Martin Hewitt

The BAVS/Rosemary Mitchell Prize for a Second Monograph 2026 is now open! If you published your second scholarly monograph in Victorian studies between 17 February 2025 and 17 February 2026, please do consider submitting! You can find more information here: bavs.ac.uk/book-prize-2/

Professorship of Bibliography and Modern Book History at University of Oxford Discover an exciting academic career path as a Professorship of Bibliography and Modern Book History at jobs.ac.uk. Don't miss out on this job opportunity - apply today!

We're hiring!
Come work with us @engfac.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk @bkhistoxford.bsky.social !!!

Professorship of Bibliography and Modern Book History
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPP968/p...

Mitchell Prize Submission Guidelines – RSVP Eligible applicants for the Sally Mitchell Dissertation Prize will have successfully defended their dissertation within the previous calendar year (i.e., the 2025 prize winner defended in 2024). Proje...

🔔 Attention ECRs! Just a reminder that March 1 (next Sunday) is the last day to get your applications in for our annual Mitchell Dissertation Prize! Winners receive $1,000 USD + a 2-yr. membership to RSVP. We look forward to reading your work! rs4vp.org/awards/mitch...

New VPFA Study Day Announcement 📢: 'Out of this World: Science Fiction in the Victorian Period'.
Read the CfP on our website: victorianpopularfiction.org/out-of-this-....

@bavs-uk.bsky.social @rs4vp.org @thevicsoc.bsky.social @global19c.bsky.social

Annual lecture | The Centre for Victorian Studies | University of Leicester Find out more about our latest annual public lecture, hosted by the Centre for Victorian Studies at the University of Leicester

I'm giving the Leicester Victorian Studies Annual Lecture next week!
Come along and explore fame, race, and disability in the 19th c
@bavs-uk.bsky.social @ukdishisthub.bsky.social @bars.bsky.social @leverhulmetrust.bsky.social @yalebooks.bsky.social @araukie.bsky.social

le.ac.uk/victorian-st...

I've been skeeting the results of a Pall Mall Gazette readers' poll in 1885 for 'the greatest living Englishman' [sic] in 10 categories. Check out the results. The final category was 'Humbug'. So, any thoughts on who you would vote for having been the greatest Victorian 'humbug' living in 1885?

York History Department - Academic Jobs Uncover the past to define the future. We are seeking research-led historians to join our world-class, collaborative community. Discover career-defining opportunities within one of the UK’s most disti...

We are advertising 4 jobs at York for historians (1 year medieval, 2 years modern Britain and public history, 3 years modern China, and open ended modern Middle Eastern) features.york.ac.uk/history-jobs/

The final category in the Pall Mall Gazette's vote for the 10 greatest living Englishmen was 'Humbug'. So here's your chance; who gets your vote as the greatest humbug alive in Victorian Britain in 1885?? There's a wide field to choose from....

List of votes for painters, 814 for Millais, 448 for Leighton; Alma Tadema next with 34.

List of votes for men of science. Huxley 866, Tyndall 440, Owen 37.

Down to the less exciting categories of the PMG's 10 greatests. Men of Science an entirely predictable two-horse race, with Huxley the clear winner. Painters hardly more distributed, with Leighton a distant second to Millais. One solitary vote for Kate Greenaway is the only woman in either list.

Don't forget to join us next week for an exciting discussion about the transnational press of the long #19thC. As a reminder, all of our #RSVPDigiEvents are free and open to all, but you must register to receive the Zoom link. buff.ly/rD2BgEG

The British Newspaper Archive reaches 100 million pages We celebrate this milestone and our long partnership with Find My Past by picking a few highlights from the BNA.

To celebrate the BNA reaching 100 million pages, my colleague Claire O'Halloran has written a blog sharing some of our highlights. A huge achievement-well done to everyone involved at @britishlibrary.bsky.social & @findmypast.bsky.social Here’s to the next 100 million! www.bl.uk/stories/blog...

A more interesting figure than Eric might initially suggest. And grandfather of Field Marshall Montgomery of Alamein!

Full table of votes cast, with Liddon top (659) and Spurgeon second (528); next on the list is F.E. Farrer with 100.

Greatest preacher in the PMG's 10 Greatest living Englishmen poll, 1885? A 2-horse race between Charles Spurgeon, the fiery Baptist, and Canon Henry Liddon, whose afternoon sermons at St Pauls reputedly regularly attracted 3-4000. For a sermon-tasting culture, a surprising concentration of votes.

The guide to micro-periodisation we've all been waiting for. (And works a treat for the Victorian period altogether. Swinburne's Poems and Ballads as late Victorian, anyone?)

Well, I'm always open to a commission to write up the story of the twentieth century recuperation of the Greshams.

Image of cover of Transforming Orality book

Image of Chapter opening of my essay on the Gresham lectures.

Really enjoyed this conference at Regensburg in 2023. And very glad to see versions of the papers now published. Mine delves into the sad and sorry tale of the c19 Gresham Lectures. @greshamcollege.bsky.social

Jenny Wormald Junior Research Fellow in Women’s History at University of Oxford Discover an exciting academic career path as a Jenny Wormald Junior Research Fellow in Women’s History at jobs.ac.uk. Don't miss out on this job opportunity - apply today!

Fellowship Opportunity!

Jenny Wormald Junior Research Fellow in Women’s History
University of Oxford - St Hilda’s College

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQL341/j...

That feeling when you've already asked your readers to work their way through 500 pages of crowded analysis, and a reviewer suggests that perhaps as well as Britain you should also have covered Darwin's reception in the rest of the world...

Devonshire Collections Research Fellow at Chatsworth House Trust Searching for an academic job? Explore this Devonshire Collections Research Fellow opening on jobs.ac.uk! Click to view more details and browse other academic jobs.

#jobfairy this is an intriguing one - 18 month research fellowship for an object-focused historian, museums studies person or similar at Chatsworth House! £48k + £11k travel, outreach etc #skystorians
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQK358/d...

Shocking, but true. Actors, artists, men of science, even soldiers, still to come. But no category for historians.

Photo of article recommending Dickens's Four Sisters, Butler's Erewhon, Trollope's The Fixed Period Wilkie Collins' The Law and the Lady, and Oliphant's Hester.

Very interesting set of recommended Victorian novels from the cellist Steven Isserlis in *The Week* this week.

It's a shame the 'living' qualification means we didn't get a Carlyle vs Ruskin shoot out. Though Carlyle's stock was in a slump at this point.

He did write quite a lot for the reviews and also newspaper leaders. But I guess there's no accounting for political partisanship!

An extract showing the full table of votes for Best Living Writer in the Pall Mall Gazette.

Best (living) writer in the PMG's 1885 poll? Ruskin of course (given that the novelist and journalists had their own category). Followed by Tennyson and a surprising ragbag of critics, reporters, and intellectuals. Spencer showing surprisingly strongly. Lecky, Mallock, Stephens, & Smiles also rans.

Congratulations are in order to our 2026 Peterson Fellowship winner, Clare Clark! The committee notes that her project "promises a new angle on a familiar figure by applying a lens of periodical literature" to it. Read more here: rs4vp.org/awards/peter... We can't wait to read the finished product!

Seems have come back just this minute. Phew! Hopefully we'll get to hear what the problem was....

Fingers crossed!

Trying again @newsfromgoogle.bsky.social Anything to say to reassure us all that this is just a glitch??

I don't think so. I tried via a US-based VPN and got the same (no) result. And some of the bluesky responses from US-based accounts seem to suggest the US is equally affected.

Yes, me too!!