February 2004

Murray Archive Poised to Move to Scottish National Library

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The John Murray Archive--a collection built by the famous publishing house that includes, among other important papers, Byron's correspondence--may soon move from London to the National Library of Scotland (at a cost of something close to £33 million). As readers of this blog will know, Byron’s literary executor inherited the poet's papers and his daughter bequeathed them to the Murrays. (See the story this week in Scotsman.com.) The British Library has expressed support for the move.

Holmes on Shelley's drowning

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Biographer Richard Holmes recently published an article in The Guardian about the death of Shelley--or, rather, the legend of the death. Holmes says for example that

Biography is caught and frozen, so to speak, in the glamorous headlights of Shelley's death. But if we set that death aside, if we switch off its hypnotic dazzle for a moment, maybe quite different patterns and trajectories can emerge from Shelley's life.

Blake's Illuminated Printing

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The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of "Illuminated Printing." It joins our profusely illustrated Biography, Chronology, and Glossary in the "About Blake" section, off the Table of Contents page. The essay was first published in The Cambridge Companion to William Blake, edited by Morris Eaves, 2003. It is republished here by permission of Cambridge University Press. While the text remains the same, the electronic version has 95 illustrations versus 9 in the printed version.