Research Skills Working in the Archives

Hamlet The First Folio 1623

Verre: glass Vair: fur, ermine

Martha Pennyfeather, English novelist, novels, including A Wivenhoe Girl (1855), various editions Now in print in Penguin Classics. -Digital texts of the same novels on the Perdita web archive -Digitised copies of annotated proof texts of A Wivenhoe Girl Available on the University of Lawrence, KS, website -A Wivenhoe Girl filmed 1939 and Copies in the National Film Archive; drafts of 2006 screenplay available via the Director’s website; 1939 scripts lost?

Tracking down your sources Check the Penguin editions and Perdita web archive for details of where Pennyfeather’s papers are held. For more general topics (e.g. the Corn Laws), try the catalogues of major research libraries: the British Library, the Folger, the Huntington Don’t neglect the Special Collections held in the Sloman Library (she is a local writer) Ask for advice: teaching staff here, librarians and archivists, will all be eager to help

Pennyfeather, Martha, Papers , BL 4567

Before your visit Contact the library with a specific request (including shelf-mark) Explain who you are, and what your interest is in the papers Arrange admittance to the library (do you need letters of introduction?)

Leave in Locker Bring in Bag Coat Bags Ink pens Food / drink Digital camera Propensity for sudden sneezes / nose-bleeds WARM CLOTHES Laptop Notebook Pencils Wallet (including library card) Copy of text Locker key

Recording the text The usual notes: author, title, date, page references Additional notes for MS / TS: the location of the text (library, shelfmark, collection) AND date of access Digital cameras? Not without permission… Transcriptions

Where were yee nymphs when the remorselesse deepe clos'd ore the head of your lov'd Lycidas for neither were yee playing on the steepe where your old bards the famous Drüids lie nor on the shaggie top of Mona high nor yet where Deva spreds her wisard streame ay mee I fondly dreame bin there, for what could that have don? for her inchaunting son <when shee beheld (the gods farre-sighted bee) his goarie scalpe rowle downe the Thracian lee> whome universal nature might lament <and {h}eaven and hel dep{lore} when his divine head downe> the streame was sent downe the swift Hebrus to {the} Lesbian shore.

Transcription Conventions If you are adding punctuation, or letters (or even word) left out accidentally, put your addition in square brackets, [thus] If part of the text is lost or illegible (the page is torn, the writing is crossed out, the ink has blotted), then put it in a pair of braces, with a dot for each illegible letter of letter space, {...} If part of the text is deleted, transcribe it, but distinguish it from the rest of the transcription If the writer has squeezed text in between the lines, or in the margin, mark it \like this/ If the writer has put something into italics or bold, mark it ///like this///

Quoting your transcripts: the copyright issue Fair use: academic theses and dissertations are exempt from copyright fees and problems Copyright belongs to an artist’s estate for 70 years after his/her death, even if the physical papers belong to a library Even if your writer is long dead, ask before starting work on an edition WATCH: