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Book Reading in War Time offers insights into the impact the first few months of the Second World War had on the book publishing industry, our libraries, and the books we were scrambling to read.

In the age of Covid-19, those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to work from home have still had to deal with a minor, though recurrent, concern: what to wear after making the five-foot trek from bed to desk (or kitchen table, pile of cushions, etc).

This special guest blog was written by Edward Armston-Sheret and Innes M. Keighren of Royal Holloway, University of London, to celebrate the launch of Nineteenth Century Literary Society.

At first glance, Isabella Bird (1831–1904) was an unlikely candidate for the role of intrepid explorer. She stood just four feet eleven inches tall and, from a young age, suffered from a debilitating spinal condition that necessitated frequent periods of rest. Nevertheless, Bird travelled the globe, visiting - among other destinations - Hawaii, Japan, Korea and Tibet. In spanning the globe, and in challenging the physical limits of her body and societal expectations of her gender, Bird became one of the most celebrated 19th century women travellers and published numerous travel narratives with John Murray. While much has been written about Bird’s remarkable achievements as a traveller, comparatively less attention has been given to the role that dress played in how Bird chose to represent herself in her published accounts.

This week marks 80 years since Operation Dynamo, when over 300,000 Allied troops were evacuated from the beaches and harbours of Dunkirk during the Battle of France. Although the event has been since immortalised through various star-studded blockbusters, docuseries and history books, I wanted to dig into our resources to find out how those living through the war experienced and responded to news of the evacuation.

As an enthusiast of all things medieval and early modern, working on Adam Matthew’s newly-published resource, Early Modern England: Society, Culture and Everyday Life, 1500-1700, has been a wonderful experience. Among many personal highlights was the opportunity to visit the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and assess their collection of early modern printed books, thirty of which have been digitised for the resource. Many of these books are annotated, revealing much about how their readers engaged and interacted with their books.

This is a special guest blog by Emily Mayhew, a military medical historian who is also a member of the Editorial Board for Adam Matthew’s new resource, Medical Services and Warfare, 1928-1949.

In the Second World War, the nature of the air war, flying fighter and bomber aircraft, caused an injury so unique it was known specifically as the Airman’s Burn.  Airman’s Burn included the destruction of facial features, such as cheeks, eyelids and lips, and substantial damage to the hands.  The complex injuries required delicate and lengthy plastic surgery procedures to create replacements using skin grafts.  No surgeons anywhere in the world had performed such procedures before, so each patient was an experiment.

It's surely a known thing that leaving a post-it note for someone taking them to task for an aspect of their behaviour - for instance a flatmate who uses up the milk without replacing it, doesn't wash up or who consistently leaves the loo seat up, and so forth - is a classic form of passive aggression. I believe with this 1604 incident discovered in Early Modern England: Society, Culture & Everyday Life we may have one of the earliest instances of note-based passive aggression on the historic record.

Having recently stumbled across a news story about two Parisian streets left frozen in time after a World War Two era film set had to be abandoned as the city went into lockdown following the coronavirus outbreak, I decided to delve into the America in World War Two resource to learn more about the city of light that ‘went dark’ during the years of German occupation from June 1940 to August 1944.

In 1984, a periodical from the Navajo Times announced plans for a major cleanup effort at the site of a former paint factory located just 84 miles west of Chicago. In addition to neutralizing the potential dangers of a long abandoned industrial compound, the principle reason for this initiative was to mitigate the alarming levels of ionizing radiation emanating from the property. Looming larger than the factory itself, this periodical also provides a glimpse into the tragic story of the “Radium Girls,” laborers for the company who fell victim to gross industrial negligence and later became the faces of a movement for change.

Published by the Scientific Publishing Company, Manchester, between 1897 and 1917, The Mechanical Engineer is a remarkable publication. Digitised for Business, Economic and Labour History, the latest of Adam Matthew’s Research Source resources, this weekly paper provided its readers with news on the latest developments in a wide range of industries, often accompanied by detailed technical drawings. One of the great developments of this era was the advent of powered flight, and the paper's coverage of pioneer aviators is truly fascinating.

Every day we live history, yet only very occasionally does it become apparent we are living through times that will one day be written into the history books. 

When hard-drinking former marine John McMurray invested his wife's fortune in a bookselling business in 1768, he could hardly have known he would be kickstarting a publishing dynasty that would span more than 200 years, countless bestsellers and seven generations - all named John. How could he possibly comprehend, then, the mark his fledgling business would leave on literary history?

The Outreach team pull some of our favourite suggestions from faculty members who use online primary sources in their teaching…

This is a special guest blog by Peter Higginbotham, a freelance author and historian who is also a member of the Editorial Board for Adam Matthew’s new resource, Poverty, Philanthropy and Social Conditions in Victorian Britain.

Oliver Twist’s words in the dining hall of the Mudfog workhouse are one of the best-known literary quotations in the English language. As a result, we all know exactly what workhouse inmates had to eat. Gruel. But how accurate was Dickens’ portrayal?

This month we are celebrating both Women’s History Month and Mothering Sunday here in the UK. In honour of these celebrations, I have decided to write this week’s Editor’s Choice Blog about Sojourner Truth, an African American abolitionist, women’s rights activist and brave and devoted mother, who defied the odds to become reunited with her son.

While we all face uncertainty about what to expect from the coming weeks and months, I wanted to use this blog to end this week on a lighter note and highlight some of the fantastic content I was able to find sitting on my sofa.

In 1834, the system of relief for the poor in England and Wales was overhauled by the Poor Law Amendment Act. This aimed to re-organise and centralise the administration of poor relief across the country, establishing deterrent workhouses and strict regulation of outdoor relief to reduce escalating relief costs. Within Adam Matthew’s newly released Poverty, Philanthropy and Social Conditions in Victorian Britain, it’s possible to explore the complex details of this new legislation’s implementation, as well as its accompanying social, political and economic repercussions.

If you love nothing more than a smash-hit stage musical to ignite a keen interest in revolutionary history then I’d encourage you to look no further than American History, 1493-1945 where you can find a trove of documents from the Gilder Lehrman Institute on the rise and fall of Alexander Hamilton.

Next week marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, one of the key milestones on the road to the American Revolution.On the evening of 5th March 1770, in a snowy Boston, eight British soldiers led by Captain Thomas Preston confronted a crowd of Bostonians, who had gathered to protest outside the Custom House.

Based on the 13th-century Icelandic saga Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, Sir George Mackenzie's The Rival Minstrels featured two poets competing for the hand of the most beautiful woman in Iceland, otherwise known as Helga the Fair. This drama, however, was about to be overshadowed by the eruption of a scientific debate which would play itself out on the eighteenth-century stage.

Writers in the long eighteenth century were not kind to the elderly; in a culture fond of classical learning, age – particularly the age of a woman – was often euphemised with Ciceronian nature metaphors. A young woman was in flower-like bloom, bright and beautiful, while an elderly woman was considered to have wilted and faded away. However, many women resisted this trope, rebelling against it as they aged through a sheer refusal to wilt. One such woman is the remarkable Hester Piozzi, who proves to us all that there’s no such thing as too old for romance.

On 16th September 1963, Prime Minister of Malaya Tunku Abdul Rahman declared the formation of the Federation of Malaysia, joining Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah. Indonesian leader Sukarno strongly opposed this union, resulting in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation, or ‘Konfrontasi’.

Mid-January is often regarded as the most miserable time of the year. The indulgences of Christmas have passed, everyone is skint and Dry January is in full swing. In recent years, the UK has witnessed a growing trend towards ‘Veganuary’ for both ethical and environmental reasons.