Author: Emily Vine

The project team have recently returned from two weeks researching at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. The Huntington contains several important collections of eighteenth-century British correspondence, many of which found their way across the Atlantic in the early twentieth century, with later waves of acquisitions arriving in more recent decades. Many of these … Continue reading “Travelling Letters, Travelling Bodies: Reflections from the Huntington Library”

‘I think your eyes must be better’, Mary Bostock wrote to Mary Huddleston in May 1810, ‘for I am sure you write as well as ever’. [1]  Bostock understood the quality of Huddleston’s handwriting to be a direct indication of her correspondent’s health: she was aware of the subtle changes in how her relative formed … Continue reading “The letter as embodiment of health”

All images have been reproduced with kind permission of © British Library Board The past few weeks have seen the reopening of archives and libraries across the country, and, happily for the project team, the opportunity to be reunited with the eighteenth-century letters at the heart of our research. But with archive slots in high … Continue reading “Picturing the Body: Body Parts in eighteenth-century Letters”