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Palace Green Library
Palace Green
DURHAM
DH1 3RN
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)191 334 2972
Email: pg.library@durham.ac.uk
English Studies
The resources of Archives and Special Collections are rich in manuscript and printed texts of English literature and language, and also include the papers of various literary scholars, alongside the historic development of English as an academic subject at Durham University, and on its appreciation throughout the North East, and beyond.
General
Resources for some specific areas are highlighted below, but resources for many more specific topics can be discovered by searching for the appropriate topic (such as literature or poetry or language or Shakespeare etc) in Discover and by restricting the search to ‘Durham Archives’ or by searching the printed catalogue by selecting the topic as a subject or keyword and restricting the search to ‘Special Collections’ or ‘Ushaw College’.
The Archives and Special Collections section in the historic Palace Green Library, includes major collections of rare books in the Bishop Cosin (nationally-designated), Routh and Bamburgh libraries. These contain many early editions of texts that are used by researchers at Durham, and include examples of early printing by Caxton, de Worde and Pynson. They provide an excellent range of devotional, literary, travel and science printed works in the English language from the late 15th to the 19th century, as well as private press publications of the late 19th all the way to the 21st centuries. Cosin’s Library, for instance, includes works by Chaucer, Mandeville, Shakespeare, Jonson, Bacon, Donne, Purchas and Du Bartas, and is a veritable treasure-trove for the study of medieval and early modern literature. The historic collections are supplemented by outstanding reference sections on the history of the book on open access in the Barker Research Library. Also the Big Library at Ushaw College has a large collection of 19th century books on English, and European, literature, developed for the benefit of the Catholic seminarians there.
English at Durham University
English Studies took a while to be established as a subject of study at the university, with in fact courses in French and German literature being developed before English became part of the syllabus shortly before WW1. Henry Ellershaw was appointed as Professor of English Language and Literature in 1910 and courses were developed in Old English, Middle English, Shakespeare, English Language and Literature 1579-1660, 1660-1790, and 1790-1900. It is perhaps indicative of the primacy of Classical literature at the time that his collection of books (in the SC collection at PGL) comprises almost entirely translations of modern English texts into classical languages.
English Studies has since developed, becoming a department in 1939, and for various periods two departments of Literature and Language. Its development is reflected in the university’s own archive, in central, faculty and departmental files, in the records of the meetings of its various committees from Senate and Council down, in the exam papers, pass lists and mark sheets for the subject, and the university’s publications of such as the Gazette, Calendar, Journal, and Vice-Chancellor’s Reports, and newsletters and the like. The subject of course also featured in the syllabus at the Catholic seminary and associated junior school of Ushaw College (1808-2010) whose archive is still accessible at the former college.
ASC’s collections include books, recordings and papers of a number of later 20th century and contemporary literary figures including: the writer, philosopher, conservationist etc Sir Laurens van der Post (1906-1996) (correspondence, manuscripts, films); the poets Basil Bunting (1900-1985) (books, papers, recordings, films), Anne Stevenson (b1933) (books), Keith Armstrong (b1946) (books, ephemera, recordings), Norman Hidden (1913-2006) (books, papers, recordings), Katrina Porteous (b1960) (books, recordings) and Thomas Blackburn (1916-1977) (papers); the Colpitts poetry archive (papers and photos of readings by contemporary poets in Durham); the authors Ingaret Giffard (1902-1997) (papers), Mick Standen (1937-2008) (papers), William Plomer (1903-1973) (books, papers), and Harold Heslop (1898-1983) (manuscripts); the papers of the publisher Rupert Hart-Davies (1907-1999); and the research papers of Professor Robin Dix (1956-2007) on the poet Mark Akenside, Professor Claude Abbott (1889-1971) on Pre-Raphaelite poets, and Professor Michael O’Neill (1953-2018) on Shelley, as well as his own poems.
The Additional Manuscripts series also contains a number of earlier literary material, such as some Elizabeth Barrett Browning poems (Add.MS. 157-162), a Rudyard Kipling manuscript (Add.MS. 860), correspondence of the poet Robert Story (Add.MS. 2038), and also some Gerald Manley Hopkins letters in the Abbott Literary Manuscripts, and Ushaw College holds the papers of the late 19th/early 20th century English poet and Catholic mystic, Francis Thompson (1859-1907).
English Language
There is possibly only the one document in Old English (DCD 2.1.Pont.9), from the early 12th century, in the Durham Cathedral archive. The Bamburgh Library contains several works relating to the study of Old English, including a 1659 edition of William Somner's Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum and a 1701 edition of Thomas Benson's Vocabularium anglo-saxonicum. The Cathedral archive also contains a quantity of documents in English from the 14th century onwards enabling an appreciation of the development of the language in a documentary form in the northern part of the country. In addition, there is the major collection of medieval Middle English manuscripts that form part of especially the Cosin manuscripts, including a Hoccleve autograph manuscript, a copy of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, and works of the Bury monk John Lydgate. These were the subject of much study by Ian Doyle (1925-2018), Keeper of Rare Books at the University Library and so their custodian for many years, with his papers and draft catalogue entries containing much information on them. Wills in the probate records and church court records contain much by way of 16th century English, often juxtaposed with contemporary Latin by way of contrast. The printed book collections contain various works on English language and etymology of the 18th and 19th centuries, with more recent material, especially on dialect, especially Geordie, in the Local Collection.
Drama
The Local Collection on open access in PGL in the Barker Research Library contains information on dramatic performances in and around Durham in advertisements, reports and reviews, in especially the local newspapers, held on microfilm. There is also much on drama at the university, in colleges or at the university level, in the Palatinate student newspaper, alumni newsletters, and in quantities of ephemera (programmes and reviews) for especially the 21st century in the university archive with a variety of plays and musicals being staged, and an annual drama festival encouraging new student writing. Drama also similarly featured at Ushaw College where students again created productions, and the Spennymoor Settlement also developed drama with its own Everyman Theatre opening there in 1939.
