Will Bowers

A blog about a database I've compiled from a dinner book kept @BL_ModernMSS. The project started in 2018 & it launches today. If you're interested in dining, sociability, whig culture, etc. you can find the manuscript introduced, digitised, & indexed at dined.qmul.ac.uk

@TomCook24 Yep, it wasn’t just right-wing animal-lovers verse.

@LimeTreeBowers Well, indeed: one of Larkin’s best-kept secrets was just how much Pound and other modernist claptrap he read and liked. His diary covers pasted with Ulysses etc.

I’ve just read this, Pound’s ‘Love-Song to Eunoë’ (1915), for the first time over lunch. A great reminder that there’s no contradiction between a poem’s being funny and its being beautiful: ‘I have seen the respectably married | Sitting at their hearths: | It is very disgusting.’

Job opportunity to come and work as a MHRA Research Fellow on P. B. Shelley's letters @QMUL. Details here, jobs.ac.uk/job/DNC513/mhr… Applications close on 12 June.

We are so looking forward to hearing Eliza Haughton-Shaw (Cambridge) talk to us TODAY about 'Rationality and Eccentricity in Sarah Fielding’s and Jane Collier’s The Cry (1751)'. All welcome IN PERSON or ONLINE. Sign up online here qmul-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regist…

@TomCook24 I’ll be there with bells on. Good to grumble.

@LimeTreeBowers Have to go now, and this really was only meant as a grumble about underlining being ugly in print, but we can always convene a great editorial studies conference and debate this shit into the wee hours

And while we’re at it, please can editions of writers’ letters, journals, etc. go back to italicizing phrases that were underlined in the original. It’s nearly always what underlining meant! (And underlined type is hideous!)

@TomCook24 I get that underlining in print is ugly and I’m fine with an argument that just says that. I guess I’m more bothered by an argument that thinks there’s something “correct” in doing italics over it though.

@LimeTreeBowers to each of the threads.) I think all mss authors intended emphasis by it, many would’ve expected or been content with italics, and that no ‘regular’ text – including more accessible UP editions – should use underlining for emphasis because it’s typographically deplorable. Lol

@TomCook24 Yes, I think I agree with you here. They don’t know what’s good for them.

@LimeTreeBowers And I think vanishingly few authors pre-1980 or so would expect anything underlined to be set as such were it to find its way to print. This used to be common sense

@TomCook24 *you now

@TomCook24 Hang on. My issue is with your claim that italicization is “nearly always what underlining meant”, but I think now concede that it isn’t? That it means emphasis? And that you’re in favour of translating that emphatic meaning from a convention of ms into a print convention?

@TomCook24 It’s not that uncommon in c18th and c19th letters, nor is a really strong single underlining. My objections to italics/roman in print are that it’s a) a translation of the ms b) it’s binary where as with underlining you can be both faithful and express a larger range of mark.

@LimeTreeBowers I think that’s a marginal example – the vast majority of underlinings in modern mss/tss are single – but I would take anything (even the revolting use of bold) over compiterized underlining that cuts through descenders and mucks up the leading

@TomCook24 What I wonder would you do with a double or triple underlined word in a letter?

@TomCook24 An author underlining a phrase in their notebook or letter was using that underlining to say “were this to be printed, I should like this to be italicized”? Hokum. This is a mixing up of conventions: one in preparation of a ms for print (italics) and one for an ms (underlining).

This is tomorrow! We look forward to welcoming you online and in-person for what promises to be a cracking talk.

@AaronBastani Nah, ‘twas this.

It was this, basically.

What I liked about the 2012 opening ceremony (incoming!) wasn’t the NHS stuff - but the celebration of industrial modernity; the sublime of steam and steel - and the arrival of the working class onto the stage of history. Great!

@neheritagelib Brilliant job. Is the gonfundme still open, and can you post the link? Also can you link the map route?

We are DONE in beautiful Spennymoor! That’s 35 Category D villages, 60 miles in 3 days. We finish the wall at a STAGGERING £1685. You are all incredible - an exceptional figure I never expected

Ahhhh, last day and it’s an early start for me! It’s Day 3️⃣ of History Hike 2024, today between Shildon and Spennymoor These areas are totally unknown to me but filled with tiny Category D villages for us to explore. £1540 raised so far! DONATE: gofundme.com/f/nehls-histor…

@R_A_Barr @coldwarsteve A revealing anecdote about the latter here amp.theguardian.com/business/2017/…

@R_A_Barr @coldwarsteve “Sir” Phillip Green, and Mike Ashley!

@JackMoran94 Aye but we had plenty of chances to score. Isak looked like he was on a come down.

@MarieAllitt An absolute disgrace.

Um, you can’t say it’s a 12 month post and then say it might be shorter

LGHG 7th May 2024 IHR A panel discussion of Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism (2024) by Catherine Hall history.ac.uk/events/a-panel…