Inaugural Meeting of the TORCH Enlightenment Correspondences Network

On 24 February 2014, Ertegun House hosted the inaugural meeting of the TORCH Enlightenment Correspondences Network.  This new research group aims to provide a much-needed interdisciplinary forum for the many scholars across Oxford working on Enlightenment correspondences to discuss their research; explore methodologies for reading and publishing letters from the long eighteenth century, including digitised correspondence; and draw on Oxford’s many resources for such studies.

At this meeting, we asked members Pamela Clemit and Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig, to speak briefly about their epistolary work.  Pamela Clemit introduced us to her ongoing edition of William Godwin’s letters, published by OUP.  The copying machine that Godwin used to keep a record of his correspondence particularly fascinated the audience: the machine, invented by James Watt, required that letters be written in special ink, then dampened for transfer onto the copy paper.  The results were blurry and accordingly can pose serious challenges to modern-day scholars trying to read them, but this early copying technology has successfully preserved these valuable texts for posterity.  Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig showed us an example of the ‘last letters’ on which she works: a ‘candle box’ on which a seventeen-year-old miner engraved a message for his mother as he awaited death, trapped in a mine in early nineteenth century.  The later history of this poignant missive demonstrated the ways in which ‘last letters’ can be re-appropriated for edifying purposes by later readers.  The co-organisers of the network, Andrew Kahn and Ertegun scholar Kelsey Rubin-Detlev, presented their current epistolary work: a pilot project for a fully searchable online database of Catherine the Great’s letters, with new annotations and translations, which will put its first 100 letters online by Summer 2015.

The organisers were thrilled by the very positive response they received at the meeting.  With over two dozen attendees and several others who sent their apologies but expressed interest in future activities, the network clearly fulfils a need within the Oxford scholarly community.  The atmosphere at the meeting was highly collegial and the discussion lively: the seminar overran by almost half an hour, and we did not even manage to read the two articles which all the attendees so dutifully read in preparation.  Many ideas for future events were floated and noted down during the meeting, including possible invited speakers and topics for collective exploration.  We plan to hold another session in June 2014, at which we are thinking of performing close readings of original eighteenth-century letters; more frequent sessions will be held throughout the academic year 2014-15.

Finally, I would like to thank the Ertegun Programme for providing the centrally-located, well-equipped, and well-lit space for the seminar and the delicious lunch, both of which greatly contributed to the conviviality and the success of this seminar.

– Kelsey Rubin-Detlev