"A librarian at Oxford's Bodleian Library has unearthed the
earliest-known book dust jacket. Dating from 1830, the jacket wrapped a
silk-covered gift book, Friendship's Offering" - The Guardian
JSTOR recently announced the release of The 19th Century British Pamphlets Project, a collection of more than 20,000 of the most significant British pamphlets from the 19th century held in UK research libraries.
The collection brings together many of the pamphlets which played a vital part in the intellectual, economic and social landscape of 19th century Britain. Highlights include:
- Pamphlets by and about: Charles Babbage, W.E. Gladstone, Florence Nightingale, Charles Bradlaugh, Joseph Hume, Thomas Paine, John Bright, John Stuart Mill, Robert Peel
- Valuable content inside and appended to pamphlets: Advertisements, diagrams and maps, petitions, annotations, engravings, portraits, cartoons, letters
- 7 Collections represented, including Selections from the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Earl Grey Pamphlets Collection, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Collection
TU Libraries now has access to Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period!Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period is a collection of works from approximately 70 Scottish women lyric poets written between 1789-1832.
Each author entry offers a bio-biographical sketch or essay, including what is known about their lives, plus a bibliography of their primary works and of criticisms and reviews.
Examples of poets include: Carolina Oliphant, Catherine Ward, Frances Chadwick, Margaretta Wedderburn, and Jessie Stewart.
Additional information about the database is available.
Happy Birthday Shakespeare!No one really knows the exact date of Shakespeare’s birth, although he was baptized on April 26,1564, and died on April 23, 1616. April 23 is also St. George's Day, and this may be why it was decided to observe the birth of England’s greatest poet and dramatist on the feast day of England’s patron saint.
Shakespeare's contributions to the richness and beauty of the English language are still recognized today -- phrases like 'taking a pound of flesh', 'wearing our heart on our sleeves,' and 'to be eaten out of house and home' all began with the Bard.
Check out one of his plays! The library's Shakespeare video collection contains many traditional and contemporary productions. Or, stream and play a performance using Theatre in Video.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." So begins Seth Grahame-Smith's recently published satirical spin of Jane Austen's classic novel, Pride and Prejudice. In this reworking, feisty Elizabeth Bennet is a slayer with mad martial arts skills, who is determined to rid the world of flesh-eating undead. Amidst the mayhem, Lizzie finds love and even fights Lady Catherine's cadre of ninjas to win her Mr. Darcy.
An interview with the author, discussing his ideas for the revised novel, is available here.
I left wondering 1) if Miss Austen would chuckle over her heroine's new display of boldness and 2) whether a potential film version would include Colin Firth.
It's very fitting that presidential inaugurations take place at the beginning of the year. As the country eagerly awaits the swearing in and inaugural address of Barack Obama, the New York Times recently included an interactive history of presidential inaugural addresses, focusing especially on the words presidents choose and their contexts. What words and themes will Obama use to connect and motivate this nation?
Google is launching an initiative to digitize archived newspapers, making them accessible and searchable. I'm curious how this will impact and/or complement the NEH and Library of Congress' own 20-year program, the National Digital Newspaper Program which is digitizing historically significant newspapers from all the states and U.S. territories published between 1836 and 1922.
Literature Online (LION) recently added 15 new titles to its collection of full-text journals. Eleven of these titles come from Cambridge University Press's distinguished and highly-regarded journal title list, including: - Anglo-Saxon England
- English Language and Linguistics
- English Today
- Journal of American Studies
- Journal of Linguistics
- Language in Society
- Language Variation and Change
- New Theatre Quarterly (NTQ)
- Victorian Literature and Culture
- Theatre Survey
- Theatre Research International
Black Short Fiction and Folklore has included a collection of ballads and folktales from Tanzania's Haya People available in streaming audio. Click here
for more information and to listen to this collection, entitled
Performed Words: Ballads and Folktales of Tanzania's Haya People.
The image database, ARTstor, has updated and added new topics to its instructional video series
"ARTstor in 3 Minutes." These instructional videos are now available in
ARTstor, on YouTube and on the TeacherTube.ARTstor also has a new interface coming out soon. Try it out here.
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