This article reveals that the original owner of a first edition copy of John Calvin’s Commentarii in Isaiam Prophetam in the collection of the John Rylands Library was not the unknown David Forrest of Carluke, Lanarkshire as asserted and recorded by Alexander Gordon, Principal of the Unitarian Home Missionary College, Manchester, from whom the library acquired the book, but was the recognised Scottish Reformer and compatriot of John Knox, David Forrest of Haddington. An investigation into Forrest’s background, gleaned mainly from (...) contemporary documents, provides biographical details and an insight into the role this reformer played during the Scottish Reformation and demonstrates that Forrest’s ownership of the Calvin Commentary is historically noteworthy. A comparison of Forrest’s signature in the book with one made in a document during his position as General of the Scottish Mint proves his ownership beyond doubt. (shrink)

Sir Lewis Namier was not only a major twentieth-century historian, a pioneer of ‘scientific history’ who gave his name to a particular form of history-writing, but an important public intellectual. He played a significant role in public affairs, as an influential adviser to the British Foreign Office during the First World War and later as an active Zionist. This article offers a new perspective on his life and work by providing, for the first time, as comprehensive a bibliography as is (...) currently possible of his voluminous writings: books, scholarly articles and contributions to periodicals and newspapers, including many hitherto unknown, and some published anonymously. The annotation includes not only bibliographical information but explanations and brief summaries of the content. The introduction gives an account of Namier’s life and an assessment of his significance as a historian and thinker. (shrink)

This article offers a survey of the recently discovered scrapbooks collated over a number of decades by the Yorkshirewoman Dorothy Richardson. The large set of thirty-five volumes presents an important collection of press cuttings relating to the history and consequences of the French Revolution, and also contains ‘historical and miscellaneous’ material of a more eclectic nature. I argue that the texts significantly improve our understanding of Dorothy Richardson’s position as a reader, writer and researcher working in the North of England (...) at the turn of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, her set of albums raises important questions about the relationship between commonplacing and scrapbooking practices, and the capacity of such textual curatorship to function as a form of both political engagement and autobiographical expression. (shrink)

This article presents four pieces of textile decorated with Egyptian Book of the Dead texts and vignettes which are in the possession of the John Rylands Library, Manchester. As demonstrated, these manuscripts are forgeries made with the help of templates from the Description de l’Égypte. The article presents the evidence for this conclusion and traces the path of the hieroglyphic and hieratic texts on textiles into the library.

The John Rylands Library’s recently rediscovered Spencer Album 8050 contains a proof state of the Battle of the Romans and the Sabines, an engraving pivotal in the short-lived but ambitious collaboration between Jacopo Caraglio and Rosso Fiorentino in Rome. This proof impression was first printed in black ink, and then densely covered with hand-drawn ink. A comparison between the new proof state and previously identified states of the engraving using a novel technical approach involving long-wave infrared light to isolate the (...) printed lines optically indicates that the Spencer proof state precedes any other known state of the engraving. The use of penwork and printing on this early proof and subsequent proof states demonstrates how Caraglio and Rosso saw drawing and printing as intimately connected, iterative steps in the print’s production. (shrink)

This article annotates and publishes a previously overlooked letter in the Thrale-Piozzi collection of the John Rylands Library. The letter dates from the summer of 1774, and was addressed to Mrs Hester Thrale by Giuseppe Baretti, a member of Samuel Johnson’s circle, who had been teaching Italian to the Thrale eldest daughter for almost a year. The discovery of this forgotten document has offered an opportunity to reconsider the relationship that this Italian intellectual entertained with the Thrale family. The reassessment (...) of the role Baretti played in their household, in the course of his three-year tutorage, is conducted also in light of a reappraisal of the Easy Phraseology, a collection of Italian-English dialogues created for and with his pupil, and therefore affording important insights into the writer’s domestic and educational experience at Streatham Park. (shrink)