Research Collections at Trinity
New tales from the Old Library, Trinity College Dublin
You may remember a time, not so very long ago, when everybody was suddenly obliged to work at home. Without access to books or readers or, for the first week or two, the cataloguing system, there was a limit to what work Research Collections staff could usefully do. One possibility was writing blog posts.
Continue reading “Alphabet in Miniature”
A chance discovery of an incorrectly described journal has lead to the revelation of a story of adventure and heroism, almost lost to history. The story turns on the mis-identification of the author’s name.
Continue reading “What’s in a name? Richard Roberts, Cork’s naval hero”
Bram Stoker’s claim to enduring fame lies in the book Dracula, perennially popular in every form of cultural expression most especially at Hallow’een. However, this is a posthumous development and, in his lifetime, Stoker was best known as a writer of non-fiction. The last, and most popular, of his four non-fiction books was a work called Famous Imposters (1910) the author’s curious study of duplicitous behaviour and fraudulent schemes throughout history.
Continue reading “Dismembered Manuscript: a tale for Hallow’een”At the beginning of term, a student, Catherine Costello, presented us with a copy of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of pure reason, translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn and published in London in 1887. Although we are always happy to consider donations when they are offered, we are not always in a position to take them. However, the connection with Trinity meant that there was no hesitation over accepting this one. Continue reading “A gift we Kant refuse”
Now that this year’s tennis tournament at Wimbledon is well under way, we would like to draw attention to a recent purchase in the Library, a 17th-century book about King Charles I of England and his family. Entitled The true effigies of our most illustrious soveraigne Lord, King Charles Queene Mary, with the rest of the royall progenie, the small volume consists of eight etched portraits of Charles and his wife Henrietta Maria, along with portraits of their six children who had been born by the end of 1640, the last child Henrietta being born in 1644, after this work was printed. Each portrait is accompanied by an anonymous poem describing the subject of the facing image. Continue reading “Tennis: “The Game of Kings””
