Dear blog,

There’s a week to go till my book is due in. I’m in London at the moment after spending the day checking a few last minute references (confusion between Coleridge’s Notebooks and Works now averted) and am now settling in for the final read-through. It’s disconcerting to still be finding silly typos and errors, which makes you worry that there must be loads of them that you’re not finding but still, it’s nearly ready to go.

After the deadline I have some much-needed holiday and then I need to crack on with the essay I’m writing on drugs and literature for the Oxford Handbook of Romanticism. I’m going to incorporate some stuff on Davy and nitrous oxide – the happiness drug of the 1790s, which is still sold in festivals in the UK. From 1^st September I shall be on research leave and dedicate myself again to the Davy Letters project, which has been much neglected while I’ve been writing the book.

From 10^th September I shall be in London (cat and house sitting for friends) and will work in the Royal Institution for about two months, transcribing and checking transcriptions of the 200 letters held in the RI’s archive. These are the single biggest collection but I shall also in my final month in London do the same for the 50-odd letters held in the Lambton archive in West London.

There’s a blue sky here in London and I hear that the weather’s going to improve. Here goes for my final week of 12-hour days without caffeine or alcohol. Wish me luck…

Best,

Sharon

Dear blog,

So, I’ve been unable to post anything on this blog for three months. I’m not sure why (I’m sure there must be a good reason for it) but all of the blogs have moved to a new platform and here, finally, I am back again.

The cynic in me wonders at the timing of my not being able to blog. The last three months perfectly coincides with the 90 consultation period that the University of Salford gave to those people who were threatened with redundancy. In English, the threat has abated because of people moving to other jobs elsewhere, a retirement, and someone deciding to go part-time. The threat still looms over others in the university and they have had to reapply for their jobs and face interviews and competency tests to determine who gets to stay. We were on strike on Tuesday 26 June and the only good thing to have come out of this is the realisation that staff are going to support each other and face this together.

In other news, we had a great north-west long nineteenth-century seminar last Wednesday. It was really well attended, with some great papers, and some good discussions in the seminar and in the pub afterwards.

Since Friday though, I’ve been working full-time on my book, which is due in at the end of this month. It’s a real relief to be able to work on it every day for a few weeks. I haven’t had that kind of time to devote it to it for a long time. It is really difficult to write an extended piece (like a 90,000 word book) alongside all of the other tasks that we are asked to do. This year, as has happened in other years, I won’t be taking all of my holiday entitlement because I simply don’t have the time. This is pretty outrageous I think and I’m sure this would be a surprise to the public, who seem to think that we have the three months off that the students have. The good news is that – at present – I’m enjoying the process of finishing, while being very nervous about how it will turn out. Everyone around me is helping me: my mum is proof reading; my brother is putting chapters into the publisher’s house style, my partner is sorting out my footnotes. I’ve chosen the cover image now too from Wellcome images, but I’ll let that remain a surprise…

It’s nice to be back online and if you’ve missed hearing about what’s going on, I shall endeavour to keep the blog up to date from now on!

Best,

Sharon

Dear blog,
What follows below is a blog post written in 31st March but which couldn’t be published till now because the University took all the blogs down. More recent blog to follow…
So, the University of Salford announced 65 redundancies across the University yesterday and 3 of these will be in English. These are horrible times, with people being asked to reapply for their jobs, go for interviews, and whoever is still around after this process will be asked to teach more than we are at present. We’re trying to see if there’s a way to stick together in all of this and present a united front, instead of being pitted against each other.

I was in the British Library for much of the past week, reading stuff that the libraries in Manchester don’t have and which I need to have read for my book. One fascinating activity was comparing Coleridge’s notes to Humphry Davy’s Syllabus for a Course of Lectures. Coleridge attended Davy’s lectures in 1802 and the Syllabus gives us some idea of the topics covered. Coleridge’s notes show how interested he was in the subject and he often notes the experiments that Davy used to explain things. One brilliant line in his notes: ‘If all aristocrats here how easily Davy might poison them all’… I also spent a lovely morning reading Davy’s notebooks, checking quotations and discovering afresh how much there is in them. For now though, I need to stop work on the book and write the article I’ve promised on Frankenstein and natural history to a special edition of a journal.

I spent yesterday interviewing candidates for the AHRC doctoral award we have in English. It was really excellent to see all the different projects that people are proposing and to speak to some really bright and engaged students.

Professor Ian Haywood came to Salford last Wednesday to speak about his latest project on caricature. He had some brilliant material to discuss and there was a small but select audience to listen to his ideas and ask questions.

While in London I saw In Basildon, by David Eldridge, at the Royal Court, which brought back lots of memories of Essex life for me. I also saw the Jeremy Deller retrospective and David Shrigley exhibition at the Haywood Gallery. Deller was my favourite by a street; he’s so politically engaged and thought-provoking.

More soon,

Sharon