At under $20, the NEW Broadview Edition of Defoe's vivid, first-person pandemic novel is now out for adoption in your 18th century British Literature courses. 📕Journal of the Plague Year, edited by Celia Barnes & Jack Lynch buff.ly/3YC7tXj

Hi #EarlyModern Bluesky - did you know that someone brilliant has built working printing presses using Lego and they are trying to get enough supporters so that Lego will release it as a kit? They look so cool! beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

👀 Over the last few months, I’ve been working with the terrific triumvirate @spparkle.bsky.social, @emiliekmmurphy.bsky.social & Hannah Yip to set up “Sonance: A Journal of Early Modern Sound Studies”, a diamond open access journal dedicated to historic sounds in all their wondrous & eclectic forms.

The digitisation of the Baskerville punches is a really great resource. John Dreyfus’s account of their history is well worth a read too! They travelled all over France before ending up back in England. #typography #bookhistory cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/...

🔎 Rare 18th-century punches used to create the original Baskerville typeface have been digitised and released online. Designers, historians and the wider public now have the opportunity to study the physical tools that shaped modern typography. 🔗https://loom.ly/1ulLaFI

Apply to be the 2026-7 Munby Fellow in bibliography and history of the book @theul.bsky.social www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPZ688/m...

🎉 @stationerscomms.bsky.social @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

D.E.I. shot the serif, but I will not shoot no Calibri

“ Det doftar halm i luften och julkänslan gör entré. Movember ut, bockember in! ✨🐐 You can smell the straw in the air and the christmas spirit makes its entrance. Movember out, bockember in! ✨🐐” #gavlebocken #gavle

‘Centuries of printing preceded Gutenberg. As White is careful to describe, Gutenberg was born nine hundred years after printed texts were first produced in China by rubbing paper onto inked, carved woodblocks.’ Adam Smyth (@adamwithbooks.bsky.social): www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

New, and very interesting, #OpenAccess article on Early English Books Online: Opening the black box of EEBO academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-... #History 🗃️

I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight www.cityam.com/the-british-...

‘In focusing on the connection between print and preservation, we miss the culture of ephemeral texts that Gutenberg’s innovation unleashed.’ Adam Smyth on Gutenberg’s books www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Hey hey, it’s now official on Concordia UP’s website, 20% discount code KENNEDY2026 at CUP (CAN) or Chicago (USD, link in next post) for Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550! concordia.ca/press/illumi...

🎄✨ BRLSI Christmas Market 2025! ✨🎄 📍16–18 Queen Sq, Bath 🗓️ 27 Nov–14 Dec / 🕒 Mon–Wed 10–4 / Thu–Sun 10–6 Discover unique gifts from rotating local makers in BRLSI’s beautiful Georgian building 🎁 Plus, craft your own Christmas bauble with @lovemakerscafe! 💫 👉 brlsi.org/xmas/

Delighted to help make this happen! I studied Jann Haworth and Peter Blake’s Looking Glass School when I was an art student. Jann and I shared a friendship with Sir Ken Robinson and later we ended up working together on various experimental arts education projects. www.brlsi.org/whatson/jann...

Interested in #books and the history of #printing? Looking for something great to do this week? Explore historical objects –including the oldest letterpress book in #BRLSI collections in an #exhibition curated by #students from #BathSpaUni #MakingYourMark. #Bath #Somerset

🎨👕BRLSI’s Academy of Imagination Becky is thrilled to share the two winning designs of our T-shirt design competition. A huge thank you to all participants! Keep an eye on the Academy of Imagination page for upcoming events! www.brlsi.org/aoi/

AnaÏs Nin ran a treadle-press in the 40s and there's this wonderful quotation of hers I printed recently.

🐴 Black Beauty in Bath 📖 Discover how Anna Sewell’s life in Bath inspired Black Beauty. Join Dr Celia Brayfield to explore the story behind the beloved novel. 🗓 5 Nov 🕢 7:30–9pm📍 BRLSI & Zoom 💷 £3–£6 👉 brlsi.org/whatson/bl...

Our latest Viewpoint article is out: 'Guilds and Companies in London, 1200–1700: Contexts and Comparisons' by @mpdavies.bsky.social. A 🧵 on the insights provided by this article into the history and historiography of these key metropolitan institutions in the medieval and early modern periods.

📜Bath History Festival 2025 comes to BRLSI on Sat 1 Nov! A full day of talks uncovering Bath’s past, from Richard III to the secrets beneath Bath Abbey. ☕Tickets include lunch, tea & coffee. www.brlsi.org/bathhi... #BathHistoryFestival #BathHistory #HistoryTalks

👀 @tracelarkhall.bsky.social @shgregg.bsky.social @bathspauni.bsky.social

Join Dr Tim Moore, @nationaltrust.org.uk curator, to hear the vibrant, often overlooked histories of people of colour in Georgian-era Bath 🎟️ www.brlsi.org/whatson/peop... 💡 Ahead of the talk, read our “Five Questions With…” interview: www.brlsi.org/dr-tim-moore... #BlackHistoryMonth #GeorgianBath

Two BRLSI speakers have been nominated for the Wolfson History Prize! 🏆 📖 Dr Eleanor Barraclough – past talk on hidden lives of Viking Age women 🌍 Kieran Connell – upcoming talk on Britain’s multicultural history #WolfsonPrize #HistoryMatters

📷A dolphin wrapped around an anchor - the logo by #Renaissance scholar #AldusManuitius, #BRLSIarchive. This spirit of invention links Manutius to Gutenberg, whose revolutionary press is explored by Dr Kristian Jensen in Gutenberg & the European Invention of Printing www.brlsi.org/whatso...#Renaissance

Printing presses kept their letters in cases. Capital letters went in the upper case. Smaller letters went in the lower case. This is why we say ‘UPPER CASE’ and ‘lower case.’ Ok, but what did we call them before the invention of the printing press? MAJUSCULE and minuscule.

GOOD NEWS ! "A team of musicologists has unearthed the printed score of a previously unknown Purcell song, as well as the original manuscript for various keyboard compositions." #baroque #music www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

Long way off but hey. Come to @brlsi.bsky.social in November! www.brlsi.org/whatson/cele...

A huge moment -- Melvyn Bragg steps down from In Our Time after over a quarter of a century. What a programme and what a legacy! Just a model for how to make great, clever, engaging radio, and a twenty-seven-year experiment that proves there's a huge global audience for smart, scholarly programming.

“There, Sisyphus toils—straining to zero the inbox, only for Nathan to smite him with that cruelest of follow-ups: ‘Just checking if you saw this?’” — Virgil, Aeneid

Welcome to Day 2 of Swedish Church on a Skateboard! It should arrive at 5pm Swedish time (GMT+2), greeted by a gospel choir. Will be amazing to see how they get it off the skateboard. Live feed here: lkab.com/kalender/kyr...

Very exciting: the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography published a cluster of new entries on women stationers. See the intro by Valerie Wayne: www.oxforddnb.com/newsitem/906... ODNB entries are so helpful in identifying women from traces on printed material. So happy to see this work ❤️

I love Terry Gross she is a top ten person

Oh no. Tom Lehrer gone. At his great age, it’s not a tragedy, I know, but it just does feel bad not having his genius in the world.

NEW VIEWPOINT ARTICLE: 'Pageant Stations: Civic Entertainments in The London Journal', by @tracelarkhall.bsky.social, available open access. A little 🧵 on the insights it provides...

I’ve just put my trousers on back to front. Im 62 on Sunday.

I wrote for the Guardian’s Saturday magazine about my son Max, who changed how I see the world. Took ages. More jokes after the first bit. Thanks Merope Mills for being the most patient and generous editor. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

BHO is having intermittent downtime at the moment. We're being hammered by AI bots and scrapers, overloading our servers. Our server engineers will be back on the case after the long weekend. Apologies for the inconvenience, but this is due to third-party bad actors.

Sad news from Pocket, the save-for-later and content discovery app. Pocket will shut down on July 8 2025. Users can keep using the app and browser extensions until then. However, from May 22 it won’t be possible to download the app. Yet another free digital curation apps I have used and loved.

Radio 3 next week: 9.45pm - books during WWII. Brief Encounter and Boots Lending Library, POWs requesting books from the Red Cross based in @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social, the first bonkbuster, and much more. Great fun to make www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

#Baskerville 2025 is the 250th anniversary of the death of John Baskerville, Birmingham industrialist, best known for the typeface bearing his name. Unveiling of a Blue Plaque recently took place at The Exchange #LibraryofBham @typetweets.bsky.social

OMG!! The ESTC is back!!!! datb.cerl.org/estc/

Dr Carla Hayden was a truly great Librarian of Congress. It is an outrage that she has been sacked - a national shame on the United States. I had the pleasure of knowing her and working with her - she’ll continue to do good in the next phase of her career whatever that is.

The MLA, @acls1919.bsky.social, and @historians.org have filed a lawsuit in federal district court today, seeking to reverse the recent actions to devastate the National Endowment for the Humanities. www.mla.org/Resources/Ad...

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an essential force for good. Rare Book School affirms the vital importance of @nehgov.bsky.social in supporting programs and grants that enrich the cultural understandings of our citizens, our communities, and our nation.

‘Okay which one of you accidentally added Robert Cecil to the chat?’

Yesterday, we celebrated #IWD2025 by unveiling our plaque to celebrate our Suffragette Tree at @bathspauni.bsky.social which has a QR code which leads to a brilliant article about BSU and Bath’s entwined history of suffrage and championing women www.bathspa.ac.uk/news-and-eve... #skystorians

How do you organise your books? Most book owners... don't Not organised: 45% By size: 19% By genre: 17% Alphabetically, by author: 11% By whether I've read them: 10% By colour: 4% Alphabetically, by title: 2% Other: 6% yougov.co.uk/entertainmen...