Elise Watson

Yes! @creutcke.bsky.social and I had to get some extra sightseeing in a few days early 😁

Shame 😶

Just out/appena uscita! JEMS 14 (OA from Firenze UP), with 12 terrific articles on "The Politics of Book History--Then and Now". A great pleasure to edit this issue with @georginaemw.bsky.social, a brilliant collaborator (whose book, Paper and the Making of Early Modern Literature, is out soon!)

Ledger stone from Our Lady cathedral in Antwerp of Godtgaf Verhulst, who died 13 September 1700. Below Verhulst, the stone lists three successive women who died in 1669, 1692 and 1700, described as his wife, second wife and third wife.

Ledger stone of Antwerp almanac publisher Godtgaf Verhulst in Our Lady Cathedral, Antwerp, with his first, second AND third wives. Pretty crowded 😬

Text of a ledger describing the client as 'Dierick van Helmont, libraire a Middelborch, par sa fille Janne‘

Yet another example of daughters‘ essential roles in bookselling families: In 1581-2, Middelburg bookseller Dierick van Helmondt repeatedly sent his daughter Janne to buy books from Plantin in Antwerp and settle his accounts (his son worked in the business too) (Museum Plantin-Moretus Arch. 60 f. 2)

In many histories of early modern printing houses, women play a secondary role. Heleen Wyffels questions this narrative and asks instead: what happens when we read the stories that printers themselves told about their family businesses? Read her article for free: doi.org/10.51750/eml... #bookhistory

How did economic transformations alter women’s work and vice versa? Ariadne Schmidt examines developments in the historiography on women’s work and pleads for a diversified approach to better understand the interplay between gender relations and the economy. doi.org/10.51750/eml...

I'm working on a chapter about fictitious women in early modern paratexts and here's something I thought I'd never see: the widow of Susanna Soldaten-crans bravely carrying on her late wife's business in 1662? I love false imprints (USTC 1844238)

I see a lot of you are worried about your stocks so I’m glad I invested all my money in the one asset that will NEVER decline in value: tulips

Early Modern Female Book Ownership #HerBook

#WomensHistoryMonth

women reading/reading women:

- earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com #HerBook
- earlymodernwomensmarginalia.cems.anu.edu.au
- www.emwmlibrary.com
- franceswolfrestonhorbouks.com
- recirc.universityofgalway.ie

Upper cover of the book bound in parchment that has been colored in green. In the middle you see a center piece furniture with an inscription. The book also contains a metal clasp on the right.

Lower cover of the book bound in parchment that has been colored in green. In the middle you see a center piece furniture with an inscription. The book also contains a metal clasp on the left.

Title page in Hebrew en Jiddish printed in black on paper.

Intriguing example of #HerBook!

This 18th-century Jewish prayer book came into the possession of Hanna Katz, daughter of Zelig Katz, in 1777, as made clear from the inscription in the center piece furniture.

(Thanks to Theo Dunkelgrün for the translation!)

#earlymodern #bookhistory #rarebooks 📜💙📚

Very excited to be giving the first talk of my new research project this Thursday on the Edinburgh printress Agnes Campbell and her international networks of bookwomen! Come by if you're in Edinburgh or hit me up for the Teams link 👀 (ESTC R183059 & T507272) hca.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

So exciting! Congrats Zanna!

The libellous letters of the Chevalier d’Eon Pre-trial statements from this 1776 dispute between the Chevalier d’Eon and Charles de Morande provide intricate details about these two French spies.

On display at The National Archives (UK) this month (Feb 2025), a set of letters allegedly written by the Chevalier d'Eon and brought into court as part of King's Bench proceedings in November 1776. I wrote a short piece about the letters here. www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-...

‘I need a citation like St Anthony needed beast repellent‘ is a line I fully intend to steal for future evaluations

Thank you Shannon!!!

Thanks Liesbeth! 😁

Of course! It’s a brilliant piece. @bibliowingate.bsky.social are you happy to send a PDF or shall I?

i will never let men off the hook for making misogynist art because david lynch, an old cornpone white guy from montana, was able to make one of the only television shows that took violence against women seriously and, in fact, framed child sexual abuse as a legitimately apocalpytic evil

RIP David Lynch :( the best ever to do it

Delighted to have a piece in this on the gendered posthumous legacy of printer-poet Constantia Grierson

New chapter: About women in the printing workshops in colonial Peru. Out soon in the "Gender and the Book Trades" volume. brill.com/edcollchap/b...

Chapter 13 ‘No entiende en el Balor de los libros’: the Value of Books for Women Owners in Seventeenth-Century Navarre "Chapter 13 ‘No entiende en el Balor de los libros’: the Value of Books for Women Owners in Seventeenth-Century Navarre" published on 18 Nov 2024 by Brill.

First actual publication out!! Read to hear about women’s interactions w/ books in #EarlyModern Navarre, especially my fav María Josefa de Soraburu who just wanted the cold hard cash owed to her versus some tired old books! (happy to send PDF if needed!) #BookHistory #HerBook
doi.org/10.1163/9789...

Much hard work from the inimitably brilliant @ewatson.bsky.social and Jessica Farrell-Jobst sees 'Gender and the Book Trades' now in print. An amazing collection, it includes my first paper on QB expanded as 'Affective Bibliography: Three Queer Approaches to Print'.

brill.com/edcollchap/b...

Women weeks wills and the early London book trade by kirk melnikoff. Commodifying difference in the marketing of British books by kandice sharren and kate ozment. Affective bibliography: three queer approaches to print by Malcolm noble.

It is publication day for Gender and the Book Trades. My section is particularly fab (@malcolmjnoble.bsky.social @kandicedarcia.bsky.social). I'm able to send PDFs of our chapter by request! Please let me know if you need access.

brill.com/edcollbook/t...

If you are interested in any of these chapters, I have no doubt the authors will be very willing to share their brilliant research. Please consider ordering a copy for your library or, even better, reviewing the book for a copy of your own. Thank you for reading! #herbook

In Part 8: Towards Inclusive Histories, Kirk Melnikoff examines London women's book-trade wills, @grubstreetwomen.bsky.social and @kandicedarcia.bsky.social explore gendered marketing and authorship, and @malcolmjnoble.bsky.social pioneers queer ways to interact with books (pp. 430, 450, 476)

Part 7: Gendered Perception and Reality flies through the 16-20c, with the collections in the Hispanic monarchy (Laura Guinot Ferri), the works of Esther Inglis (Georgianna Ziegler), Wilfrid Voynich and Belle da Costa Greene (Natalia Fantetti), and bookbinders’ unions (Susan McElrath). p. 352:

Part 6: Crafting Identity explores facets of religion and gender through nonconformist stationers in London (Verônica Calsoni Lima), incunabular Germanic prayer manuals (Rabia Gregory), and rulebreaking Catholic women in the Dutch Republic (my own chapter). From Bruder Klaus (1487), p. 314:

In Part 5: Shaping Collections: Gender and Value, @bibliowingate.bsky.social examines affordances in Navarre, Valentina Sonzini describes professional roles in a Genoese convent, and @joelleweis.bsky.social reconstructs a remarkable Wolfenbüttel collection. Great detective work/ #dataviz on display!