Dear Blog,

It’s nearly Christmas and I’ve managed to fit in one last research trip of 2010 at the National Library of Scotland. Edinburgh is looking very beautiful in the snow and I’ve found a cache of letters, some not previous known about, written by Humphry, Jane and John Davy to John Murray (snr and jnr) the of the famous publisher firm.

Among the finds I’ve come across this week is a letter from Humphry Davy to Francis Jeffrey, which gives us his views (in 1810 at least) on the Edinburgh Review:

‘I have been always interested in the important work which you conduct & being generally instructed & delighted with the liberality & soundness of the discussions that it contains in matters of taste & criticism & general Science’ (23 January [1810])

The Edinburgh was, of course very important in the Romantic period, and I’m interested to find Davy here ‘delighted with the liberality & soundness of the discussions’ he reads in the Whig-oriented journal. The Quarterly Review had been founded in 1809 to counter precisely these liberal views and opinions.

It’s been a week of transcribing difficult handwriting (I think Lady Davy’s is the most difficult) and I’ve had the online OED and DNB open at all times, as well as google book’s editions of Davy’s works, to try to check words that seem incorrect or unlikely. It’s amazing the things that you find out: for example, a ‘Firman’ is ‘An edict or order issued by an Oriental sovereign, esp. the Sultan of Turkey; a grant, licence, passport, permit’ (OED). Davy expressly asks the ambassador in Constantinople (now Istanbul) to get him one of these so that he can properly examine the many scientifically interesting objects in that country.

I was amused too to find Lady Davy correcting the younger John Murray’s (1808–1892), spelling of ‘Humphry’, which is without an ‘e’ in Davy’s case. Apparently Davy features in Murray’s Handbook of Devon and Cornwall but with his name spelled incorrectly. Lady Davy writes in November 1850: ‘Apropos in your Cornwall you spell Sir Humphry’s christian name wrong; & as he was tenacious about it (generally not tenacious at all) I am.’ It’s funny to find out that he was anxious that people get this right – it’s something I find myself correcting in others too!

Finally I hope people are excited about the fourth event of the LitSciMed training programme, due to take place on 13-14 January 2011 in Manchester and Salford. We had over 30 applications for the 20 places and choosing from these was difficult. Participants are being asked to contribute poems they have found that have some connection to science before the event itself with short reflections on those poems. They are being posted in the blog section of the ‘Poetry and Science’ discussion group and I urge everyone to have a read and post comments. Paul Craddock’s is already up there but all 20 of the participants’ poems will be there by 5th January. More material will go up after the event including resources (see the resources section of www.litscimed.org.uk) for what we have from other events.

Have a lovely lovely Christmas and New Year,

Sharon