Bodleian Student Editions

Primary Contributors: Department of Special Collections, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; Centre for Digital Scholarship, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; and Cultures of Knowledge

Letter from Elizabeth to Timothy Wagstaffe, 11 November 1616. (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Eng. c. 7903, fol. 38; source of image: Olivia Thompson)

The catalogues in this collection are based on metadata and transcriptions prepared by students from the University of Oxford who have attended workshops in manuscript and textual editing at the Bodleian’s Weston Library. These workshops, open to undergraduates and postgraduates of all disciplines, are part of a pilot initiative that explores the potential of Bodleian resources for cross-disciplinary, skills-based training in textual and digital scholarship. At each stand-alone session, student participants are introduced to special collections handling, palaeography, metadata creation and analysis, and digital research methodologies. Working from both original manuscripts and digital facsimiles they catalogue and transcribe unpublished letters from Bodleian collections that have been selected by curators for their relevance to more than one discipline and for their potential contribution to scholarship. The initiative is a partnership between the Bodleian’s Department of Special Collections, the Centre for Digital Scholarship, the Cultures of Knowledge research project, and Early Modern Letters Online [EMLO].

Partners and Additional Contributors

The manuscript and textual editing workshops are part of wider initiatives to provide cross-disciplinary training using the Bodleian’s manuscript and digital resources. The workshops take place at the Centre for Digital Scholarship in the Weston Library and are provided in collaboration with the Cultures of Knowledge research project, which supports student training through digital fellowships and student contributions to the Library’s catalogue of letters published in the union catalogue Early Modern Letters Online.

Sessions are taught by Mike Webb, Curator of Early Modern Archives and Manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries; Miranda Lewis, Editor of Early Modern Letters Online; and Andrew Cusworth, Operations Manager of Digital Scholarship@Oxford. The letters are selected by Mike Webb, who edits the draft transcriptions created during the workshops, and the resulting online texts and catalogues are curated and published by Miranda Lewis. An account of the first workshop in the series, written by Mike Webb, may be read here and the initiative has been set in a broader context in an article (by Miranda Lewis, Mike Webb, and Howard Hotson) published in issue 33 of the Bodleian Library Record (full bibliographic details of which are set out below).

The programme was developed collaboratively by Bodleian and Cultures of Knowledge/EMLO staff as a continuation of conversations that included a conference, ‘Speaking in Absence: Letters in the Digital Age’, at which the workshops were announced formally. This conference was organized by Olivia Thompson (then the Balliol Bodley-Scholar and DPhil candidate in Ancient History) and Helen Brown (then a DPhil candidate in English), who assisted subsequently in the workshop set-up and design, and provided administrative, research, and technical support including orientation of the student participants. The workshops are an extension of those run as part of an ongoing scheme established in 2014 at Early Modern Letters Online [EMLO] and its catalogue Women’s Early Modern Letters Online [WEMLO] that offers Oxford History undergraduates the opportunity to work on and publish both transcriptions and abstracts of early modern manuscript letters.

Collections of letters worked on thus far during the sessions have included:

Six Letters written by Elizabeth Wagstaffe of Warwick to her husband, Timothy Wagstaffe, lawyer of Middle Temple.

Six Letters to James Butler, marquess (later first duke) of Ormond, written in 1660 by three women: Ormond’s wife, Lady Elizabeth Butler, marchioness of Ormond, Lady Anne Digby, countess of Bristol , and Elizabeth Mordaunt, countess of Peterborough.

Letters from Penelope Maitland to Mrs Charlotte West (née Perry).

Letters from Katharine, countess of Clarendon, to [Maria] Theresa Lewis (née Villiers).

At present, the letters of Maria Cowper, the daughter of the poet Judith Madan [née Cowper] and sister of Penelope Maitland, are being transcribed and prepared for publication.

Detail from a letter from Elizabeth to Timothy Wagstaffe, 11 November 1616. (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS. Eng. c. 7903, fol. 38)

Provenance

The manuscript letters that make up the Bodleian Student Editions catalogues are held in the Special Collections of the Bodleian Library.

Scope of Catalogue

The manuscript and textual editing workshops introduce students of all levels to cross-disciplinary expertise and illustrate the immediate positive impact on scholarly practice achieved by a focus on original collections in combination with analysis, dissemination provided by digital tools and media, and the wide-ranging applicability of digital research methods.

Participants in these workshops include both undergraduates and postgraduates in English, History, Classics, Archaeology, History of Art, Modern Languages, Oriental Studies, Mathematics, Music, Biology, and Chemistry. The sessions are organized and taught by curatorial and technical staff and are structured to give students of all disciplines and stages an introduction to the basic underlying skills required to embark upon an inventory, calendar, or critical edition. Participants are encouraged to attend further events at both the Centre of the Study for the Book and the Centre for Digital Scholarship, and to take advantage of other training opportunities provided in digital methodologies such as the Text Encoding Initiative.

Each workshop is part of a series of standalone sessions, which focusses on documentary material of the early modern period. The incorporation of the metadata and transcriptions into Early Modern Letters Online, linked whenever possible to a digital facsimile of the letters, makes more material from the Bodleian collections immediately accessible to scholars and connects it with other, diverse sources of the period from other repositories.

Further resources

Bibliography

Miranda Lewis, Mike Webb, and Howard Hotson, ‘Capacity Building: Digital Fellows, Student Editions, and ‘Starter Catalogues’, in ‘A Commonwealth of Letters: From the Index of Literary Correspondence to Early Modern Letters Online’, ed. Howard Hotson and Miranda Lewis, Bodleian Library Record, vol. 33, nos 1–2 (April/October 2020), pp. 128–45.

The Workshops

In the course of each workshop, participants are shown how their contribution to EMLO is situated within the wider context of digital humanities research through an overview of different methods of digitization — from creating entries online, to imaging and OCR [Optical Character Recognition] — and an introduction to other factors influencing accessibility, such as search, licensing, and sustainability. Each workshop offers an insight into how the materials hosted in EMLO could be enhanced and analysed at a later stage through other digital methodologies such as encoding, visualization, and geographic information systems (GIS). Finally, suggestions are made regarding resources and training through which participants can obtain the skills required to carry out such work themselves.

Relevant resources and initiatives

Creative Commons copyright licences and tools

Cultures of Knowledge, University of Oxford

Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership [EEBO-TCP]

Mapping the Republic of Letters, Stanford University

Text Encoding Initiative [TEI]

Related Bodleian Libraries digital projects

Digital Bodleian

Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership [EEBO-TCP]

Electronic Enlightenment Scholarly Edition of Correspondence [EE]

The Bodleian First Folio

The Digital Manuscripts Toolkit

Sources of further information and training at Oxford

The Centre for Digital Scholarship hosts workshops, seminars, and drop-in sessions offering guidance on a wide variety of interdisciplinary digital methodologies.

The Bodleian Centre for the Study of the Book hosts Visiting Fellowships for scholars who wish to conduct research based on the Bodleian Libraries’ special collections. It coordinates teaching with the collections for readers both within and outside the university, and offers a wide-ranging programme of events related to book history, showcasing the research of the Visiting Fellows, projects linked to the centre, and activities of the Bibliography Room.

The Digital Humanities at Oxford website provides information on projects and events within the community — including the annual Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School.

IT Services offer both classroom-based [Training course booking] and online training courses [Portfolio of learning resources].

Acknowledgements

Early Modern Letters Online [EMLO] and the Bodleian Library would like to thank the following students who have participated in individual workshops, as well as the many volunteers, work-experience students, and members of the broader EMLO-community who have contributed draft transcriptions over the years to the body of material published as part of the Bodleian Student Editions scheme:

Holly Abrahamson; George Adams; Alice Ahearn; Erin Ailes; Arunima Amar; Cristiano Amendola; Michael Angerer; Jake Arthur; Laura Arthur; Lestra Atlas; Karina Atudosie; Caroline Ball; Alex Barasch; Sarah Barnette; Katherine Beard; Rebecca J. Beattie; Yashua Bhatti; Emily Birchenough; Brad Blankemeyer; Sarah Blenko; Julian Blum; Garth Borchardt; Joost Botman; Vittorio Bottini; Hannah Bower; Anthony Bracey; Phoebe Bradley; Catherine Bridges; Sophie Brocks; Lucy Brookes; Chelsea Brown; Felicity Brown; Jennifer Bunselmeier; Constanta Burlacu; Richard Calver; Noah Cashian; Mihnea Cazacu; Rodrigo Leal Cervantes; Delphine Chalmers; Gwendoline Choi; Sophia Christmann; Ariana Lopez Clift; Deborah Clutton; Natalie Cobo; Lindsey Cohick; India Cole; Joseph Cordery; Isabella Cullen; Zoya Danayal; Suchintan Das; Bryony Davies; Kathryn Davies; Maeve Dever; Catherine Digman; Weixi Ding; Natalia Doan; Otone Doi; Sebastian Dows-Miller; Bogdan Draghici; Tim Dungate; Isha Dwesar; Lesley O’Connell Edwards; Elisabeth Eibner; Emily Ennis; Matilda Eriksson; Cristina Erquiaga; Nicola Estrafallaces; Jenyth Evans; Chloe Fairbanks; Jeanne Flamant; Patrick Flood; J. S. Ford; Antonio Marson Franchini; Carla V. Fuenteslópez; Greta Galeotti; Millie Gall; Katie Gardner; Naomi Gardom; Natasha-Chloe Garratt; Christopher Gausden; Costas Gavriel; Victoria Gierok; Ruby Gilding; Domenico Giordani; Miranda K. Gleaves; Laura Gledhill; Laura Gonzalez; Isobel Goodman; Benjamin Green; Judith Gretton-Dann; Sarah Griffin; Cerys Griffiths; Carlos Fonseca Grigsby; Alice Gussoni; Tilly Guthrie; Mercy Haggerty; Gillian Hamnett; Nimaya Harris; Tara Healy; Fabienne Tara Heuze; Isabella Hickman; Amy Holguin; Christopher Hollings; Bradley Hoover; Elyse Howell; Lia von Huben; Leon Hughes; Jonathan Hunt; Ruby Hutchings; Elena Ignatyeva; M. J. M. Innes; Laura Irwin; Eileen Jakeway; Emma Jeffries; Alexander Jenkins; Caitlin Jones; Sophie Jordan; Julia Josfeld; Helena Kaznowska; Stephanie Kelley; Charlotte Kinnear; Katherine Knight; Simon Korneev; Laura Koscielska; Joyce Kwok; Brian Lapsa; Algernon Laugen-Kelly; Emilie Lavallée; Katharine Lawden; Imogen Lee; Yuanfei Li; Nicolas Liney; Shutong Liu; Yanyan Liu; Rhiannon Lovell; Cora MacGregor; Lesley MacGregor; Claire Macht; Jennifer Macmillan; Céline Magada; George Malagaris; Yuanbo Mao; Saara Marchadour; Carolyn Marino; Joshua Mascord; Comfort Tanie Maseko; Noreen Masud; Jade McGlynn; Rosie McMahon; Sophia de Medeiros; Samuel Marde Mehdiabad; Caitlin Monshall; Beatrice Montedoro; Martin Moran; Anna Morley; Isabel Morris; Brett Mottram; Alicia Vergara Murillo; Wesley Ng; Hana Oh; Mathupanee Oonsivilai; Ella Osbourne; Hannah Paasivirta; Lee Partridge; Charis Patterson; Aris Pefkianakis; Anna Perkins; Julian Perradian; Marina Popea; Geraldine Porter; Charlie Potts; Rory Price; Vittoria Princi; Samuel Pugh; Andrea Ramazzotti; Reyam Rammahi; Kathleen Rawlings; Honor Reynolds; Jacob Ridley; Melisande Riefler; Martina Astrid Rodda; Joana Roqué; Adam Rosengarten; Hayley Ross; Holly Rowe; Gabrielle Russo; Christian Sanders; Ingrid Schreiber; Katie Schulz; Zoe Screti; Sophie Seeyave; Edward John Shattock; Alexandra Sheldon; Dai Shi; William Sieving; Johanna Sinclair; Peri Sipahi; Katherine Smith; Winnie Smith; Filipa Soares; Barbora Sojkova; Francesca Sollohub; Lily Sonnenblick; J. Sowerby Thomas; Albert Sowerby-Davies; Petros Spanou; Vimal Sriram; Elizabeth Steen; Harriet Strahl; Elle Styler; Minjie Su; Rose Sykes; Aisha Tahir; Tiag Yi Tan; Evelyn Temple-Hall; Amy Thompson; Bridie Thompson; Sorcha Tisdall; Giorgio Torraca; Eleanor Townsend; Lindley Trueblood; Andrew Tzavaras; Julian Waddell; Ed Wagstaff; Cheuk Yee Wai; Liz Wan; Shengyu Wang; Sarah Ward; Matthew T. Warnez; Eleri Anona Watson; Keziah Watson; Olivia Webster; Ewa Wegrzyn; Klaudia Wegschaider; Zijian Wei; Imogen Whiteley; Tessa van Wijk; Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull; Alice Williams; Georgina Wilson; Roswyn Wiltshire; Sian Witherden; Daniel Wojahn; Frederick Wolff; Gregory Woollgar; Laura Wright; Kangziyi Xia; Eugenia Yatsenko; Aubrey Young; Francesco Zambonin; Ziyue Zhang.

There is one person, however, without whom this collection of early modern transcriptions would neither have come into being nor continue to expand. From the outset, and at every stage, Mike Webb, the Library’s Curator of Early Modern Archives and Manuscripts, has been an overarching inspiration, fount of knowledge, editor-in-chief, and teacher of palaeography. He is the ongoing recipient of our deep collective thanks.

Cultures of Knowledge/EMLO would like to thank Oxford’s History Faculty for granting the funds that in January 2016 enabled Miranda Lewis to attend a conference in Cambridge on Digital Editing at which she first met Helen Brown and Olivia Thompson.

Bodleian Student Editions would like to thank Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian; Chris Fletcher, the Library’s Keeper of Special Collections; Howard Hotson, Director of Cultures of Knowledge and Professor of Early Modern Intellectual History; and Pip Wilcox, former Head of the Centre for Digital Scholarship, for their advice and support at the outset of the project, as well as staff at the Bodleian Libraries for invaluable assistance in the ongoing integration of this initiative into research programmes, especially Alexandra Franklin, Head of the Centre for the Study of the Book; Judith Siefring, Head of Digital Research; Carmen Bohne, Special Collections Administrator; and Emma Stanford, Digital Support and Community Engagement Officer. Since 2023, Zoe Screti from the Voltaire Foundation has kindly volunteered her time and expertise to help at the workshops, as have colleagues from the Electronic Enlightenment database: thanks are due in particular to Nicole Pohl and Jack Orchard, for their participation, input into the sessions, and support, as well as to Megan Gooch, Head of the Centre for Digital Scholarship and Digital Humanities Support; to Ayla Karaman; and to Daisy Mallabar.

Bodleian Student Editions is grateful for the generosity of the Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute (BII), which contributed to the costs of both the initial conference and the first series of workshops. Thanks are extended to many members of Balliol College for their support: Daniel Butt, Thomas Melham, Seamus Perry, Nicola Trott, and David Wallace, as well as the BII committee, in particular the project officers Ramtin Amin and Aria Johnston. We would also like to express our thanks to Professor Christopher Ricks, co-founder of the Boston Editorial Institute and former student at Balliol College, for his support of both the conference and related activities in the field of editing.

The conference ‘Speaking in Absence’ was the result of the 2015/16 annual Postgraduate Conference Competition organised by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW), based at Wolfson College, on the theme ‘life-writing in the digital age’. The event took place in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries and involved the participation of staff from Special Collections, Communications, Events, Exhibitions, and Facilities, many of whom remain involved in the workshops. Olivia and Helen would like to thank all those involved in making this opportunity and subsequent research activities possible, in particular the conference speakers and staff at TORCH, Wolfson College, and the Bodleian Libraries.

The spectacular view across Oxford reproduced below was taken by Olivia Thompson from the top floor of the Weston Library, and we thank her for her permission to include it on this page.