News-sheet — October 2012
New Content
This update enriches EE with some 1,200 new letters and documents and over 240 new correspondents. We have also included high resolution manuscript images for 6 of these letters. While many of the letters originate from traditional print sources, some of the material comes directly from academic colleagues previously unpublished materials for Electronic Enlightenment.
To help make updates to EE's already vast collection easier to understand and read as a group, we have introduced the notion of “Project areas”, which associate new materials within meaningful subsets. For example, in this update we have added materials under the following “Project” headings:
- Projects updating EE's existing collection —
- Adam Smith;
- Bernardin de Saint-Pierre;
- Correspondence in translation;
- Digital Voltaire;
- Frederick the Great;
- Thomas Gray.
- Projects introducing new collection areas in EE —
- Corresponding women;
- Trade and travel.
Adam Smith project
An editorial project expanding and enriching the Smith correspondence collection. This update adds two letters Smith wrote to the Edinburgh Review:
- a review of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language;
- a recommendation that the Review consider more than Scottish publications.
For more information, see the Adam Smith project pages.
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre project
An editorial project publishing the first critical edition of the correspondence of this French author and botanist: the Digital correspondence of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. This update publishes tranche 3 of the edition:
- 359 new letters, connecting Bernardin de Saint-Pierre to over 100 new correspondents!
For more information, see the Bernardin de Saint-Pierre project pages.
Corresponding women project
An editorial project bringing together correspondence and related materials focused on women correspondents. This update begins with a group of letters between the young Irish/Italian novelist Anna Laura Georgina Galloni d'Istria and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and some associated letters written by Clara Mary Jane Clairmont:
- “A society of their own” — four letters, with high-definition manuscript images, from Anna Laura Georgina Galloni d’Istria to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley;
- “The Clairmont circle” — four related letters from Clara Mary Jane Clairmont to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and one from Clara Mary Jane Clairmont to Bartolomeo Cini (with translation from Italian into English), all drawn from The Clairmont Correspondence (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), planned for release in its entirety for 2013.
For more information, see the Corresponding women project pages.
Correspondence in translation project
EE's ongoing translation project opens linguistic access to our multilingual correspondence networks. This update adds a new “Collection” comprising over 70 Voltaire letters translated from French into English:
- 2 letters translated by Robert V. McNamee, Director of the Electronic Enlightenment Project;
- 6 letters translated by Charlotte King, a graduate student working under Lorena Terando (Associate Professor of French, Graduate Program in Translation, UWisc — Milwaukee);
- 38 letters from Letters from M. de Voltaire, to several of his friends, translated by Rev. Dr Franklin (London: T. Davies & J. Wheble, 1770) — an edition published in Voltaire's own lifetime;
- 25 letters (with a further 61 in preparation) from Voltaire in his Letters: being a selection from his correspondence, translated by Stephen G. Tallentyre (New York & London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1919).
These wonderful letters find Voltaire writing on a wide range of topics: God and mortality, how to write verse, thoughts on Rousseau, urging help for the poor, and appealing in support of a mistreated English admiral.
For more information, see the Correspondence in translation project pages.
Digital Voltaire project
An editorial project bringing together a range of materials associate with one of great, representative figures of the 18th-century. Includes an ongoing programme creating an updated edition of Voltaire's correspondence, with new letters, new and corrected annotations and high-definition manuscript images. This update adds a new “Collection” comprising over 140 Voltaire letters selected and translated from French into English by Voltaire's great modern editor, Theodore Besterman:
- “Voltaire in translation” — based on Select Letters of Voltaire: translated into English (Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1963).
For more information, see the Digital Voltaire project pages.
Frederick the Great project
An editorial project expanding and enriching the correspondence of Frederick the Great. EE already publishes over 800 letters from the correspondence of this “philosopher king”, mostly drawn from editions of Voltaire and Rousseau. We are pleased to enrich that collection with the addition of previously unpublished manuscripts. We begin with:
- an early letter (with English translation and manuscript image) from Crown Prince Frederick to a fellow army officer concerning venereal disease.
For more information, see the Frederick the Great project pages.
Thomas Gray project
An editorial project expanding and enriching the correspondence of Thomas Gray. Working in collaboration with The Thomas Gray Archive, Bodleian Library, we are greatly improving our Thomas Gray collection, which is based on the standard Paget Toynbee edition (Oxford University Press, 1935):
- “Gray's manuscripts” — The first phase sees the addition of details on manuscript instances for all the letters (inexplicably left out of Toynbee's edition).
For more information, see the Thomas Gray project pages.
Trade and travel project
A major editorial project bringing together correspondence and related materials associated specifically with trade and travel — one of the great “topics” of the 18th century.
Opens with three “Collections” in this new Project area:
- “Celebrity visits” — includes three letters about visits to Voltaire, one with manuscript images from the Harcourt Papers, Bodleian Library;
- “East India Company” — beginning with The Correspondence of David Scott Director and Chairman of the East India Company (Royal Historical Society, 1951); this edition adds over 480 new letters and 146 new correspondents.
- “The West Indies” — beginning with The letters of Simon Taylor of Jamaica (Royal Historical Society, 2002). This edition adds 84 new letters and broadens the horizons of our project, taking it into stormy international waters.
For more information, see the Trade and travel project pages.
New letters mean new biographies!
This update also adds over 250 new correspondents to EE's outstanding biographical dictionary, including:
- Clara Mary Jane Clairmont (1798–1879), English — governess;
- Bartolomeo Cini (1809–1877), Italian — lawyer, politician, industrialist, author;
- Sir William Fairlie (1768–1844), (c. 1760–1825), Scottish — merchant, shipowner, civil official;
- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851), English — author, author, novelist, biographer, travel writer;
- David Scott (1746–1805), Scottish — merchant, financier, East India Company official, politician, member of Parliament;
- Framjee Maneckjee Wadia (1749–1804), Indian — shipbuilder, shipowner;
- Jane Dalton (c. 1742–c. 1817), English — botanist, translator.
Presenting the papers of the 2010 Electronic Enlightenment Colloquium on the sociology of the letter
We have now published the papers from this event in The Letterbook:
- “Letters, correspondents & correspondence”
— James Raven, University of Essex - “Isabelle de Charrière: from real to fictional correspondences”
— Caroline Warman, Jesus College, University of Oxford - “Bernardin de saint-pierre takes control: some aspects of self-publishing in 1783–1784”
— Noëlle McCavana, Queen's University, Belfast - “Publishing correspondence: letters in private collections & published forms”
— Susan Whyman - “Lettering in the open: when private turns public (Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot)”
— Isabelle C. deMarte, Lewis and Clark College - “Printing prophets: letters and publications about seventeenth-century messiahs”
— Brandon Marriott, University of Oxford - “Epistolary unease: William Robertson’s queries and the construction of a ‘compleat library’ ”
— Porter White, University of Edinburgh
To read the papers from this successful event please see the Papers of the 2010 Colloquium.