School of History, Classics & Archaeology

Colloquium on literary commerce

The Arts and Humanities Research Council and Royal Society of Edinburgh will host a colloquium on literary commerce at the University of Edinburgh on 20 July 2015. (Published 10 December 2014)

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) will host a colloquium on literary commerce at the University of Edinburgh in July 2015.

The hall and staircase of the British Museum

Event description

The past twenty years have witnessed the emergence of new resources and new perspectives on the literary culture of Enlightenment in Britain.

Along with our interpretations of what it meant to be an author, reader, printer, and publisher, we are reflecting on the ways in which the arrival of new and powerful research tools have shifted our concerns—as readers, writers, teachers, researchers.

This Colloquium brings together historians from disciplines across the Humanities to consider the literary culture of the eighteenth-century trade in ideas.

Event details

 Monday 20 July 2015, 8.00am

Raeburn room,

Old College,

University of Edinburgh

Key speakers

The 50-minute sessions will feature speakers from across the United Kingdom and North America.

Speaker Title
Prof Barbara Benedict (Trinity College, United States of America) "The pen has always been in their hands:" Representations of authors and audiences in 18th century British literature
Dr Adam Budd (University of Edinburgh) Andrew Millar and the making of the British literary canon
Prof Viccy Coltman (University of Edinburgh) Press, pen and portrait: Sir Walter Scott and the physiognomy of romanticism
Dr Alison Duncan (University of Edinburgh) 'Fame and ye testimony of the judicious and sensible of all nations': promoting the public author
Prof John Feather (Loughborough University) Imprints revisited: interpretations and insights
Prof Matthew Grenby (Newcastle University) Juvenile Antiquarianism
Dr Catherine Jones (University of Aberdeen) Apollo Mathematicus: Archibald Pitcairne and the Virtuoso Culture of the Early Scottish Enlightenment
Dr Tom Mole (University of Edinburgh) Celebrity and anonymity in the long 18th century
Prof Pamela Perkins (University of Manitoba, Canada) All the prejudices of foreigners: creating place in early 19th century travel journals
Prof James Raven (University of Cambridge) John Nourse and his Enlightenment Bookshop on the Strand, 1729-1780
Prof Isabel Rivers (Queen Mary University of London) Religious publishing and religious books
Prof Richard B. Sher (NJIT/Rutgers University, United States of America) 'A monstrous list of expences and deductions': new light on the publication of Boswell's Life of Johnson
Dr Mark Towsey (University of Liverpool) Who did they think they were? Manuscript notes and readers sses of the past in Georgian Britain

Register online

Please register to attend via our online booking system.

Apply for a travel bursary

With the kind support of the Bibliographical Society, we have funds for two PhD travel bursaries.

If you are a PhD candidate working on any aspect of eighteenth-century studies or book history and wish to apply for travel funds, please contact Adam Budd at the email below, who will provide an application form.

Further information

All enquiries can be directed to Dr Adam Budd at the University of Edinburgh.

Dr Adam Budd

Lecturer; Cultural History

  • School of History, Classics and Archaeology
  • University of Edinburgh

Contact details