Category: Uncategorized
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Bonny Prince Charlie’s Cornwallis
I am currently revising an odd article on the odder Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe (1781-1851). Sharpe – failed minister, successful collector, occasional editor, prolific artist – was a friend of Sir Walter Scott and a fixture of the Edinburgh scene for many decades, but lacks modern recognition. He deserves it, though, and not least because of…
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Heraldic Reference Works
A short-list of useful reference works on heraldry, compiled for the benefit of University of Stirling postgraduate students attending the “Introduction to Heraldry” workshop on 26 September 2022. Europe Britain France Germany (Holy Roman Empire) Italy Identifying Armorial Supralibros
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Wee Willie Winkie, Bookbug, and the Impoverishment of Modern Scots
This evening my wife and I were singing ‘Wee Willie Winkie’ to our two year old. It’s a lovely – if slightly creepy – nursery rhyme with a good tune and we were refreshing our memory of the words, dulled by rather too many years of adulthood, by looking at the text as printed in…
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Like Planks From a Shipwreck
Tanquam tabula naufragii, like planks from a shipwreck, was a common image used by early modern writers to describe the remains of antiquity. Inherent in the image was a sense of loss, of the impossibility of ever fully recovering what had once been. The metaphor has appealed to me ever since I first came across…
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Appletons’ Cyclopaedia and a Mysterious Literary Hoax
Alert readers of my blog will have noticed that last week’s post on the Restoration scholar and poet Roger Trosse is a fraud; no such man existed and the all-too-plausible biography, though populated with plenty of real individuals – George Hickes and Francis Cherry, among others – is idle pastiche. I hope this small exercise…
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The Curious Life of Roger Trosse (1651-1709)
Trosse, Roger (1651-1709), theological scholar and poet, was baptised 14 June 1651 at Saint Mary Major, Exeter, Devon, the third son and seventh child of Thomas Trosse of Woodbury, Devon, and Elizabeth Webb, daughter of John Webb of Exeter, gentleman. The Presbyterian minister George Trosse (1631-1713) was an uncle. After attending Blundell’s School, where he…
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The Joys of Bibliography
“Once you have approached the mountains of cases in order to mine the books from them and bring them to the light of day – or, rather, of night – what memories crowd in upon you!” — Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library” This year I’ve been teaching a series of masterclasses on descriptive bibliography to…
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Interview with Talking Intellectual History
I’m delighted to have recently been interviewed by the excellent Robin Mills of QMUL on “Talking Intellectual History“. The topic, unsurprisingly, is The First Scottish Enlightenment.
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Interview with Historically Thinking
I was tremendously pleased recently to be interviewed by Al Zambone at Historically Thinking about The First Scottish Enlightenment. You can listen to us chat about Enlightenment, intellectual culture, and the challenges of doing history here.
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The Origins of Scottish Copperplate Engraving (Musical and Otherwise)
Originally posted on Karen McAulay, Musicologist: It is with great pleasure that we share our second guest blogpost, this time by Dr Kelsey Jackson Williams, Lecturer in Early Modern Literature at the University of Stirling, and Printer, The Pathfoot Press. If you’ve ever wondered what the process of music engraving actually entails, then your questions are…
Kelsey Jackson Williams 