‘The Sidneys of Penshurst and Beyond: Contexts, Connections, Collaborations’ conference took place at Penshurst Place in 2022.

It brought together Sidney scholars from around the world and convened panels to explore how the legacies of the acclaimed Sidney-Herbert family coterie continue to thrive in literary, sociohistorical, and theatrical fields – and beyond.

Proposals for papers were invited to examine the connections between the writings of the Sidney-Herbert family coterie and the world beyond. The conference also explored literary collaborations, such as exchanges between members of the family circles; conversations with writers in Britain, Europe, and beyond; and collaborations across time through critical and creative writings.

An additional area of investigation was the Sidney-Herberts’ material collaborations with scribes, editors, printers, publishers and performers, both in their lifetimes and in their textual afterlives. The Sidneys’ political, economic and diplomatic ties add a spatial-geographical dimension to discussions, so papers were also sought that placed the Sidney-Herbert residences in wider contexts, looking to the City of London, the Court, the Continent and further afield to Arcadia, Tartaria and beyond.

Following a packed 2 day programme of events, including a filmed performance of Lady Mary Wroth’s Love’s Victory, we are delighted to share with you a recording of Mary Ellen Lamb’s paper ‘Scribal Readings of a Verse Exchange between William Herbert, Third Earl of Pembroke and Benjamin Rudyerd’ and copies of the two Pembroke and Rudyerd Poems  which she discusses in the paper.

[we will be editing a double special issue of Sidney Journal in 2023 with a selection of papers from the conference.]

Details of performance of Love’s Victory and the release of the filmed recording can be found on the Love’s Victory page.

[Link to PDF of conference programme?]