Discovering Iceland with the Benedikz Collection
April 9, 2024
The University of Nottingham may seem like an unlikely home for a treasure trove of Icelandic literature, but, nonetheless, in 1998 we welcomed the Benedikz collection: an assemblage of Old Icelandic sagas, poetry and travel books which greatly enhanced our pre-existing holdings of Norse, Icelandic and Viking literature. So, how did this remarkable acquisition come …
Working with the Coventry Patmore Collection
August 15, 2023
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
May 20, 2022
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’?
March 24, 2022
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
November 24, 2021
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
June 10, 2021
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
July 12, 2019
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
August 20, 2018
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
August 15, 2018
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
April 25, 2018
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 …