The Institute of English Studies
History of the book, manuscript and print studies and textual scholarship research
Spenser in the Lockdown: Means of Gladsome Solace?
Lockdown reading takes many forms, from the rediscovery of the attractions of Jane Austen’s socially enclosed worlds, to the recognition of the predictive power of texts like Camus’s La Peste, or Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End. As a specialist in Renaissance literature…
Recovering a radical history of literature, politics and feminism: An interview with Francesca Wade, author of Square Haunting
IES PhD student Natalia Fantetti talks to author Francesca Wade about her new book, Square Haunting. To research the work of women is to realise just how often their histories have been obscured, consigned to the footnotes, or just plainly left out. With my own...
A Little Gem
As a collector of anything to do with writing and examples of printing, I was trying to update the catalogue of my collection and came across this little book, which I wondered may be of some interest.
Reading for wellbeing on board the Torrens
As France entered strictly regulated ‘confinement’ in mid-March I was finishing a book chapter about spaces of reading (and writing) on the purpose-built fast passenger clipper the Torrens…
An Interview with Karen Attar, SHL Curator of Rare Books
Dr Karen Attar answers some questions about the use of special collections material from Senate House Library on London Rare Books School courses: No matter what course they are studying, students on the London Rare Books School benefit from opportunities to work with...
Lost without the library: reading for well-being in the time of lockdown
As I write, England is just starting to emerge from lockdown. Weeks of closure of places of employment, shops and schools. Weeks at home; weeks of boredom, distress and worry…
An Interview with Simon Eliot, the Founding Director of the London Rare Books School
Professor Simon Eliot, founding Director of the London Rare Books School, reflects on the origins and history of the School: The first London Rare Books School ran in 2007. As its founding director, what motivated you to establish it? Looking back on the origins of...
Senate House Library and the London Rare Books School
Karen Attar selects a book from among the many treasures found in the Special Collections in Senate House Library, and reveals its interest for a number of London Rare Books School courses From the inception of the London Rare Books School, the examination of physical...
On re-reading The Plague during lockdown after half a century
As noted in previous blogs in the series, sales of Albert Camus’ pestilence classic La Peste are at an all-time high as readers try and make sense of their new, disorienting lockdown experience by turning to stories of enforced pandemic quarantine in past times…
Unreadable Rolls
Dr Katherine Hindley, Acting Director of the London International Palaeography Summer School, Assistant Professor of Medieval Literature at NTU, Singapore Anyone who has worked with manuscripts will know the feeling of trying to puzzle out an unreadable word. ...