The New Woman: Five Women Writers of the 1890s
This is the second of two blog posts written by Helen Zeineh as part of a Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (UROP) project undertaken in the summer of 2022. This post explores the lives and work of five notable ‘New Woman’ writers of the 1890s. The UROP project, ‘Decadent Feminism’, was supervised by Dr. John Scholar […]
Genealogy through Gingerbread: Using the Huntley & Palmers archive to research family history
Throughout the summer, ourselves and Reading Museum have been celebrating the 200 year anniversary of Huntley & Palmers, the biscuit company which was based in Reading and is intertwined with its cultural history. Now that our programme of events is winding up, we’re looking forward to how people in Reading and around the world can […]
Cataloguing the Mills and Boon Book Collection
The Mills and Boon Book Collection at the University of Reading is a collection of over 4,000 books from the Mills and Boon back catalogue, published between 1909 and 2011. Now, as well as being able to browse digital images of the dust jackets on the Virtual Reading Room, researchers can search the full […]
100 Years of Ulysses
In light of our recent announcement regarding the acquisition of the Solange and Stephen James Joyce Collection, Graduate Trainee Library Assistant Hollie Piff explores the Ulyssean links already present in the University of Reading Special Collections. I came to the University of Reading Special Collections with a passion for modernist literature. During my English Literature […]
Conserving a magical menagerie: the conservation and rehousing of the European Manuscripts collection
Written by Victoria Stevens, ACR The existence of manuscript fragment collections represents a fascinating snapshot of cultural and political points in history, showing the changing attitude and purpose of these beautiful objects over time. Although originally bound, the manuscript textblocks became separated into individual leaves or pairs of leaves, known as bifolia, when their intended […]
Biafra, the Nigerian Civil War and context in the archives (2/3)
This is the second of three posts in a series written by Temiloluwa Odugbesan, who completed a UROP placement at the University of Reading Special Collections in the summer of 2021. Welcome to the second of my blog posts written during my UROP internship. I have been tracing correspondence specifically relating to the Nigerian Civil War […]
Research in Lockdown: the ‘Bees in the Collections’ UROP project
Many research projects have been disrupted or have come to a halt with the lockdowns imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we have been cheered and inspired by reports from a number of our resilient students and researchers who have found ways to continue their study and research during this difficult time. Following on […]
Giovanni Battista Piranesi and the glory of Rome
by Fiona Melhuish, UMASCS Librarian Hidden away in our collections store, amongst the rows of archive boxes, are the oversize book shelves, and the Overstone Folio Large sequence of the Overstone Library. Amongst the many treasures of this collection are a number of volumes of engravings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78), one of the greatest […]