Lyell Lectures Explained

The Lyell Readership in Bibliography is an endowed annual lecture series given at the University of Oxford. Instituted in 1952 by a bequest from the solicitor, book collector and bibliographer, James Patrick Ronaldson Lyell.^[1] After Lyell's death, Keeper of the Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, Richard William Hunt, writing of the Lyell bequest noted, "he was a self-taught bibliophile and scholar of extraordinary enthusiasm and discrimination, and one who deserves to be remembered not only by Oxford but by the whole bibliographical world."^[2]

The series has continued down to the present day.^{[3] [4]}

Together with the Panizzi Lectures at the British Library and the Sandars Lectures at Cambridge University, it is considered one of the major British bibliographical lecture series.^[5]

Lectures

• 1952–1953 Neil Ripley Ker: English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest
• 1954–1955 Walter Wilson Greg: Some Aspects and Problems of London Publishing between 1550 and 1650
• 1956–1957 Stanley Arthur Morison: Aspects of Authority and Freedom in Relation to Greco–Latin Script, Inscription, and Type
• 1959–1960 Fredson T. Bowers: Bibliography and Textual Criticism
• 1960–1961 Henry Graham Pollard: The Medieval Book Trade in Oxford ^[6]
• 1961–1962 Philip Hofer: The Artist and the Book in France
• 1962–1963 A.N.L. Munby: Three Nineteenth-Century Collectors of Manuscripts
• 1963–1964 Jacques Guignard: L'Art de le Reliure en France et l'Action des Bibliophiles: Quelques Aspects de la Question
• 1964–1965 William Beattie: Some Aspects of the History of the Advocates' Library
• 1965–1966 Simon Harcourt Nowell-Smith: International Copyright Law and the Publisher in the Reign of Queen Victoria
• 1966–1967 Anthony Ian Doyle: Some English Scribes and Scriptoria of the Later Middle Ages
• 1967–1968 Harry Graham Carter: A View of Early Typography up to about 1600^[7]
• 1968–1969 : The Labours of Hercules: Some Observations on the History of Erasmus's Opera Omnia
• 1969–1970 William Burton Todd: Scholarly Texts: Variable Techniques and Designs
• 1970–1971 Otto Ernst Pächt: The Art of Drawing within the Realm of Medieval Illumination
• 1971–1972 Wytze Hellinga: The Bibliography of Early Printing in the Low Countries between 1767 and 1874
• 1972–1973 André Masson: Le Catalogue Figuratif: A Pictorial Guide to the Contents of European Libraries from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century
• 1973–1974 Alan W. Tyson: Beethoven: Studies in the Genesis of his Music 1803–9
• 1974–1975 T. A. M. Bishop: The Script of Corbie
• 1975–1976 David F. Foxon: Pope and the Early Eighteenth-Century Book Trade.^[8]
• 1976–1977 T. Julian Brown: The Insular System of Scripts, c.600–c.850
• 1977–1978 Mme Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer: La Famille Fournier et la Fonderie Typographique en France au XVIIIe Siècle
• 1978–1979 Howard Millar Nixon: English Decorated Bookbindings
• 1979–1980 Monsignor José Ruysschaert: Recherches Vaticanes sur la Miniature Italienne du Quinzième Siecle
• 1980–1981 Ian Gilbert Philip: The Bodleian Library in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
• 1981–1982 Berthold Wolpe: The Quest for Beauchesne: Contributions to the History of Elizabethan Calligraphy and Print-Making
• 1982–1983 Jonathan J.G. Alexander: Creation and Transmission: Methods of Work of Manuscript Illuminators in the Middle Ages
• 1983–1984 Robert Shackleton: The Bibliographical History of Montesquieu^[9]
• 1984–1985 Gordon Norton Ray: The Art Deco Book in France
• 1985–1986 Edwin Wolf: Books, Bookmen, and Booksellers in Colonial Philadelphia
• 1986–1987 Mary Pollard: Dublin Trade in Books 1550 to 1800
• 1987–1988 D.F. McKenzie: Bibliography and History: Seventeenth-Century England
• 1988–1989 Donald H. Reiman: The Study of Modern Manuscripts: Public, Confidential, and Private
• 1989–1990 Elizabeth L. Eisenstein: Grub Street Abroad: Aspects of the French Cosmopolitan Press from the Age of Louis XIV to the French Revolution
• 1990–1991 A. R. A. Hobson: Two Renaissance Book-Collectors: Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Their Libraries and Bookbindings
• 1991–1992 R.H. Rouse: Book-Producers and Pook-Production in Paris: Family, Shop, and Neighbourhood on the Rue Neuve Notre-Dame, 1200–1500
• 1992–1993 Bernhard Fabian: English Authors and German Publishers in the Eighteenth Century
• 1993–1994 Joseph Burney Trapp: Illustrations of Petrarch from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century
• 1994–1995 Henri-Jean Martin: Du Manuscrit au Livre Imprimé: Mise en Page et Mise en Texte des Textes Littéraires Français de la Fin due XVe Siècle au Milieu du XVIIe Siècle
• 1995–1996 Peter Beal: In Praise of Scribes: Manuscripts and Their Makers in Seventeenth-Century England ^[10]
• 1996–1997 Robert Darnton: Policing Literature in Eighteenth-Century Paris
• 1998–1999 Malcolm B. Parkes: Their Hands before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes.^[11]
• 1999–2000 David McKitterick: Set in Print: The Fortunes of an Idea, c.1450–1800
• 2000–2001 Rodney Malcolm Thomson: Books and Learning in Twelfth-Century England: The Ending of 'Alter Orbis'
• 2001–2002 Bruce Bryning Redford: Designing the Life of Johnson
• 2002–2003 Nigel G. Wilson: The World of Books in Byzantium
• 2003–2004 Kathleen L. Scott: Suppleatur per Ymaginacionem: Exceptional Images in Later Medieval English Manuscripts
• 2004–2005 : Literary Life and Book-Market in Germany under the Swastika 1933–1945
• 2005–2006 Leslie Howsam: Historical Knowledge and British Publishers, 1850–1950: Discipline and Narrative
• 2006–2007 Mirella Ferrari: The Scriptorium and Library of Bobbio
• 2007–2008 Kristian Jensen: Collecting Incunabula: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Market — Rediscovering and Re-Creating the Earliest Printed Books in the Eighteenth Century
• 2008–2009 Christopher F.R. de Hamel: Fragments in Book Bindings
• 2009–2010 Ian Maclean: The Business of Scholarship: The Trade in Latin Books in the Age of Confessions, 1560–1630
• 2010–2011 David Parker: Describing the New Testament
• 2011–2012 Lukas Erne: Shakespeare and the Book Trade
• 2012–2013 Richard Beadle: Late Medieval English Autograph Writings and Their Uses
• 2013–2014 H.R. Woudhuysen: 'Almost Identical': Copying Books in England, 1600–1900
• 2014–2015 Michael F. Suarez, : The Reach of Bibliography
• 2015–2016 Teresa Webber: Public Reading and its Books: Monastic Ideals and Practice in England c. 1000–c. 1300
• 2016–2017 Paul Nelles: The Vatican Library in the Counter-Reformation^[12]
• 2017–2018 David Pearson: Book Ownership in Stuart England
• 2018–2019 Richard Sharpe: Libraries and Books in Medieval England: The Role of Libraries in a Changing Book Economy (recordings here)^[13]
• 2019–2020 Marc Smith Writing models from manuscript to print: France, England and Europe, c.1400–1800 (recordings here)
• 2020–2021 Paul Needham: The Genesis, Life, and Afterlife of the Gutenberg Bible (link to recorded versions here)
• 2021–2022 Susan Rankin: From Memory to Written Record: English Liturgical Books and Musical Notations, 900–1150 (first lecture available here)
• 2022-2023 Ann M. Blair In the scholar’s workshop: amanuenses in early modern Europe
• 2024-2025 Stephen Oakley: Copying the Classics (and Fathers): explorations in the transmission of Latin text.

See also

• A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography
• E. A. Lowe Lectures
• McKenzie Lectures
• Panizzi Lectures
• Sandars Lectures

Notes and References

1. https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/the-lyell-lectures The Lyell Lectures
2. R. W. Hunt, ‘The Lyell bequest’, Bodleian Library Record, 3 (1950–51), 68–72.
3. Web site: The Lyell and McKenzie Lectures . Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Libraries . 2016 . 23 Dec 2016 .
4. McKitterick, David. 1983. The Sandars and Lyell Lectures : A Checklist with an Introduction. New York: Jonathan A. Hill.
5. Book: Bowman, J.H. . British Librarianship and Information Work 2001–2005 . 1 Oct 2012 . Ashgate . 978-1-4094-8506-3 . 157.
6. Foot, Mirjam M. "Who Planted the Trees? Pioneers in the Development of Bookbinding History, Part 2: Graham Pollard. The Book Collector 71 no. 4 (Winter 2022):654-662.
7. Carter, Harry. A View of Early Typography Up to About 1600. 1969. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
8. "The Author as Editor."The Book Collector 41 (no 1) Spring, 1992:9-27.
9. "Robert Shackleton." The Book Collector 35 (no 4) Winter 1986" 517-518.
10. Beal, Peter, and Oxford University Press. 1998. In Praise of Scribes : Manuscripts and Their Makers in Seventeenth-Century England. Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press.
11. Graham, Timothy. “Their Hands before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes.” Speculum. NEW YORK: Cambridge University Press, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0038713410000606.
12. Web site: Libraries, Space, and Power — Lyell Lectures 2017 . Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford . 2017 . 26 Apr 2017 .
13. Based on his Lyell Lectures: Sharpe, Richard. 2023. Libraries and Books in Medieval England : The Role of Libraries in a Changing Book Economy. Edited by James M. W. Willoughby. Oxford: Bodleian Library Publishing.