Topic description and stories

John Milton and a page from Holinshed's Chronicles preserving Milton's censorship of a lewd anecdote

John Milton's notes identified in an influential book he once owned

15 May 2024

John Milton’s handwritten annotations have been identified in a copy of Holinshed's Chronicles , a vital source of inspiration for the Paradise Lost...

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First edition crime novels on display at exhibition.

Murder by the Book: a celebration of 20th century British crime fiction

22 Mar 2024

Priceless first editions and Agatha Christie artefacts on display at Cambridge University Library.

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Mathelinda Nabugodi

The poetry scholar, the Black Atlantic and the Trembling Hand

13 Mar 2023

Mathelinda Nabugodi investigates the impact of colonialism and the slave trade on Romantic poets. Her research has taken her into the archives with...

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Engraving of scene from Pride and Prejudice

Memes-field Park? ‘Digital natives’ are flirting with Jane Austen’s vision of the ideal man all over again

27 Jan 2023

Know about the Darcy hand-flex? Remember that lake scene with Colin Firth? For 200 years, audiences have been swooning over different portrayals of...

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Submissions open for BBC National Short Story Award and BBC Young Writers’ Award with Cambridge University

15 Jan 2021

Novelist James Runcie and broadcaster Katie Thistleton will chair the judging panels for the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award and BBC Young...

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The prologue to Romeo and Juliet, transcribed on the last page of Titus Andronicus because it was omitted from the First Folio. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadephia

Shakespeare’s mystery annotator identified as John Milton

17 Sep 2019

A Cambridge literary scholar suggests that the handwriting on a Shakespeare First Folio in Philadelphia matches that of the Paradise Lost poet, John...

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2018 winner Ingrid Persaud accepts her award at the West Road ceremony earlier this year.

Submissions open for BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University

13 Dec 2018

Booker Prize shortlistee Daisy Johnson and beatboxer Testament have today been announced as judges of the BBC’s National Short Story Award and Young...

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Henry Peacham, 'Silvius', from Minerva Britanna (1612)

Into the woods with Shakespeare

02 Oct 2017

The Shakespearean Forest reimagines the real forests that our greatest playwright evoked in his works. The final book of renowned scholar, Anne...

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Shakespeare goes to East Africa

25 Mar 2016

On the eve of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Dr Edward Wilson-Lee explores the remarkable ways in which the works of England’s...

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Charles I and Henrietta Maria with their children by Anthony Van Dyke (detail)

The language and literature of chastity

09 Feb 2016

In her debut book, Dr Bonnie Lander Johnson (Faculty of English) shows how deeply the Christian virtue of chastity was embedded into the culture of...

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Terence, Andria, translated by Maurice Kyffin (London, 1588)

… dot, dot, dot: how the ellipsis made its mark

21 Oct 2015

We avoid them in formal writing but they pepper our emails … In 'Ellipsis in English Literature', Dr Anne Toner explores the history of dots, dashes...

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The frontispiece of Ned Ward's Vulgus Brittanicus (1710)

On the eve of the Booker Prize: a sideways look at the literary puff

12 Oct 2015

A literary puff is the promotional blurb that appears on book jackets and publishers’ press releases. Dr Ross Wilson, Faculty of English, discusses...

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