Dear blog,

I had a wonderful few days in Valencia last week attending the Societat Catalana d’Història de la Ciència i de la Tècnica (SCHCT) conference. I gave the plenary lecture for the literature and science symposium, which ran for the first time at the conference. It was very enjoyable, lovely to make new friends working on similar topics in another country.

Since then I’ve been back in the Royal Institution, working on the Davy letters project. I’m still reading letters to Jane Davy though I think I will finish these today. There have been lots of gaps between letters in this correspondence after reading quite a few in the early days of their courtship and marriage. It makes me wonder what happened to the ones that we don’t have, unless Davy didn’t write to her much during that time, or was it that Jane selected those that have survived when she gave them to Davy’s brother John for use in his biography? I’ve had a number of difficult questions raised in these letters, which I’m putting out to anyone who actually reads this blog to see whether you can help…

In a letter dated 27th April 1813, Davy writes to his wife: ‘Geo Knox’s two communications fidgeted me — I have always quoted him as free from any taint of the American plant yet it certainly displays itself in both his letters. — It was unworthy of him to suppose of you & of me any want of confidence & to attribute to me the paltry feeling of fear of anticipation.’ I have no idea which ‘American plant’ it is that he refers to here. If anyone has any ideas, or even better, knows that the issue is with George Knox’s ‘two communications’, I’d be delighted to know.

Now one for the literary among you… In a letter dated 7th April 1827, Davy writes: ‘As I know the effect of civility, I wish you would send one to Jeffrey the Edinburgh “Index” Mag (the Man who would have done me justice is with the good & great of other times[)].’ Index is very difficult to read and I may have gotten this word wrong. Does it make sense to anyone reading this?

From 1827 onwards Davy begins signing his letters to Jane ‘God bless you’, which is a new thing that I haven’t noticed before. I wonder whether it’s a sign of a growing religious belief? He certainly, from 1827 onwards (he died in 1829) is preoccupied with his health and the letters I’ve read this week have been written on his travels abroad for his health. Does anyone know what the stamp ‘L. A.’ means for letters from abroad? In one letter he writes ‘this paper is stained by a leech which has fallen from my temples whilst I am writing’. He mentions Byron’s poem ‘Euthanasia’ in another, saying ‘it is the only case probably where my feelings perfectly coincide with what his were’.

There are new difficulties in reading the letters too; he has begun to use full stops instead of commas (but where, I think, he clearly means commas). Since we’re doing a diplomatic transcription, I’m following his usage but this doesn’t really convey the meaning well. Also, as he has always done, Davy uses the end of lines or the start of a new line as punctuation, often in lieu of a full stop. We can’t show this on the page since we’re not following the shape of his lines exactly, so this will be lost…

Anyway, I have two weeks left and still many, many more letters to check. I wrote a piece for The Lancet last week, which should be published in January 2013; I have a book to review by this Monday for the THES, and a PhD report to write by next Monday, along with a proposal for an article and another article to submit. Not quite sure how I’m going to get all of this done…

Since writing this I’ve received the long-awaited reader’s report on my book and it’s really good! I’m totally chuffed. Full steam ahead!

Best,

Sharon