Category Archives: Printing and Publishing

Plant of the Month: January 2019

Posted on 25/01/2019 by carolinemmurray

A lot of choice, during this (so far) mild winter. I wondered about Sycopsis chinensis, of which the yellow filaments are currently glowing @CUBotanicGarden, or one of my own winter-flowering clematis, but – not only because it is glorious in … Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, Botany, Cambridge, Exploration, Gardens, History, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Plant of the Month: December 2018

Posted on 16/12/2018 by carolinemmurray

Not a traditionally Chrismassy plant, but something I came across @CUBotanicGarden the other morning, flowering its socks off against the glasshouse range, Correa backhouseana (or backhousiana according to some sources) is interesting not merely in botanical but also in history-of-science … Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, Gardens, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

A Bizarre Story

Posted on 30/11/2018 by carolinemmurray

Thompson Cooper (1837–1904) was the son of Charles Henry Cooper (1808–66), the distinguished Town Clerk of Cambridge, whose historical and biographical works on the city are still a major source of information. From 1842 to 1853 he published four volumes … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliography, Biography, Cambridge, History, Italy, Literature, London, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing, Venice | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Aqila and Prisila

Posted on 11/10/2018 by carolinemmurray

I have mentioned before the excitement of spotting something new in the display cases at the Fitzwilliam Museum (either because of a change-around, or simply because I’d never observed it before). The other day I noticed this ceramic dish showing … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, Cambridge, History, Literature, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Small-Coals and Concerts

Posted on 30/09/2018 by carolinemmurray

Looking something up in the ODNB, it’s terrifyingly easy to get distracted. Who could resist the siren call of this entry heading: ‘Britton, Thomas (1644–1714), concert promoter, book collector, and coal merchant’? And, as you read on, the story of … Continue reading →

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Printing R-Evolution

Posted on 17/09/2018 by carolinemmurray

I have been reading Julian Barnes’s Keeping An Eye Open, in which he remarks (p. 166) that ‘normal ocular fatigue sets in after about ninety minutes’. This is a huge relief, as I had always thought it was just me, … Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliography, Classics, History, Italy, Literature, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing, Venice | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

William Turner, Naturalist

Posted on 08/09/2018 by carolinemmurray

I have mentioned before Dr Richard Pulteney (1730–1801), the sole survivor of eleven children from an Old Anabaptist family near Loughborough, Leicestershire, who was apprenticed to an apothecary and then set up as an apothecary and surgeon in Leicester. After … Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Gardens, History, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Plant of the Month: August 2018

Posted on 27/08/2018 by carolinemmurray

This month, I give you Gladiolus murielae, for no better reason (or, in my opinion, the extremely cogent reason) that I have, after several years of trying, actually got it to flower this year! Admittedly, one flower and one bud … Continue reading →

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Object of the Month: August 2018

Posted on 10/08/2018 by carolinemmurray

I was recently trying to find out who in Cambridge (apart from the Polar Museum) has any scrimshaw, and was most intrigued to discover – as well as, naturally, bone and ivory carvings – Jane Scrimshaw, immortalised by John Faber … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Bibliography, Biography, Cambridge, History, London, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Doomed to Find a Premature Grave

Posted on 06/08/2018 by carolinemmurray

These portentous words appear in the introduction to the 1834 English edition of Letters from India by the French natural historian Victor Jacquemont (1801–32), ‘Travelling Naturalist to the Museum of Natural History, Paris’. If his name is remembered now in … Continue reading →

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