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Grace Murray

@mazinggrace.bsky.social

Francis Bacon Foundation Fellow @ Huntington Library, summer ‘26 | incoming Leverhulme Early Career Fellow @ Birkbeck, autumn ‘26 | researching reading and writing about practical knowledge in c16th/c17th England 🖊️ next up: plant-writing in c16th London 🌷

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Grace Murray@mazinggrace.bsky.social · 5d ago

It’s the last day of my Huntington Library fellowship today, during which I’ve been on the hunt for imaginative readers of #earlymodern instruction & recipe books 👀 It’s been such a wonderful place to read and write over the summer, especially about plant knowledge!

Hand-coloured image of a rose in the 1633 edition of Gerard’s herbal at the HuntingtonView over the Huntington GardensPrinter’s device (1610) of a Pegasus annotated with the word ‘hors[e]Statue of Diana outside the American gallery
Rachel Winchcombe@rachelwinchers.bsky.social · 3w ago

In eighteenth-century Europe pineapples were everywhere. They featured in paintings, adorned buildings, appeared on ceramics and silverware, and crowned dining tables. Was pineapple mania simply about rarity and sweetness? Not quite.

A Pineapple with Insects (1719)Bild
Cambridge University Library@theul.bsky.social · 3w ago

Many years ago, a snake shed its skin in Norfolk. A clergyman and naturalist, Revett Sheppard, found it and pasted it into his ‘Naturalist’s Calendar’. Sheppard (1779-1830) began his ‘Naturalist’s Calendar’ in 1798, when he was a young student in Cambridge. #WorldSnakeDay MS Add.9839/22/1

A high-angle, close-up photograph of an open historic manuscript journal or notebook. Pressed onto the left-hand page, under the heading "May", is a preserved piece of textured, golden-brown shed snake skin, showing distinct rows of small diamond-shaped scales alongside larger, horizontal belly scales. Below the snake skin, an inscription in elegant cursive ink handwriting reads: "Part of the slough of a snake which I found in the channel fen at Barton in Norfolk famous for rare Insects and plants and much resorted to by me at the time I was with Mr Forby."
Grace Murray@mazinggrace.bsky.social · 3w ago

An unexpected highlight of my fellowship at the Huntington this summer: getting to see & smell two corpse flowers blooming this morning (one, nicknamed Odorysseus, is making its public debut!). They only flower for 24 hours or so once every 2-3 years, so a double bloom is a real botanical event!

Two corpse flowers blooming at the Huntington in Pasadena, CA
Digital Scholarship @ British Library@bldigischol.bsky.social · 4w ago

EThOS platform restored! 'Following restoration work, all metadata records previously available on EThOS have now been restored, along with an additional 14,000 records added since the service was taken offline' - more to come https://www.bl.uk/stories/news/ethos-records-restored

EThOS records restored

We are pleased to share that EThOS (E-Theses Online Service) is now available again following restoration work after the cyber-attack.

bl.uk

Suzanne Karr Schmidt@drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · 2mo ago

OK! I'll Wear Gardening Gloves Made a rare exception, putting on cotton gloves to examine a gorgeous floral English embroidered dos-à-dos binding at the Fisher Library yesterday! (The metallic thread made them necessary.) Like the Newberry puzzle binding, it's 17th c. and religious in nature...

Front view of the double decker book with its gilded edges, on a white pillow, showing the metallic thread and yellow iris design. Book in box with sign saying "must wear gloves when handling". Title page of the 1636 New Testament text. Book of Psalmes title page. Gloves are visible.
Meryl Faiers@merylf.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My latest post for the Kings Women follows the archival traces of two women in the 1580s who ran their own businesses and took on apprentices, Anne Collins and Annabell Baye, paid up members of the Grocers Company. www.kingswomen.org/post/the-sis... #earlymodern #womenshistory #londonhistory

The Sisterhood of Grocers

by Meryl Faiers, 9 June 2026My most recent post (20 April 2026) offered a reconstruction of the life of Rebecca Heminges, the wife of a grocer (and actor - John Heminges). Now I'm looking at two of th...

kingswomen.org

Isabella Rosner@isabellarosner.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Making a rare appearance on here to ask for thoughts on an embroidery from 1668. Do you have any idea what Old Testament story/stories these panels represent? Previously labeled as Abraham and Isaac but I’m not convinced. I think they may be the same figures in both. Thank you for your ideas!

BildBild
Max Riviera@maxriviera.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I'm absolutely thrilled to announce that @academic.oup.com just published my first monograph, "Richard Barnfield and Queer Classicism in Elizabethan England", which is now available both online and in print. #earlymodern academic.oup.com/book/62509

Richard Barnfield and Queer Classicism in Elizabethan England

Abstract. Richard Barnfield and Queer Classicism in Elizabethan England offers a comprehensive reappraisal of the work of Richard Barnfield, the Elizabetha

academic.oup.com

Grace Murray@mazinggrace.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Finally (inevitably?) I have succumbed to How X Read His Y! Grateful for the chance to revisit Joseph Banks’ copy (actually copies) of Thomas Tusser’s husbandry manual in verse, among other plant marginalia. And looking forward to what promises to be a great 2 days! Registration ⬇️

Chloe Fairbanks@fairbanc.bsky.social · 5mo ago

One month to go till registration closes for #ReadingthePractical @sheffieldcems.bsky.social @themhra.bsky.social @emjlynajsh.bsky.social! Online attendance is free, in person is free for self-funded/unwaged PGRs and ECRs, and you can register HERE: bit.ly/4rb7CiX

Grace Murray@mazinggrace.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I was definitely too busy sampling cheese yesterday to remember to take any pics but a huge thank you to @cheeseandpeople.bsky.social and @cheesetastingco.bsky.social for a fantastic event - to be repeated... ?

Alasdair McNeill@cheeseandpeople.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Yesterday, on the first sunny day of the year, @cheesetastingco.bsky.social and I ran the Tasting History event at Birkbeck. We tasted cheese, had a conversation with a brilliant audience, and hopefully brought to life the history of the trade and the people who made it happen.

A plate of various cheeses in front of a PowerPoint slide with the words ‘Tasting History’.
Lily Freeman-Jones@freemanjones.bsky.social · 6mo ago

PGR event! Having sampled the fantastic produce of @cheeseandpeople.bsky.social, I recommend running, not walking, to book your ticket for this...

Brodie Waddell@brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 6mo ago

‘Tasting History: Researching and Experiencing the Development of the Cheese Trade’, with @cheesetastingco.bsky.social and @cheeseandpeople.bsky.social, hosted by Birkbeck's Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Feb 24th! Register here: www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

Tasting History Researching and Experiencing the Development of the Cheese Trade Keynes Library, Gordon Square Tuesday 24 February 2026 1500-1730 This interactive, experiential event will include a discussion with Ned Palmer, author of A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles, and Alasdair McNeill, a Birkbeck doctoral student researching the early modern cheese trade. It will be accompanied by a free tasting of six historic cheeses. Ned will introduce each cheese by placing it in its historical context, and the tastings will be interspersed with a conversation between Ned and Alasdair about the development of the trade and its importance to broader histories of commercialisation, labour relations, and women’s social and economic role. They will also discuss the value, and limits, of experiential food studies. How can the history of cheese – from milking to mongering – illuminate the role of ordinary women and men in their local communities and wider society? How can producing and tasting historic foods help us understand their histories?