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A JOINT INITIATIVE
between the University of Edinburgh Institute of Geography,
the Centre for the History of the Book and the National
Library of Scotland has received a major research grant
of £221,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research
Council. The project is entitled 'Correspondence: Exploration
and Travel from Manuscript to Print, 1768-1848'.
The Project's
Principal Investigator is Professor Charles
Withers, with Dr Bill Bell
as Co-investigator. Much of the archival work will be
undertaken by Dr Innes Keighren, who takes up two-year
postdoctoral fellowship from 1 March 2008.
The project
aims to ascertain how explorers' correspondence came
to be the basis for established historical and geographical
'fact'. Three major problems to do with 'correspondence'
form the heart of this investigation. The first concerns
the correspondence in terms of epistolary traditions.
How did explorers write their accounts, as diaries,
narratives, and even 'letters', and to whom? The second
centres on epistemological questions: on what basis
did explorers assume trust between what they were told
and the real world? How can we trust travellers' written
accounts? The third concerns the correpondence as the
literal basis for explorers' printed accounts. Many
sketch maps became the basis for printed maps. But how
were words and images they altered and by whom? Some
publishers adapted explorers' accounts in order to meet
- even to stimulate - market demand.
Drawing on the unique John
Murray Archive, a publisher's archive acquired by
the National Library of Scotland in 2006 whose content
affords unparalleled insight into these problems, the
project will investigate the relationship between correspondence,
geographical exploration, and print history. A conference
is planned as one output of the research: further details
to follow.
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