The University of London Insitute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, is hosting a one-day conference on Saturday 29 May, 2004, on “Romantic-Era Writing for Children.” the conference is co-organised by Chawton House Library, the University of Southampton and the Corvey-Hallam Project. It’s schedule and information on attendance can be found here. Or email ies@sas.ac.uk to register.
Keats House given Full Registered Museum status
It was recently announced that the The Keats House in Hampstead has achieved full Registered Museum Status from The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA–but not to be confused with the Modern Language Association in the US).
The Registration Scheme for Museums and Galleries in the United Kingdom was introduced in 1988, and a second phase was launched in 1995. It measures museum performance against accepted professional standards and, according to the Scheme, has the following aims:
Encourage all museums and galleries to achieve agreed minimum standards in museum management, collection care and public services.
Foster confidence in museums as repositories of our common heritage and managers of public resources.
Provide a shared ethical basis for all bodies involved in the preservation of the heritage which meet the definition of a “museum.”
SJ
The special exhibit on William Hazlitt’s 1824 work Spirit of the Age remains at The Wordsworth Museum at Dove Cottage through June 6. The Wordsworth Trust will publish a new edition of The Spirit of the Age to coincide with the exhibition, with a preface by Michael Foot and illustrated with the portraits from the exhibition. Besides Wordsworth and Coleridge, the exhibit includes portraits of Thomas Malthus, Jeremy Bentham, Leigh Hunt, and William Wilberforce. Tom Paulin reviews the exhibit in The Guardian for April 10.
SJ
“New Views of Byron in Context,” a one-day conference, Saturday 8 May 2004, organized by the Newstead Byron Society and the Midland Romantic Seminar, held at the Nottingham Trent University Clifton Campus, Ada Byron King Building. See the International Byron Society’s event page.
At Newstead Abbey: a new exhibition, 1 April – 30 September 2004, Byron at Southwell: Randy and Rebellious, previously unseen material highlighting Byron’s rebellious and amorous youth in Nottinghamshire and focusing on his friendship with the Pigot family of Southwell.
Charles E. Robinson
Exec. Director
The Byron Society of America
Earlier today, May 1, BBC Radio Four broadcast a news item on the Bodleian Library’s appeal to purchase the Abinger papers. (See this previous posting on the RC blog.)
Broadcast on “Today,” the UK’s premier current affairs program, with a daily audience of 8 million, this was a brief conversation between Rebecca Jones, the BBC Arts correspondent, Richard Ovenden, Keeper of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, and scholar and editor Pamela Clemit. The conversation can be heard (in Real Audio format) at this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/
(It appears at 0745 in today’s running order. To play the audio file, scroll down to 0745 and click on the link.)
SJ
