Moses Griffith, Penmaen Bach from Penmaen Mawr Road: from the extra-illustrated Tours in Wales
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Penmaenbach_from_Penmaen_Mawr_road.jpg]
Preparing texts
The research team has been focused for the last few months on preparing selections of letters and tours for online publication. We are planning to launch the first batch of these at a conference to be held this November in the Linnaean Society in London (details below). Getting texts ready for digital publication has proved to be quite a challenge, involving technical aspects (such as tagging names) that go well beyond the usual editorial tasks. But this will make it possible to search the material in many different ways: it should lead to some interesting new angles on Pennant’s correspondence, and will help us to understand how later writers and travellers used his work. We are, as ever, hugely grateful to our technical team, Luca Guariento and Vivien Williams, for having made this complex process as easy as possible for us.
Exhibition and Events October-December 2018
The project is in its final year of funding, and we plan to celebrate four very busy years with a series of events in London, centred on a three-month exhibition to be held in the wonderful setting of the Dr Johnson House Museum. Working with Curator Celine Luppo McDaid, we will explore the famous Highland tour made by Johnson and Boswell in 1775 and its relation to Pennant’s own tours. The letters and tour diaries of Hester Piozzi – Johnson’s close friend and Pennant’s neighbour and relation – will also be included. Various events are planned during the course of the exhibition: please note the following dates!
4 October: Exhibition Opens: Curious Travellers: Dr Johnson and Thomas Pennant on Tour
30 October: Dr Mary-Ann Constantine will give a lecture to the Cymmrodorion Society
15 November (evening event): Professor Murray Pittock and Professor Nigel Leask will give talks on Johnson and Pennant.
16 November: Day conference and launch of digital texts in the Linnaean Society, Burlington House
14 December: An evening of poetry and music at the Dr Johnson House with Scottish and Welsh writers Alec Finlay and Ifor ap Glyn.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson#/media/File:Samuel_Johnson_by_Joshua_Reynolds.jpg]