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The Edgeworth Society

The Edgeworth Society

1 Projects, page 1 of 1
  • Funder: UK Research and Innovation Project Code: AH/V002287/1
    Funder Contribution: 24,079 GBP

    The Digital Edgeworth Network explores and analyses the manuscript archive of the celebrated author Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) and the Edgeworth family. This collaborative digital network project responds to the scale and scope of the Edgeworth papers, taking an interdisciplinary approach that can in the future be scaled up via an open access digital resource for the use of scholars in history, literature and politics. The rich and varied collection of papers related to the Edgeworth family from the 17th to the 19th century is divided by the Irish Sea and also cut off from its original home in Edgeworthstown, County Longford. The manuscript archives split almost equally between the National Library of Ireland, Dublin and the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, comprise many thousands of items including manuscript drafts, drawings, family correspondence, of which only a tiny percentage is available in print, and even less is subject to scholarly editing. The Edgeworth archive offers important evidence (manuscript drafts and correspondence) about the literary career of one of the most influential novelists of the early nineteenth century, Maria Edgeworth; the educational, agricultural and political theory and practice of Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817); the ways in which an extended family with connections in Ireland, England, Europe and India, communicated and collaborated in the production of art, literature, and scientific knowledge; the history of Anglo-Irish relations in a period of political contest and transformation. Inspired by a 12 volume print scholarly edition (1993,2003) under the general editorship of Edgeworth's biographer, Marilyn Butler, there has been a significant surge in critical interest in the work. Selections of Edgeworth's letters have appeared in print, most recently Valerie Pakenham's Maria Edgeworth's Letters from Ireland (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2017). Print editions of letters and the fiction do not however communicate the breadth, variety and relevance of the extended correspondence and related network made apparent in the archive. Digital humanities' approaches and techniques make it possible not only to increase access to the manuscript archive, but also to analyse and understand it in new ways that offer potential to academic researchers and for cultural heritage. This timely proposal builds on an existing informal network and, in the context of the changing climate of British-Irish relations, solidifies and embeds previously informal connections to promote better understanding or our shared past for mutual benefit. Through collaboration between specialists in literary history, correspondence networks, digital technology, and heritage, the network will explore ways of re-uniting a divided archive and communicating its significance. The proposed activities cross disciplinary, geographical and sectoral boundaries and promote collaboration between academic researchers at the Universities of Cork and Oxford, libraries at Dublin and Oxford, and a cultural heritage organization (Edgeworthstown District Development Association). The network's public activities -- including the development of new resources at Edgeworthstown and the stimulation of creative responses from local school children to the manuscript materials in the Bodleian libraries and the National Library of Ireland -- have been designed to promote community and creative engagement with the resources, focusing on understanding better the global connectedness of Maria and her family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This work will provide the basis for exploring the future use of digital technology to bring archival images and information to life, enabling rich heritage experiences, as well as the wider dissemination of new scholarly understanding.

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