MS-LAB: Manuscript Lives Across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1860-1920.

forthcoming

Manuscript (MS) magazines were handwritten magazines that were created for private consumption by groups of people whose contributions to the magazine made up its contents. Though research on manuscript magazines is scarce, and archival examples are scattered, they were an important part of self-made cultures circa 1860-1920. A rise in literacy, and Golden Ages of journalism, periodical literature and children's literature contributed to their popularity. Though they were often started in the domestic space, and spoke to highly localised concerns, they were circulated and had a wide readership, much like social media of today. This project, ‘MS-LAB: Manuscript Lives Across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1860-1920’ will interrogate the place of MS magazines in family life and the development of literary cultivation across the four nations of the United Kingdom during the period in question. Through new archival research conducted in the four nations, and the design of a new methodology for comprehending the form and content of MS magazines, this project will produce new knowledge on this underexamined facet of shared cultural heritage. A dedicated web project hosting digitised surrogates of these manuscripts will share findings on these manuscripts with a wide public audience. During a non-academic placement with the Department of Archives and Manuscripts Collections in the National Library of Scotland, the researcher will share insights with colleagues working in the heritage industry who are typically the custodians of these unique manuscripts. The project's outcomes will pave the way for further work on this unique form in mainland Europe, as the web project and multimodal methodology can be applied to MS magazines found across other European collections.