Huntington Library Workshop: Research Assignment

Imagine that you have been chosen to edit a new version of a play on our syllabus (not The Rover or The Beggar’s Opera). Your job as editor is to choose a text of the play, to annotate that text, and to write the introduction. In your introduction, the press wants you to pay special attention to the publication and performance history of your play; they’ve also said that you may include reproductions of related ephemera.

Using what you’ve learned from our session at the Huntington, you must come up with a preliminary research plan for this task. You should use electronic resources such as the ESTC, the online catalogues for various rare book libraries, and databases such as EEBO and ECCO. I am not asking you to do the research, merely to compile and annotate a list of the sources you would consult (i.e. I’ll want you to say a bit about why you would need to look at those particular sources). You will also need to say how you would access these materials. In other words, I will want to know what materials you can read online, and what materials will require a special research trip (don’t forget to consider printed and microform sources that may be in your own library stacks). If you wish, you may also contrast your proposed edition to a current edition of the same play and explain what critical gap your research would fill.

• Due in class Monday, November 20th

• Directions: Take the 110 Freeway north towards Pasadena where it will end, becoming Arroyo Parkway. Continue on Arroyo for 2 traffic signals, then turn right on California Blvd. Continue on California for approximately 3 miles. After passing the Caltech campus, continue for several blocks to the next traffic signal at Allen Avenue. Turn right on Allen Avenue and proceed two short blocks to the gates of The Huntington.