Detail from Diclides Coelometricae by Nathaniel Torporlaeus (1602).

Past Events

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‘He dreamed not of dying’: making Flora Graeca

Stephen Harris
Magdalen College Auditorium
Monday, 11 March, 2019 - 17:15

‘He dreamed not of dying’: making Flora Graeca

Stephen Harris

Stephen Harris, Druce Curator of Oxford University Herbaria, will describe the creation of John Sibthorp’s Flora Graeca (1806–1840), probably the most expensive and lavishly-illustrated botanical work of the hand-press period

ALL WELCOME

William Norton, OFM and the Wycliffite Bible

Michael Kuczynski
Weston Library Lecture Theatre
Monday, 11 February, 2019 - 17:15

Prospects and serene skye: John Aubrey and the visual image

Kate Bennett
Weston Library Lecture Theatre
Monday, 28 January, 2019 - 17:15

‘If ever I had been good for anything,’ Aubrey said, ‘twould have been a Painter’. Kate Bennett will illustrate the rich variety of visual material to be found in Aubrey's manuscripts as well as his rôle as a commissioner and collector of art, and the contrast between remembering and forgetting, on which the ‘prospect drawing’ depends.

ALL WELCOME

Curating the "Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms" exhibition at the British Library

Claire Breay
Weston Library Lecture Theatre
Monday, 3 December, 2018 - 17:15

Claire Breay, Head of Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts at the British Library, explores the origins, development, curation and delivery of her "Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms" exhibition.

ALL WELCOME

Printing in the Irish language 1571–1871: what went wrong?

Richard Sharpe
Ship Street Lecture Theatre, Jesus College, Oxford
Monday, 26 November, 2018 - 17:30

Prefaced by a display of early Irish books at Jesus College Library.

Visual rhythm and focus: the function of moveable books

Emily Martin
Weston Library Lecture Theatre
Wednesday, 21 November, 2018 - 17:15

Visual Rhythm and focus: the function of moveable devices in books

Movable devices in books, though sometimes referred to as ‘novelties’, are hardly new. From anatomical lift-flap books, to astrolabes and other volvelles in early modern science texts, from carousel and pop-up children’s books to contemporary artists’ books, these devices allow authors and artists to emphasize and animate ideas and bring life (or motion anyway) to the pages of their books

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Christopher Edwards
McKenna Room, Christ Church, Oxford
Wednesday, 13 June, 2018 - 17:15

Wednesday 13 June 2018
McKenna Room, Christ Church

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Meeting to begin at 4.30 p.m. Lecture to follow at 5.15 after a brief interval for tea.

CHRISTOPHER EDWARDS
(bookseller, late of Magdalen College, Oxford)

A bookseller’s life

Christopher Edwards will offer a view of the antiquarian booktrade – especially its dealings with academic libraries – from a bookseller’s point of view, after almost forty years of experience.

ALL WELCOME

A round-table discussion of Oxford’s medieval manuscripts, their catalogues and cataloguing

RICHARD GAMESON, RALPH HANNA, PETER KIDD and DAVID RUNDLE
Weston Library Lecture Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford
Thursday, 31 May, 2018 - 17:15

Thursday 31 May 2018
Weston Library Lecture Theatre at 5.15 p.m.

RICHARD GAMESON, RALPH HANNA, PETER KIDD and DAVID RUNDLE

A round-table discussion of Oxford’s medieval manuscripts, their catalogues and cataloguing, chaired by Dr Theresa Webber and introduced by Prof. Henry Woudhuysen

Join us for a discussion of the place of the catalogue in the past, present and future of medieval manuscripts, and of the place of the manuscript in catalogues.

ALL WELCOME

Visit to CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE LIBRARY

Joanna Snelling
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Wednesday, 23 May, 2018 - 15:00

Wednesday 23 May 2018 at 3.00 p.m.

Visit to CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE LIBRARY

By kind invitation of the Librarian, Joanna Snelling.

Places are limited, and those wishing to attend are asked to inform the Secretary at least one week in advance.

Meet at the Collegge lodge at 2:55 p.m.

‘A boxe of balme full swete’: books and boxes in early modern England

Lucy Razzall
Weston Library Lecture Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford
Monday, 21 May, 2018 - 17:15

Monday 21 May 2018
Weston Library Lecture Theatre at 5.15 p.m. (enter via Broad Street entrance)

LUCY RAZZALL (University of Cambridge)

‘A boxe of balme full swete’: books and boxes in early modern England

Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1582–1648), his library, and his bequest to Jesus College, Oxford

Dunstan Roberts
Weston Library Lecture Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford
Monday, 7 May, 2018 - 17:15

Monday 7 May 2018, Weston Library Lecture Theatre at 5.15 p.m.

DUNSTAN ROBERTS (University of Cambridge)

Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1582–1648), his library, and his bequest to Jesus College, Oxford

Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1582–1648) is known to history as a poet, soldier, diplomat and scholar, whose far-reaching interests covered many of the learned disciplines of his day. This talk will examine the libraries which he assembled in London and in Wales, and will look in detail at the sizeable collection of books which he bequeathed to Jesus College, Oxford.

The history of the College history

Robin Darwall-Smith
Monday, 5 March, 2018 - 17:15

Monday 5 March 2018
Weston Library Lecture Theatre at 5.15 p.m. (enter via Parks Road and the readers' barrier)

ROBIN DARWALL-SMITH

The history of the College history

Histories of Oxford and Cambridge Colleges have been produced for over 350 years. Dr Robin Darwall-Smith, who has been involved in three different Oxford College history projects, reflects from personal experience on the history of this genre, and its changes down the centuries.

The social uses of books in the eighteenth-century home

Abigail Williams
Weston Library Lecture Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford
Monday, 20 November, 2017 - 17:15

Monday 20 November 2017
Weston Library Lecture Theatre at 5.15 p.m.

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS

(University of Oxford)

The social uses of books in the eighteenth-century home

Searching for manuscripts from St Frideswide’s Priory

Andrew Dunning
Weston Library Lecture Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford
Monday, 30 October, 2017 - 17:15

Monday 30 October 2017
Weston Library Lecture Theatre at 5.15 p.m.

ANDREW DUNNING

(British Library)

Searching for manuscripts from St Frideswide’s Priory

Visit to the THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE and the PEET LIBRARY

Amanda Saville
The Queen's College, Oxford
Wednesday, 18 October, 2017 - 15:00

Wednesday 18 October 2017 at 3.00 p.m.

Visit to the THE QUEEN’S COLLEGE and the PEET LIBRARY

by kind invitation of the Librarian, Amanda Saville.

Places are limited, and those wishing to attend are asked to inform the Secretary at least two days in advance.

Meet at the College Lodge at 2:55 p.m.

Collecting Shakespeare: the lives and books of Henry and Emily Folger

Stephen Grant
Christ Church Upper Library, Oxford
Monday, 16 October, 2017 - 17:15

Monday 16 October 2017

Christ Church Upper Library at 5.15 p.m.

STEPHEN GRANT

Collecting Shakespeare: the lives and books of  Henry and Emily Folger

The Folger Shakespeare Library, two blocks from the U. S. Capitol, houses the largest collection of Shakespeareana on the planet. Who were they, the reserved and secretive couple who assembled the treasure, and how did they do it?

Annual General Meeting: The archival afterlife of Francis Bacon (d. 1626): from Hartlib to Harley, via Lambeth

Richard Serjeantson
McKenna Room, Christ Church
Wednesday, 7 June, 2017 - 16:30

Before finally coming to rest in the British Museum and Lambeth Palace Library, Francis Bacon’s posthumous manuscripts underwent some complex and rather troubled journeys. This talk, which offers the first full reconstruction of their passage, will also take the opportunity to reflect more broadly on the relationship between manuscript, print and collecting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Dr Serjeantson's lecture will follow the Annual General Meeting of the Society (which begins at 4:30 p.m.).  Refreshments will be served.

 

Reconstructing dispersed collections: Burney and Consul Smith in the British Library

Alessandra Panzanelli Fratoni
Weston Library Lecture Theatre
Monday, 22 May, 2017 - 17:15

Monday 22 May 2017

Alessandra Panzanelli Fratoni will speak on

Reconstructing Dispersed Collections: Burney and Consul Smith in the British Library

Marital marginalia: the books of Thomas and Isabella Hervey (ca 1675–1694)

Emma Smith
Weston Library, Lecture Theatre
Monday, 6 March, 2017 - 17:15

Oxford Bibliographical Society

Emma Smith

Marital marginalia: the books of Thomas and Isabella Hervey (ca 1675–1694)

‘Tatters allegoricall’: reading and not reading printed waste in early modern books

Adam Smyth
Weston Library, Lecture Theatre
Monday, 27 February, 2017 - 17:15

ADAM SMYTH

‘Tatters allegoricall’: reading and not reading printed waste in early modern books

Visit to Lincoln College Library

Fiona Piddock
Lincoln College, Oxford
Wednesday, 22 February, 2017 - 15:00

Places are limited, so those interested in attending should contact the Secretary (secretary@oxbibsoc.org.uk) at least one week in advance. This event has been organized jointly by the OBS and the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles.

 

Bibliophiles' "Warden's Meeting"

Prof. H. R. Woudhysen, FBA
The Rector's Lodgings, Lincoln College
Tuesday, 29 November, 2016 - 17:00

Oxford Bibliographical Society members are invited to attend this meeting, organized by the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles.  Members are invited to bring along a favourite book or manuscrupt from their own collection to show to the assembled bibliophiles.

Visit to the Clarke Papers, Worcester College

Mark Bainbridge
Worcester College
Tuesday, 22 November, 2016 - 15:00

Oxford Bibliographical Society members are invited to attend this vist, organized by the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles.  Meet at the College lodge at 2:55 p.m.

Paper for the Press: sourcing and using paper at Oxford University Press 1670–1780

Martyn Ould
Weston Library, Lecture Theatre
Monday, 21 November, 2016 - 17:15

MARTYN OULD

PAPER FOR THE PRESS sourcing and using paper at Oxford University Press 1670–1780

Monday 21 November 2016
Weston Library Lecture Theatre at 5.15 p.m.

A major publisher needs large supplies of good paper and it was hard to come by in the early days of Oxford University Press. Martyn Ould will relate what the Press’s archives tell us about how suitable paper was sourced, stored and used in the period from 1670 to 1780.

ALL WELCOME

Visit to the Wellcome Collection, London

Dr Elma Brenner
The Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE
Friday, 18 November, 2016 - 16:00

Oxford Bibliographical Society members are invited to attend this visit, organized by the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles. The visit will be followed by social hour at the Crown and Anchor ...

Linking seventeenth-century book herbaria and rare botanical books and manuscripts

Dr Stephen Harris, Druce Curator of Oxford University Herbaria
Department of Plant Sciences (South Parks Road)
Wednesday, 9 November, 2016 - 14:00

Oxford Bibliographical Society members are invited to attend this lecture, organized by the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles.

Visit to the collection of Colin Franklin

Colin Franklin
Colin Franklin's house, Culham, Oxford
Monday, 31 October, 2016 - 18:30

Oxford Bibliographical Society members are invited to attend this meeting, organized by the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles.  Food and drink will be served.  If you would like to attend, please contact the Secretary for directions.

Romantic-period manuscripts

Prof. Kathryn Sutherland
Worcester College, Lecture Room B
Tuesday, 25 October, 2016 - 15:00

Oxford Bibliographical Society members are invited to attend this lecture, organized by the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles.

Merton Library before Mob Quad

Julia Walworth
Merton College Library
Friday, 21 October, 2016 - 16:00

This is the first Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles event of the term, which members of the Oxford Bibliographical Society are also invited to join. Meet at the College lodge at 4:00 p.m. on Friday 21 October.

Party to mark the launch of Claire Bolton's The fifteenth century printing practices of Johann Zainer, Ulm, 1473–1478

McKenna Room, Christ Church
Monday, 19 September, 2016 - 17:00

The Oxford Bibliographical Society invites you to attend a drinks party to mark the publication of

The fifteenth century printing practices of Johann Zainer, Ulm, 1473–1478 by Claire Bolton

Please join us in the McKenna Room at Christ Church, Oxford, on Monday 19 September, from 5:00 p.m. 

(the McKenna Room is adjacent to the Dining Hall at Christ Church, the door being on the Hall stairs in the south-west corner of the quadrangle; if you need directions please ask the gate-keeper on arrival at the college)

New light on the scribe(s) of "The Book of Margery Kempe"

Anthony Bale
Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street
Wednesday, 15 June, 2016 - 17:15

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING to begin at 4.30 p.m.  Lecture to follow at 5.15 after a brief interval for tea.

Visit to Lambeth Palace Library

Giles Mandelbrote
Lambeth Palace, London
Tuesday, 24 May, 2016 - 15:00

By kind invitation of the Librarian and Archivist, Giles Mandelbrote, members will visit the Great Hall (which has held part of the Library since 1830), conservation studio and reading room, view some of the medieval, early modern and later books and archives, followed by tea. Those wishing to attend are asked to inform the Secretary at least two weeks in advance.

 

"Filthy talk, p. 2": handwritten indexes in early modern printed books

Dennis Duncan
Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street
Monday, 16 May, 2016 - 17:15

What can we learn by looking at a particular type of reader annotation – the personal index, handwritten on the flyleaf of a printed book? This talk looks at how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century readers indexed their books, the methods they used, and the subjects they wanted to return to.

Lost and found: the fifteenth-century manuscript of João I of Portugal’s "Livro da Montaria"

Juan-Carlos Conde
Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street
Monday, 9 May, 2016 - 17:15

Dr Conde will present the results of his research into recently-discovered fragments of a medieval manuscript of the Portuguese treatise on boar-hunting known as the Livro da Montaria, and will trace the history of the transmission of this text, which was, until recently, known only through later manuscript copies.

Visit to New College Library

Naomi van Loo
New College, Oxford
Monday, 18 April, 2016 - 15:30

By kind invitation of the Librarian, Naomi van Loo, members will visit the Hubert Worthington library and view a display of treasures from the collection, and also have the chance to visit the garden, cloisters and chapel. Those wishing to attend are asked to inform the Secretary at least one week in advance.

"Printing in the infernal method": William Blake’s method of "Illuminated Printing"

Michael Phillips
Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street
Monday, 22 February, 2016 - 17:15
The lecture will be illustrated. 
 
A printmaking demonstration on a replica of Blake’s wooden eighteen-century rolling press, supplementing the lecture, will be held in Christ Church Old Library on 23 February at 5:30 p.m
 
Michael Phillips was guest curator of the recent exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, "William Blake Apprentice & Master". Further information may be found on his website: www.williamblakeprints.co.uk

 

Annual General Meeting and Lecture: The market for learned books (law and medicine) at the beginning of the eighteenth century

Ian Maclean
Sir Charles Frank Lecture Theatre at Lincoln College’s EPA Centre on Museum Road, Oxford
Wednesday, 17 June, 2015 - 16:30

The Annual General Meeting of the Society will be held this year in the Sir Charles Frank Lecture Theatre at Lincoln College's EPA Centre on Museum Road, Oxford, at 4:30 p.m. (please note the change of advertised venue).  After the business of the meeting, at 5:15 p.m., Ian Maclean will address the Society on:

John Fell's "New Year" Books

Will Poole
Taylor Institution
Monday, 15 June, 2015 - 17:15

The series of publications known as Fell’s ‘New Year Books’ was printed on the Oxford press over the two decades separating 1666 and 1686. Each edition was financed by John Fell (1625–1686), the all-powerful Dean of Christ Church and latterly Bishop of Oxford. This series has some claim to be the first such list in English scholarly publishing, in the sense that it was a continued venture under the control of one general editor, often marshalling the skills of commissioned individual editors.

The Archaeology of an Elizabethan Library: Reading Richard Stonley (c.1520–1600)

Jason Scott-Warren
Taylor Institution
Monday, 18 May, 2015 - 17:15

Richard Stonley, an Elizabethan exchequer official and the first documented reader of Shakespeare, left two fascinating traces in the archives. The first comprises three volumes of journals covering periods of the 1580s and 1590s; the second is a booklist that was compiled when the contents of Stonley’s house on London’s Aldersgate Street were sold off to defray his alleged embezzlements in office in 1597. This paper will dig into both documents in order to contextualize a highly distinctive early modern library.

The Book Society Ltd and mid-twentieth-century literary culture

Nicola Wilson
Taylor Institution
Monday, 11 May, 2015 - 17:15

Modeled on the successful Book-of-the-Month Club in America, the Book Society Ltd was established in April 1929 by the novelist Hugh Walpole and rapidly became a formidable force in literary and publishing circles. Aiming to be “an aid to the busy reader”, it boosted the scale and reach of new writing by sending out a full-price first edition of a selected title to its ten thousand plus members each month.

Visit to the Library of St John's College, Oxford

Stewart Tiley
St John's College, Oxford
Monday, 11 May, 2015 - 15:00

Members are invited to visit the Library of St John's College, Oxford, by kind invitation of the Librarian, Stewart Tiley. If you would like to attend, please contact the Secretary by sending an e-mail to secretary@oxbibsoc.org.uk or telephoning 01608 654349.

Exploring the type-founder's hand-mould: structure and skill

Stan Nelson
Story Museum (Bodleian Hand-Printing Workshop), Pembroke Street
Monday, 27 April, 2015 - 17:15

The type-mould is arguably the single most important invention in the history of European printing. Stan Nelson (formerly of the Smithsonian) will describe the historical mould and his work to reconstruct examples, and demonstrate how types were cast between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries.

CANCELLED "Unmasking" the most common colour-printmaking technique in Early Modern Europe

Dr Elizabeth Savage
Taylor Institution
Monday, 9 March, 2015 - 17:15

Colour-printed images were produced in their thousands across Europe from at least the 1490s, even in countries where colour-printing is thought to have been introduced hundreds of years later. Join Dr Savage for a discussion of how such prints were made, who bought and used them, and how they reshape our understanding of the processes of printing and the dissemination of printed matter.

Regrettably, due to the indisposition of the speaker, this event has been cancelled, and will be rescheduled.

Portable printing: British pocket books 1750-1780

Stephen Colclough
Taylor Institution
Monday, 2 March, 2015 - 17:15

Pocket memorandum books were among the most frequently read and/or used items produced in the second half of the eighteenth century. Frequently advertised in the newspapers, especially at the end of the year, they were the stock-in-trade of almost every bookseller and stationer during this period. A hybrid form, that combined almanac material with blank pages for cash accounts and memoranda of meetings, these texts were produced in many different forms and aimed at a range of different audiences, including gentlemen, businessmen, ladies and children.

The printing of plays in Early Modern Spain

Don Cruickshank
Taylor Institution
Monday, 16 February, 2015 - 17:15

The first classical Spanish plays to be printed date from 1496. Although the classical period —the Golden Age— supposedly ended in 1700, classical plays and other theatre texts continued to be printed in the same format well into the eighteenth century: the usual cut-off point is  reckoned to be 1833. The total number of recorded titles for the classical period runs into five figures. Many of these are lost, while some survive only in manuscript, but over 2000 classical items were printed. There are probably more than 10,000 editions.

The one-pull press and its adaptation to two-pull

Martin Andrews and Alan May
Christ Church, Upper Library
Monday, 17 November, 2014 - 17:15

Participants will have the chance to print their own ‘Gutenberg’ Bible page and see the current exhibition in the Library, courtesy of Cristina Neagu

Annual General Meeting 2014 Talk: Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici and Music

Gabriele Rossi Rognoni (Royal College of Music, London)
McKenna Room, Christ Church
Monday, 9 June, 2014 - 16:30

GABRIELE ROSSI ROGNONI is curator of the Royal College of Music Museum in London. He currently serves as Vice-President of the International Committee of Musical Instrument Museums and Collections (CIMCIM) of ICOM (the International Council for Museums), Board member of the Galpin Society, and corresponding Board member of the American Musical Instrument Society.

To Think again at the First Printing Revolution — With both Eyes on Books, Trade, Prices, and Use

Dr Cristina Dondi
Taylor Institution, Seminar Room 3
Monday, 12 May, 2014 - 17:15

Which were the distribution and trade-routes, national and international, of 15th-c. Venetian printed books? Who purchased them? How were they used and read? What was the books' contemporary market value? Can we trace the transmission and dissemination of the texts they contain? Some fundamental questions relating to the introduction of printing in the West and the Renaissance booktrade still await an answer.

Visit to All Souls College Library

Wednesday, 7 May, 2014 - 15:30

The visit will include a view of some of the treasures of the Codrington Library. Members wishing to come are asked to inform the Secretary.

Dr Cristina Neagu
Honorary Secretary
Oxford Bibliographical Society
www.oxbibsoc.org.uk

Christ Church Library
Oxford OX1 1DP
England
Tel: + 44 (0)1865 276 265
Email: cristina.neagu@chch.ox.ac.uk

The End of the Manutius Dynasty (1597)

Angela Nuovo
Taylor Institution, Room 3
Monday, 28 April, 2014 - 17:15

Angela Nuovo teaches Book History and Library Science at the University of Udine, Italy. Her main research interests are in the fields of the book trade and the history of libraries in Renaissance Italy. She has been teaching and lecturing extensively in Europe and in the USA. Among her recent publications: The Book Trade in Renaissance Italy, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2013; (with Christian Coppens), I Giolito e la stampa nell'Italia del XVI secolo, Genève, Droz, 2005; Il commercio librario nell'Italia del Rinascimento, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2003.

Miniature Giants: Gogmagog and Corineus in Manuscript and Print

Alixe Bovey
Taylor Institution, Lecture Theatre
Monday, 17 February, 2014 - 17:15

Dr Alixe Bovey is a historian who specialises in the visual culture of the later Middle Ages. She began her career as a curator in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library, working on a project that has evolved into the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, and she joined the University of Kent in 2005. Themes running through her work are pictorial narrative, word-image relations, the role of the visual arts in public ritual and private devotion, and the rhetorical and didactic functions of images.

Digital Approaches to Manuscript Studies: Problems, Potential and DigiPal

Peter Stokes (King's College London)
Taylor Institution
Monday, 3 February, 2014 - 17:15

Dr Stokes has been lecturing in palaeography and codicology at the University of Cambridge since 2004, in digital publishing at the Institute of English Studies since 2010, material culture of the book at King's College London in 2011, and formerly in medieval history at the University of Leicester in 2009-10. Peter Stokes’s principal research is the Digital Resource for Palaeography, Manuscripts and Diplomatic, funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant (FP7). This is a major, four-year project which will finish in autumn 2014.

The One-Pull Press: Workshop on Early Printing and Casting Type

Martin Andrews and Alan May
Christ Church Upper Library
Monday, 25 November, 2013 - 17:15

Participants will have a chance to print their own 'Gutenberg Bible' page and to see the exhibition 'From Scriptoria to the Printing Press' open from 6 September to 29 November 2013 in the Upper Library at Christ Church. The one-pull press on display was built by Alan May for a programme commissioned by  BBC 4, 'The Machine That Made Us', presented by Stephen Fry and broadcast in 2008.

AGM Talk - The Making of an Illustrated Prayerbook

Professor Nigel Palmer FBA (St Edmund Hall)
Christ Church, McKenna Room
Wednesday, 5 June, 2013 - 05:15

Professor Palmer is Emeritus Professor of Medieval German and taught regularly across the whole range Medieval German Literature, as well as the historical linguistics of German, Old High German, Middle High German language, and courses for graduate students on Palaeography and the History of the Book.

Photography and the Book

Richard Ovenden
Taylor Institution, Seminar Room 3
Monday, 6 May, 2013 - 14:21

Richard Ovenden was Keeper of Special Collections and, since 2011, is Deputy Librarian of the Bodleian Libraries. He was educated at Durham University and University College London, and has worked as a professional librarian since 1985. He has served on the staff of Durham University Library, the House of Lords Library, the National Library of Scotland (as Deputy Head of the Rare Books Section), at the University of Edinburgh (as Director of Collections), and since 2003 at the Bodleian Libraries Oxford.

Reception for the publication of James S. Dearden's Library of John Ruskin

The Upper Library at Christ Church
Tuesday, 12 March, 2013 - 17:15

On the 12 March 2013 a reception celebrating the publication of James S. Dearden's Library of John Ruskin took place in the Upper Library at Christ Church. Besides being the perfect setting for an event such as this, the Upper Library was a place John Ruskin knew well as a member of the House, so launching a volume about his own library here was a fitting thing to do.

"Bare words not being sufficient..." Tacit Knowledge and Early Modern Books

Paddy Bullard (University of Kent)
Taylor Institution, Seminar Room 3
Monday, 25 February, 2013 - 17:15

Dr PADDY BULLARD is lecturer in eighteenth-century studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. From January 2005 to December 2009 he was an AHRC Research Fellow attached to the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jonathan Swift, and Rank Junior Research Fellow at St. Catherine's College, Oxford. His monograph, Edmund Burke and the Art of Rhetoric, was published by Cambridge in 2011, and he has co-edited with James McLaverty a volume of essays, Jonathan Swift and the Eighteenth-Century Book (CUP, 2013).

The Hours of Jean de Carpentin: A Deluxe Netherlandish Manuscript of the 1470s, Filial Piety, and the Twentieth Century

Alixe Bovey (University of Kent)
CANCELLED- Taylor Institution, Lecture Theatre
Monday, 18 February, 2013 - 17:15

Dr Alixe Bovey has sent a message this morning  to say, with deep regret, that owing to family misfortune  she is unable to come to Oxford to give the lecture already announced for this evening (18 February 2013) on The Hours of Jean de Carpentin: A Deluxe Netherlandish Manuscript of the 1470s, Filial Piety, and the Twentieth Century. She deeply regrets whatever inconvenience this may have caused.

 

The Earliest English Royal Books

Richard Gameson (Durham University)
Taylor Institution, Lecture Theatre
Monday, 28 January, 2013 - 17:15

RICHARD GAMESON is Professor of the History of the Book at Durham University.  He has published some 80 studies on medieval manuscripts, book collections and art.  His most recent publication is The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain vol. I, c. 400-1100 (2012).  He has just completed a book on the history and contexts of the Lindisfarne Gospels, to accompany a spectacular loan exhibition to be held in Durham this summer (2013).

Visit

Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Tuesday, 10 July, 2012 - 09:00

Time to be announced. Visit to the Parker Library, Cambridge. Introduction to the

collection by Dr Christopher de Hamel. Members wishing to join the
party are asked to inform the Secretary of the Society at least 3 weeks
in advance.

Explorations in Early Printing Houses

Lotte Hellinga
Freind Room, Lee Building, Christ Church
Wednesday, 30 May, 2012 - 16:30

Dr Lotte Hellinga was Deputy Keeper (The British Library) and is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Correspondent of the Netherlands Academy of Sciences. She specialises in early printing, with interests ranging from detailed studies of textual bibliography of early printing and the transition of manuscript to print, early printing types, book-trade and readership, to bibliographical control of early materials through databases.

CANCELLATION - The Italian Book-Privilege System (16th cent.)

Angela Nuovo (University of Udine, Italy)
Taylor Institution
Monday, 7 May, 2012 - 17:15

The talk is cancelled due to speaker’s illness. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Visit

Bodleian Bibliography Room at the Story Museum
Wednesday, 2 May, 2012 - 15:00

Members wishing to come are asked to inform the Secretary at least 2 weeks in advance.

John Aubrey and the Printed Book

Kate Bennett (Christ Church)
Taylor Institution
Monday, 5 March, 2012 - 17:15

Dr Kate Bennett is currently Lecturer in English Literature at Christ Church, Oxford.  

The Medieval Liturgical Psalter: Typology and Patterns of Use

Elizabeth Solopova (Bodleian Library)
Taylor Institution
Monday, 13 February, 2012 - 17:15

Dr Elizabeth Solopova is currently Research Fellow at the Faculty of English (Oxford University). She specializes in Old and Middle English literature and linguistics. Her research focuses on the Wycliffite Bible, the first complete translation of the Bible into English, which survives in 250 manuscripts. She is the author of a forthcoming catalogue of medieval liturgical psalters in the Bodleian Library, a study of over a hundred psalters from Western Europe, covering the contents, physical make-up, provenance and liturgical aspects of these widely used service and prayer books.

The Book of Common Prayer and the History of the Book

Brian Cummings (Sussex University)
Taylor Institution
Monday, 23 January, 2012 - 17:15

Brian Cummings is currently Professor of English at the University of Sussex. He specialises in many aspects of early modern English literature, especially More, Wyatt, Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton. He also works on the history of the Reformation, the history of theology and of heresy, the English Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, medieval and Renaissance philosophy, humanism, especially Erasmus, the European Renaissance and the reception of the classics, grammar, logic and rhetoric and on literary theory and the philosophy of language.

Swirls and Secrets: Editing Jonathan Swift's Journal to Stella

Abigail Williams (St Peter’s College, Oxford)
Taylor Institution
Monday, 7 November, 2011 - 17:15

 

Visit

Worcester Cathedral Library
Tuesday, 19 July, 2011 - 10:00

Introduction to the collection by the Curator, David Morrison.

Syon Abbey’s Devotional Texts in Manuscript and in Print

Ann Hutchison (York University, Toronto)
McKenna Room, Christ Church
Thursday, 16 June, 2011 - 15:00

Annual General Meeting

What the Preliminaries Can Tell Us about Early Modern Spanish Books

Trevor Dadson (Queen Mary, University of London)
Taylor Institution
Monday, 14 February, 2011 - 17:15

Visit

Ashmolean Museum Conservation Studio
Wednesday, 26 January, 2011 - 11:50

Visit to the Ashmolean Museum Conservation Studio.

Digital Austen: Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts Online

Kathryn Sutherland (St Anne’s College, Oxford)
Taylor Institution
Wednesday, 15 December, 2010 - 17:15

2009-10

Monday, 9 November 2009, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 pm
Peter Koch (Peter Koch Printers)
Printing in the Shadow of Aldus: The Book as a Work of Art in the 21st Century

Monday, 8 February 2010, Taylor Institution at 5.15 pm
Peter Parsons (Christ Church, Oxford)
Artemidorus: A New Papyrus and an Old Forger

Visit
Wednesday, 24 February 2010, at 3.00 pm
Visit to the Oxford University Archives

Monday, 1 March 2010, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 pm
William Poole (University College, Oxford)
The Chinaman and the Librarian: The Meeting of Shen Fuzong and Thomas Hyde in 1687

Monday, 3 May 2010, Taylor Institution at 5.15 pm
Giles Bergel (Merton College, Oxford)
From Small Books to Little Magazines: The Reformation of the Chapbook

Monday, 17 May 2010, Taylor Institution at 5.15 pm
Daniela Mairhoffer (Bodleian Library)
Archbishop Laud's Latin Manuscripts from Mainz

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday, 9 June 2010, McKenna Room, Christ Church at 3.00 pm
Richard Sharpe (Wadham College, Oxford)
Medieval Libraries of Great Britain

Visit
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Visit to the Getty Library in Wormsley. Introduction to the collection by the Curator.

2008-9

Monday, 20 October 2008, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 pm
Peter Kidd (formerly Curator of Illuminated MSS at the British Library)
The Acciaiuoli Hours: Images, Texts, Provenance, and Codicology of a Dismembered 14th-Century Horae

Monday, 1 December 2008, Taylor Institution at 5.15 pm
Jane Potter (Oxford Brookes University)
The Bookman in the Great War and After

Monday, 26 January 2009, Taylor Institution at 5.15 pm
James Clark (University of Bristol)
Monastic Books in Medieval England

Visit
Wednesday, 11 February 2009 at 3.00 pm
Visit to the Oxford University Press Archives.

Monday, 23 February 2009, Taylor Institution at 5.15 pm
Ian Gadd (Bath Spa University)
'Leaving the Printer to his Liberty': Printing and Publishing Jonathan Swift's Political Tracts, 1711-14

Monday, 2 March 2009, Taylor Institution at 5.15 pm
Tiffany Stern (University College, Oxford)
The Play and its Manuscript Skeleton: Plots, Plots and Plots

Monday, 4 May 2009, Taylor Institution at 5.15 pm
Dirk Obbink (Christ Church, Oxford)
Imaging Derveni: The Oldest Greek Manuscript

Monday, 18 May 2009, Taylor Institution at 5.15 pm
Brian Richardson (University of Leeds)
Isabella d'Este and the Social Life of Texts in Renaissance Italy

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday, 3 June 2009, McKenna Room, Christ Church, at 3.00 pm
Michael Suarez (Campion Hall, Oxford)
Fleshing those Bones: Finding Thew and Sinew in a Sociology of Texts

Visit
Tuesday, 21 July 2009 t.b.a.
Visit to the Wellcome Library in London. Introduction to the collection by the Curator, Julianne Simpson. Tour will also include a visit to the new British Library Centre for Conservation. Members wishing to join the party are asked to inform the Secretary of the Society at least 3 weeks in advance.

2007-2008

Monday 22 October 2007, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Nikolas Sarris
Seeing through the Cover : Decorated Bookbindings at the Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt

Monday 12 November 2007, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
William Sherman
The Beginning of the End : Terminal Paratext after the Invention of Printing

Monday 21 January 2008, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Nigel Wilson
A Treasure-Trove of Lost Texts : the Archimedes Palimpsest?

Monday 11 February 2008, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Sally Shuttleworth
Monkeys and Babies in the Victorian Periodical

Visit
Tuesday 11 March 2008, at 3.00 p.m
Visit to the Rare Books Section and The John Johnson Digital Project (Bodleian Library).

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday 23 April 2008, in the Friend Room, The Lee Building, Christ Church, at 3.00 p.m
Speaker: William Bell
Reading between the Lines: Literature on the Western Front 1914-18
Tea will be served in Christ Church after the meeting.

Monday 19 May 2008, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
James Willoughby
The Libraries of Medieval Colleges beyond the Universities

Monday 16 June 2008, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Claire Bolton
Fifteenth-century Printing Practices of Johann Zainer, Ulm

Visit
Tuesday 29 July 2008
Visit to the Royal Library and Print Room at Windsor.

2006-2007

Monday 13th November 2006, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Julian Harrison (British Library)
Sir Robert Cotton's library revisited.

Monday 22nd January 2007, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Matthew Nicholls (Queen's College, Oxford)
Public Libraries in the Roman Empire

Visit
Tuesday 13th February 2007, at 3.00 p.m
Visit to the Conservation Studio of the Oxford Conservation Consortium.

Monday 5th March 2007, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Peter McDonald (St Hugh's, Oxford)
Apartheid and the Cultural Cold War: Periodicals and the Republic of English Letters in South Africa in the 1950s and 1960s

Monday 19th March 2007, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Mr Paul Foote (Queen's College, Oxford)
English Books and the Russian Censorship in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday 25th April 2007, in the Cecil Jackson Room, The Sheldonian Theatre, at 3.00 p.m
Speaker: Professor James Raven (University of Essex)
Judging the Law: Legal Decisions and the Book Trade in Britain 1450–1850

Monday 14th May 2007, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Clive Griffin (Trinity College, Oxford)
Archival Sources for the Lives of Printing Workers in the 16th Century: the Case of Spain

Wednesday 13th June 2007, McKenna Room, Christ Church, at 5.15 p.m
Seminar on new developments in paper and paper conservation

Visit
Tuesday 17th July 2007
Visit to Winchester Cathedral and Library. The tour include the Morley Library and the Triforium Gallery, with an introduction to the collections by the Curator, John Hardacre.

2005-2006

Thursday 27th October 2005, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Mr Stephen Massill
Immigrants, refugees and exiles: foreign librarians in Britain, 1500-1950

Thursday 26th January 2006, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Penelope Bulloch
Ovid's French heroines: pictures of women writing in a 15th-century manuscript from the French court

Thursday 2nd March 2006, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Francesca Galligan
The library of Samuel Harsnett: a preliminary report

Thursday 9th March 2006, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Jason McElligott
Secret and seditious: an underground network of Royalist printers and publishers in Civil War London

Visit
Wednesday 22nd March 2006
Visit to the Imaging Studio of the Oxford University Library Services with opportunity to observe digital image capture.

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday 19th April 2006, in the Cecil Jackson Room, The Sheldonian Theatre, at 3.00 p.m
Speaker: Professor Marcus Walsh
Editing Swift's Tale of the Tub

Thursday 18th May 2006, Merton College, at 5.15 p.m
Round Table Discussion
A catalogue of books printed in the fifteenth century now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford

Visit
Friday 14th July 2006
Visit to Tyntesfield, Victorian country house and library. Tour and introduction to the collections by Mr Mark Purcell and other staff of the National Trust.

2004-2005

Thursday 14th October 2004, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Ian Christie-Miller
Paper Imaging as a Bibliographical Research Tool

Thursday 2nd December 2004, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 pm
Mr Andrew Honey
The condition survey of the manuscripts in the monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai

Thursday 27th January 2005, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Mr Mark Purcell
Surveying the National Trust's Libraries: or, Five Years Around the Houses

Library Visit
Tuesday 15th March 2005 at 3.00pm
Visit to the library of the Oxford Union as guests of the Librarian-in-charge, Ms Su Lockley. 

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday 27th April 2005, in the Cecil Jackson Room, The Sheldonian Theatre, at 3.00 p.m
Speaker: Professor Thomas Earle
Portuguese Intellectual Culture in Elizabethan and Jacobean Oxford: Evidence from the Bodleian and College Libraries

Thursday 5th May 2005, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Anne Goldgar
Lies, the Press, and the Republic of Letters: The Saurin Affair

Thursday 26th May 2005, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Valerie Holman
Print for Victory: Publishing in World War II

Visit
Monday 18th July 2005, at 2.00pm
Visit to St Bride Printing Library (Fleet Street, London). Tour and introduction to the collections by Librarian, Mr Nigel Roche.

2003-2004

Thursday 30th October 2003, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Cristina Dondi
The School of San Girolamo, Nicolaus Jenson, and Venetian Books of Hours

Thursday 20th November 2003, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 pm
Dr Cristina Neagu
Changes in the iconographical canon: 15th and 16th century Italian Books of Hours in the Bodleian Library

Thursday 22nd January 2004, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Mr Philip Waller
Novelists and the reading public, 1880-1914

Thursday 12th February 2004, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr David Brancaleone
The Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property

Library Visit
Thursday 25th March 2004 at 2.30pm
Visit to Merton College as guests of the Fellow Librarian, Dr Julia Walworth and Archivist, Mr Julian Reid.

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday 21st April 2004, in the Cecil Jackson Room, The Sheldonian Theatre, at 3.00 p.m
Speaker: Professor John Barnard
"Sleeping Stationers": John Norton's Bible Dealing 1610-1612

Thursday 20th May 2004, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Robin Darwall-Smith
Mr Michael Riordan
Archives for administrators or archives for antiquarians? Early archive catalogues from four Oxford Colleges

Visit
Monday 19th July 2004, afternoon
Visit to Hughenden Manor, home of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Tour and introduction to the collections by Mr Mark Purcell and other staff of the National Trust.

2002-2003

Thursday 24th October 2002, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Mrs Mary Clapinson and Mr David Vaisey
The Bodleian and its librarians

Thursday 21st November 2002, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 pm
Dr Andrew Nash
"The Dead should be protected from their own carelessness": collected editions of Robert Louis Stevenson, 1894-1924

Thursday 23rd January 2003, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Mr John Randle
The Whittington Press and Oxford

Thursday 27th February 2003, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr David Rundle
The wanderings of manuscripts once owned by Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester

Library Visit
Thursday 3rd April 2003
Visit to St John's College as guests of the Fellow Librarian, Dr Peter Hacker.

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday 30th April 2003, in the Cecil Jackson Room, The Sheldonian Theatre, at 3.00 p.m
Speaker: Dr Kristian Jensen
Importing Humanism: Marginal Notes in Leipzig Books

Special event
Thursday 12th June 2003, Magdalen College Auditorium, at 5.15 p.m
Dr David Skinner
The Arundel Choirbook
Talk with live musical illustration, followed by a reception to mark the publication of The Arundel Choirbook by the Roxburghe Club

Visit
Tuesday 15th July 2003
Visit to Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, The University of Reading.

2001-2002

Thursday 25th October 2001, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Robert McNamee
Electronic Enlightenment: digitizing the Republic of Letters

Thursday 29th November 2001, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 pm
Dr Nicholas Pickwoad
Forgotten books in a forgotten library: some interesting and unusual bookbindings in the Biblioteca Communale of Foligno

Thursday 17th January 2002, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Linda Whiteley
The 'literary genre' of French eighteenth-century sale catalogues

Thursday 7th February 2002, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Dr Stephen Roe
The newly-rediscovered Autograph Manuscripts of Johann Christian Bach's Church Music at the Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg

Thursday 7th March 2002, Taylor Institution, at 5.15 p.m
Mr Reg Carr
The Mandrake Press, 1929-30: an illustrated account of a small private press

Library Visit
Thursday 21st March 2002 (2.30pm)
Visit to Trinity College as guests of the Fellow Librarian, Dr Dinah Birch.

Annual General Meeting
Wednesday 24th April 2002, in the Cecil Jackson Room, The Sheldonian Theatre, at 3.00 p.m
Speaker: Professor Rodney Thomson
The books of the twelfth-century Renaissance

Library Visit
Wednesday 10th July 2002
Visit to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge as guests of the Librarian, Dr Christopher De Hamel.

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