be expressed in the 21st century. He wrote seven centuries ago, but his tale was set seven centuries before …

Work placement with Manuscripts and Special Collections: the Stephen Lowe papers

This is a guest post by Georgia Cannon, second year undergraduate music student. As part of my Music degree, I chose to do a work placement module. I never realised there would have been an opportunity for working at Manuscripts and Special Collections, but I put it as my first choice knowing it would be …

From Rags to Witches: the grim tale of children’s stories

Once upon a time, fairy tales were not for children – and some were even banned by the church as a threat to faith or morality. Using original archives and rare books from the University of Nottingham’s Manuscripts & Special Collections, From Rags to Witches: the Grim Tale of Children’s Stories will explore a range …