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Course abstract:
This course will explore the material evidence of
paper and its implications for the study of manuscripts and early
printed books. It will introduce the history of papermaking during the
hand press period and explore the physical features found in handmade
paper. A range of methods used for identifying and recording paper and
the terminology for describing them will be explored. Lectures and case
studies will examine how the evidence of paper can be used in
conjunction with other bibliographical methods, and how knowledge of
paper informs the appropriate treatment of early books in library and
private collections.
The course is suitable for academic researchers, special collections
personnel, conservators, historians, and book collectors, and aims to
prepare participants for research involving a wide range of papers used
in early printed books and manuscripts.
Classes
will draw on the library and archive collections of the Bodleian
Library, Oxford Colleges, and the Oxford University Press.
Guest lecturers will present case studies of the use of paper evidence in a variety of academic fields of study.
Download
course syllabus here.
Mark Bland gained his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford with a study of early-modern English typography and the book-trade, and teaches in the Department of English and Creative Writing at De Montfort University.
He is the author of A guide to early printed books and manuscripts (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010),
editor of the Oxford edition of The Poems of Ben Jonson (forthcoming), and is researching the manuscript traditions of Ben Jonson and John Donne.
Andrew Honey is a book conservator at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. He was a visiting research fellow at the Ligatus Research Unit, University of the Arts London from 2005-2010 and recently researched the paper and bindings
of Jane Austen’s fiction manuscripts (www.janeausten.ac.uk)
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