University of Reading Special Collections

Visualising class, disability, and race on the Victorian stage | Special Collections Content warning: the Spellman Collection contains offensive language, imagery, and ideology. This blog post discusses racism, blackface and ableism. Learn...

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Challenging our view of rigid Victorian gender boundaries through music covers | Special Collections Explore how Victorian performers expressed gender and sexuality in the music hall, with the Spellman Collection of Victorian music covers.

The collection consists of around 2,500 Victorian sheet music covers, illustrating virtually every aspect of Victorian life and popular culture. Around 150 are complete scores. collections.reading.ac.uk/special-coll...

📸 Don’t It Do Your Eyesight Good! (1895), written by E. W. Rogers and published by Francis, Day & Hunter. Performed by Vesta Tilley, the most successful male impersonator in Victorian Britain

What can sheet music teach us about gender, race, class and disability in Victorian England?

Student Engagement Officer Georgie Moore explores how gender was performed and explored on the music hall stage through the illustrated sheet music covers in our Spellman Collection.

🔗 Link to blog below!

Mills & Boon: The Surprise Archive  | Special Collections Having long been a lover of a good romance novel, it was a dream come true to be granted permission...

collections.reading.ac.uk/special-coll...

📸 Cover of "Love Him or Leave Him" (1950) by Mary Burchell, the pseudonym of Ida Cook. This was one of over 150 romance novels the author published with Mills & Boon (Mills & Boon Collection – 1950/017).

In a new blog, Vic Pickup shares ten surprising stories from the archive of one of the world’s best-known romance publishers, Mills & Boon, held here at the University of Reading Special Collections. Link in the comments!📚💕

Mills & Boon: The Surprise Archive  | Special Collections Having long been a lover of a good romance novel, it was a dream come true to be granted permission...

📸 Cover of “Love Him or Leave Him” (1950) by Mary Burchell, the pseudonym of Ida Cook. This was one of over 150 romance novels the author published with Mills & Boon (Mills & Boon Collection – 1950/017). collections.reading.ac.uk/special-coll...

Her illustrations, picturing insect-size humans, as well as anthropomorphised insects, seem to poke fun at Victorian society, as well as suggesting the richness and intricacy of insect life: "can we refuse to reckon as music the softest vibration of the tiniest insect's wing?"

COLE 379/08

Cover of “Episodes of insect life”

Insects pictured playing string and percussion instruments.

Gentlemen pictured riding insects and falling off them.

A maid pictured trapped in a spider’s web.

Within our Cole collection lies "Episodes of insect life". Published 1850, it includes a range of crickets and grasshoppers parading as Victorian gentlefolk.

Under the pseudonym of Acheta Domestica (Latin for house cricket), Martha Reeve, or L.M. Budgen, wrote and illustrated this work.

Regarding whether or not to try to suppress this ‘curious condition of mind’ in your 14-16 year old son, due to poor pay and neglect of the field, William Henry Flower provides a touch of optimism: 'it is, I firmly believe, a profession of the future'.

COLE--032/03

Book cover: “Essays on museums and other subjects connected with natural history”.

Spine: “Essays on museums”, Flower.

Chapter 5: Boys’ museums.

Have you ever been 'attacked' by an 'absorbing passion' for natural history? Find it 'materially modifying' your 'whole course of existence'? You may be in luck with this helpful 1897 essay from amongst our varied museum studies selection👇

Festivals of the Imagination: early editions of novels and poetry by James Joyce  | Special Collections In 2020, Stephen James Joyce, Joyce’s grandson, bequeathed the Solange and Stephen James Joyce Collection to the University of Reading Special...

To mark Joyce's birthday this week and the final chance to see our 'James Joyce: Enigmas and Puzzles' exhibition, Fiona Melhuish, Librarian (museums and collections), introduces some of the early editions of Joyce's publications. Check out the blog post!👇

collections.reading.ac.uk/special-coll...

Our exhibition holds various gifts to Joyce, including an inscribed fountain pen and a telegram to James Joyce in Paris, sent from Dublin by Samuel Beckett. (More information in alt text).

A telegram to James Joyce in Paris on his 49th birthday, sent from Dublin by Samuel Beckett. Beckett wishes James Joyce a happy birthday using a quote from ‘Work in Progress’  (later known as Finnegans Wake). [SSJ A/1/2/1]

A fountain pen with a gold charm given to Joyce on his 57th birthday in 1939 by his family to celebrate the forthcoming publication of his book ‘Finnegans Wake’. [SSJ-OBJ/002]

A fountain pen with a gold charm given to Joyce on his 57th birthday in 1939 by his family to celebrate the forthcoming publication of his book ‘Finnegans Wake’. [SSJ-OBJ/002]

The first edition of the groundbreaking novel ‘Ulysses’ was published on Joyce’s 40th birthday, in France in 1922.

Happy Birthday to James Joyce!🎉 🎂

Joyce was born on 2nd February 1882 in Rathgar, Dublin. Joyce loved having a big celebration for his birthday.

Come and catch the exhibition of James Joyce’s personal archive at University of Reading Special Collections @themerl.bsky.social !

Caricature of James Joyce

Have you caught the James Joyce: Enigmas and Puzzles exhibition from @uorspeccoll.bsky.social at @themerl.bsky.social?

You've not got long to check it out - it closes on 9 February.
whatsonreading.com/venues/museu...
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📸 1-4:

The Library (UHC PH3/5/2/3)

Earley gate (UHC PH3/5/25/1)

Whiteknights mansion (RESERVE MIDDLE FOLIO–914.2291-HOF)

Erlegh Park (UHC PH3/5/30/1)

The library

Earley gate

Whiteknights Mansion

Erlegh Park

🔎In our next set of online exhibitions ahead of the University Centenary, we're exploring the history of Whiteknights.

From 18th century Whiteknights Park, through to the campus we know today, make sure you check out the story behind these great photos via the link in the comments! ⬇️

Finding 20th Century manuscripts for the Location Register at the BBC Written Archive Centre - University of Reading Digital Humanities Hub By Jackie Bishop, Location Register & WATCH Researcher     Introduction As the researcher for the Location Register, one of the University of Reading’s (UoR) research and digital humanities projects,....

A wonderful blog from last year on #BBC Written Archive Centre descriptions in The Location Register of English Literary Manuscripts and Letters @uniofreading.bsky.social @uorspeccoll.bsky.social
#archives #manuscripts #letters

Complete with beautiful marbled endpapers, the book charts the making and design of handmade lace from the medieval era through till the 19th century, all across Europe.

COWIE COLLECTION RESERVE FOLIO—010

#lace #lacemaking

lace mounted within book

another lace design mounted within the book

marbled endpapers

title page

‘A history of hand-made lace’ by Mrs. F. Nevill Jackson sits within our Cowie Collection, and contains 12 specimens of lace work, mounted on card and bound into the book.

It contains woodcuts attributed to Thomas Bewick, which feature views of rural England.

The British battledore, or, First lessons. CHILDREN’S COLLECTION—398-HAS
#childrensbook

Page showing the alphabet and several rural illustrations.

Title page.

Folded page.

Page showing religious scripture.

Among a selection of Victorian spelling books and chapbooks that were collected by graphic designer and typographer Charles Hasler, we’ve found a rare alphabet book that could double up as a hornbook, published in Alnwick, Northumberland around 1830.

On next Wednesday! 🌟

PRINTING COLLECTION FOLIO—791.4405

#specialcollections #archives #christmas #happyholidays #radiotimes

radio times covers

illustration of a christmas tale

cartoon from an editor’s piece

illustration from the radio times

Many of us are familiar with leafing through the Radio Times at Christmas, but what did the magazine look like in the 1930s? These two contain plenty to pore over from the sofa🎄

That’s all from us at Special Collections, happy holidays! We’ll be back with you in January🎉

📸 1-4: Interior of the Great Hall (UHC PH3/4/1/25)
View of University Extension College (UHC PH3/3/16)
View of London Road campus showing the Memorial Tower and the Library (UHC PH3/4/11/37)
Whiteknights Park House (UHC PH3/5/28/5)
collections.reading.ac.uk/special-coll...

📚With the University’s centenary coming up next year, we’ve launched four new online exhibitions exploring our early history, using photographs from the University History Collection, parts of which will be made available for research next year.

🔗Link to view and photo descriptions down below!

📸 Photograph of a young Stephen James Joyce, Undated [c.1942-1952?] (SSJ D/1/9/1) #jamesjoyce #archive @uniofreading.bsky.social

Photograph of Stephen James Joyce, c1942-1959.

Check out our new Special Collections blog post! 🔗 collections.reading.ac.uk/special-coll...

Project archivist Jackie Bishop gives us a closer look into the family photographs from the Solange and Stephen Joyce Collection, currently on display in our James Joyce exhibition.

A belated #eyamedieval !!

Christine de pizan presenting her book to the Queen of France

Occleve presenting his book to Henry V

Spanish warriors

Title page

This Victorian book from our Cowie Collection contains these beautiful engravings, one of which depicts Christine de Pizan, a prolific French poet and author of the Middle Ages. She is regarded as one of Europe’s earliest female professional authors.

COWIE COLLECTION RESERVE FOLIO--007 2