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Sir Hans Sloane, Abbé Bignon and Mrs. Hickie’s Pigeons
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In 1720, Dr. Den. Hickie complained to Sloane about an ongoing dispute with a neighbour: the Lord of the Manor who is intent upon me as a stranger to do me prejudice & particularly in destroying a few pigeons that my wife has always kept without molestation since first shee bought her estate in this… Read more »
November 26, 2013
A Welsh Doctor, Sir Hans Sloane, and the disappearing catheter
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By Alun Withey Editor’s note: Alun would like to warn all readers that this post contains some graphic description of a particularly uncomfortable surgical technique… In 1720, Dr. Alban Thomas was something of a high-flyer. The son of a Pembrokeshire cleric and poet, Alban first matriculated from Oxford in 1708, became librarian of the Ashmolean… Read more »
November 14, 2013
An early eighteenth-century ghost
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By Felicity Roberts One of the most entertaining set of letters in Sir Hans Sloane’s correspondence was written by William Derham (1657-1735), the rector at Upminster in Essex and an enthusiastic member of the Royal Society. Derham’s letters to him are so lively that you get a good impression of their shared business and scientific… Read more »
October 30, 2013
Checking Tongues in the Eighteenth Century
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Miley Cyrus must, by now, have the most photographed tongue in history. My friend Jennifer Marotta recently sent me this link about the diseases that Miley might pick up or spread by licking sledgehammers, mirrors and so forth. Although Jennifer had asked whether there were any nasty early modern equivalents, I became mesmerized by the… Read more »
October 23, 2013
Lost Letters in the Eighteenth Century
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Sending a letter around the turn of the eighteenth century was an uncertain business. Although the Penny Post (1680) had enabled the daily delivery of letters within ten miles of London, letters were generally sent with travellers or servants or, perhaps, by diplomatic channels, over longer distances. As Alice Marples recently hinted, warfare, lost ships,… Read more »
October 8, 2013
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Early Modern Friendship
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By Alice Marples We all miss our friends – whether they leave for study, work or holidays, their sudden absence in our daily lives can leave a bit of a gap. Most of us are fortunate enough to expect to see them again, sooner or later. Early modern absences were different, especially if they involved… Read more »
October 1, 2013
A Visit to Seventeenth-Century Jamaica
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One of my favourite letters in Hans Sloane’s correspondence is one written by twenty-eight year old Sloane to Sir Edward Herbert on the 17th of April, 1688 (British Library, Sloane MS 4068, ff. 7-9). It’s a lively account of Sloane’s experiences of the new world, including earthquakes and pineapples! Sloane had arrived in Jamaica in… Read more »
September 23, 2013
Note from a Bristol Glassmaker
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This weekend, The Sloane Letters Blog celebrated its first anniversary and the recent addition of the 3000th letter to the database! On this occasion, it seems appropriate to reflect on Letter 3000. The short letter was written in late October 1727 by a Bristol glassmaker, Jonathan Rogers. Rogers claimed to have discovered a method of… Read more »
September 16, 2013
The Back-to-School Edition: Cesque 97
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Welcome to the pre-modern blog carnival, Carnivalesque 97! Hosting the carnival has proved a welcome distraction from the busy-ness of a new academic year. It’s given me a great excuse to keep up with my blog reading. In late summer, the pre-modernist’s mind lightly turns to thoughts of love (and sex and reproduction). Joanne Bailey… Read more »
September 9, 2013
Shell Game: Martin Lister and the Conchological Collections of Sir Hans Sloane
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By Anna Marie Roos For my forthcoming book with Bodleian Library Press (The Lister Sisters: Women and the Art of Scientific Illustration), I have been researching the work of Martin Lister (1639-1712), a royal physician, vice president of the Royal Society, the first scientific conchologist and arachnologist, and a colleague and correspondent of Hans Sloane…. Read more »
September 2, 2013
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