Archival Feminist Research: Local and Abroad
Last Friday, I conducted on-site research into the following materials related to my primary area of scholarly interest, British women writers of the long eighteenth century, in the Hicks Collection at Oakland University with the help of a certain librarian, aka Emily, who in an email prior to my visit provided me with links (duplicated below) to the texts I expressed interest in viewing, for the versions through early-19th century and excluding later 19th-century reprints. I had expressed interest also in the Haywood-edited Female Spectator, volume 3 (1744-46); novels by Haywood and Aphra Behn (1640-1689); Lucy Hutchinson’s Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson (1808); and Margaret Cavendish’s Life of William Cavendish, duke of Newcastle, to which is added the true relation of my birth, breeding and life. If the Female Spectator had been available, it would have been my top text for the Mini-Edition. Since it was not available, and in the interest of time, I narrowed down my list by also eliminating the Behn, Hutchinson, and Cavendish texts, applicable as they are to my interests, leaving the nonfiction writing of the Montagus and Haywood.
On Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), the archivists pulled four texts for me: (1) Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M–y W—-y M—-e; written during her travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, to persons of distinction, men of letters, &c., in different parts of Europe. Which contain among other curious relations, accounts of the pol…, (2) Works of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, including her correspondence, poems, and essays, (3) Letters and works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu / edited by her great grandson, Lord Wharncliffe, (4) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; select passages from her letters, ed. by Arthur R. Ropes…With nine portraits after Sir Gedfrey Kneller and other artists; on Elizabeth Montagu (Queen of the Bluestockings) (1718-1800), they pulled (1) The letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, with some of the letters of her correspondents and (2) An essay on the writings and genius of Shakespear, compared with the Greek and French dramatic poets; on Eliza Haywood (1693-1756), (1) Present for a servant maid; or, The sure means of gaining love and esteem … To which are added directions for going to market; also, for dressing any common dish, whether flesh, fish, or fowl. With some rules for washington, &c., (2) The Wife., (3) Husband. In answer to The wife., (4) Entretien des beaux esprits. Conversations, comprising a great variety of remarkable adventures, serious, comic, and moral. Written for the entertainment of the French court. Translated by Mrs. Haywood. The Hicks Collection contains so many gems that I did not narrow it down as much as I would have were I a more experienced archive-worker; it would have taken me days to explore these 10 books, which were ready for me on a cart in the basement to behold and properly thumb through, with a large table for me to spread out and work with the texts on. I scanned Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s travel writing and Haywood’s The Wife and Husband. to potentially use for a forthcoming Mini-Edition and/or Digital Edition.
It is my dream to research at the British and Bodleian Libraries. (I only wish that I could travel back in time to June 2017 and attend this exhibition.) Photos of the Bodleian and British libraries’ manuscripts reading rooms online show dozens more tables than OU’s. The Bodleian houses Frances Burney’s manuscripts. The British Library holds manuscript copies of poems from Burney’s Evelina and contemporary reviews of the novel, plus letters and diaries, on which I have written and presented and am planning to write about in my dissertation.
