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Dr. Tara Lyons

@tarallyons.bsky.social
2.1K followers 2K following 82 posts

Professor; Bibliography, women and libraries, early modern books and storage; book trade, histories of information; playbooks; Shakespeare; English literature, drama, cats, horses, bees, and little furry critters

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Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
A 17thC woman’s ownership stamp in a copy of Richard Allestree’s ‘The Ladies Calling’ (Oxford, 1673). Not a separate label as usual but a whole extra leaf of paper bound at the front. Her initials are also on both boards. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Adams.7.67.10. #herbook (1/2)
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Dr Leah Veronese @leahveronese.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
HELP WANTED!! @stemma.bsky.social I am working on Folger MS V.b.370, a self-proclaimed 'Rich Cabinet'. The compiler clearly loved giving their MSS ostentatious titles, my favourite being 'My Merchant Ship Laden with Variety of Wares'. Ever come across these MSS titles below? Please get in touch 1/3
Photo of the title of Folger MS V.b.370 written in large italic and framed by two squiggling lines

TEXT: 'a Rich Cabinet or Common Place Book
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Suzanne Karr Schmidt @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Loooooooooooooooong Book #NewberryLibrary (Vault Case MS minus VM 1619 M98) #shelfie
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
Honored to have received the Outstanding University Teaching Award for Tenured Faculty from Illinois State University.
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Lovely annotation designs too.
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Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
Martine van Elk @martinevanelk.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Delighted to have a brand new post from @tamarajatkin.bsky.social with some excellent research on more books owned by Bathsua Makin; the picture of Makin as a writer is becoming more complex with each discovery earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com/2025/11/24/b... #EarlyModern #HerBook
earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com
Bathsua Reginal Makin’s Books at Dulwich College, London
By Tamara Atkin In a blog post earlier this year, I announced the discovery of a book once owned by the ten-year-old Bathsua Reginal Makin, scholar and teacher, who in the 1640s was tutor to Prince…
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
This arrived in the mail today. My essay analyzes Greg’s Bibliography of English Printed Drama and its idiosyncratic taxonomies for “Collections,” which prioritized canonical authors like Shakespeare but completely excluded dramatists like Margaret Cavendish.
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Martine van Elk @martinevanelk.bsky.social · 27/08/2025
Just discovering this database of books as symbols in Renaissance art--a wonderful resource #EarlyModern #HerBook basiraproject.org
basiraproject.org
BASIRA • Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art
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Martine van Elk @martinevanelk.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Today on the blog: a fascinating discussion by @franceswolfreston.bsky.social on a book on marriage and choosing a wife owned by Elizabeth Cromwell, a cousin of Oliver Cromwell earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com/2025/08/04/e... #HerBook #EarlyModern
earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com
Alexander Niccholes, A Discourse of Marriage and Wiving (1615)
A Discourse of Marriage and Wiving and of the Greatest Mystery Therein Contained: How to Choose a Good Wife from a Bad was written by Alexander Niccholes, self-identified as a “Batchelour in the Ar…
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
Just read (+ blurbed) the galleys of this book! It's 🌟🎉🪴🔥💕!! A thrilling, moving, heartening text, given shape through @dorothyjberry.bsky.social's + @wehere.bsky.social's clever play on bibliographic + bureaucratic form. Such a ✨ mix of protocol + improvisation. Can't wait to see this out in the 🌏
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
A fantastic book history project!
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Megan Kate Nelson 📚 @mkn.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
And ... voila! Thanks again to my sharp-eyed copyeditor, and to @joshuajfriedman.com and @bcdreyer.social! Just more evidence that social media can be a force for good (grammar) ...
The cover of "The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier," with the font in white over a green-tinted landscape painting of three Indigenous women on a raft, moving across a lake with mountains in the background. Partial images of four different people - Jim Beckwourth, Sacajawea, Ovando Hollister, and Polly Bemis- fold over the left side of the cover from the spine.
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Wow, is the spine still intact?!! Incredible!
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
This is what I’m talkin’ about!! Thick, stout, and chonky!!
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Early Modern Biblionerds: I’m looking for some thick books before 1700. what is the longest book (in pages, not words) printed before 1700? what about in quarto format?
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Archives & Special Collections @ Ohio University @aldenlibdigital.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
#Bees 🐝 1744 book! "Melisselogia: Or, the Female Monarchy..." printed in London for author John Thorley. 4 plates of illustrations & 10 chapters covering everything bees! Catalog: bit.ly/melisselogia... #Pollinators #18thCentury #NatureSky #IllustratedBooks #NaturalHistory #nature #RareBooks
Illustrated frontispiece with three detailed engraved bees over a botanical border and title page .Table of contents listing all ten chapters.Illustrated plate with an engraving showing an internal model of a hive along with bees and the hive in various stages of development.Illustrated foldout plate of a person seated and writing at a large desk with books in the background and a row of 6 beehives visible outside his large window.
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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
The real reason academic conferences exist is that after you have marinated your brain in hundreds of books on a single field of study for 10+ years there are only so many people you can speak coherent sentences to, and it’s a pleasure to have them all in one place 😅
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Thomas Hendrickson @thomashendrickson.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Booklist preserved from 3rd century Memphis (P. Petropol. 13). Kind of cool to see that they had a copy of Aristotle's "Athenaion Politeia" (line 12)! (From Wilcken "Chrestomathie" n. 155)
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 25/06/2025
‘As J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, she criss-crossed the Atlantic in pursuit of rare manuscripts to add to his collection, outbidding and outsmarting rivals wherever she went.’ Francesca Wade on Belle da Costa Greene: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Francesca Wade · Why waste time hot airing? The Best-Paid Woman in NYC
In​ her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene was one of the best-paid women in New York City. As J.P. Morgan’s personal...
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
What an accomplishment! Amazing work here on Alice Thornton!
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Sarah Bendall @sarahabendall.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
@serenadyer.bsky.social & I are thrilled to announce that our edited book is out now! It focuses on how processes of making, experimenting, experiencing, & reconstructing illuminate understandings around manual labour & material life. Overview 🧵 on 📕 chapters & our contributors! 👇
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
In 1671, Rachel (Fane) Bouchier, the Countess of Bath, purchased £200 of books for the library at @tcddublin.bsky.social The books were housed together and known as “The Countess of Bath’s Library.” This week I reconstructed the bequest, with the help of the amazing TCD librarians.
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Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
📢WILLS TRANSCRIBATHON KLAXON📢 Join us on Thursday 24 July to transcribe wills and go behind the scenes of the wills project! In person and on Zoom - full details & registration here: willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com #EarlyModern 🗃️ #transcription @leverhulme.ac.uk @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social
Promotional image advertising 'Wills Project Transcribathon, Thursday 24 July, 1-4pm BST, Digital Humanities Lab University of Exeter and on Zoom. The image also features a portrait of a man making his will, a photo of a box of wills and a page of a will.
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
So many baby horses in Ireland this time of year! I’m in love 😍
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
This symposium looks fabulous!
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David McInnis @dnmcinnis.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
📣 CFP: Shakespeare Quarterly special issue Shakespeare’s Twenty-First Century / The Twenty-First Century’s Shakespeare This will be Vanessa I. Corredera, Arthur L. Little, Jr. and my first issue as Editors! Please submit your finest! More info: networks.h-net.org/group/announ...
Photo (by David McInnis) of Australian artist Jimmy C’s famous mural of Shakespeare in Clink Street near the Globe. It depicts Shakespeare as known via the Chandos portrait, holding a skull like Hamlet does, and a quill, in front of a psychedelic swirl of colour.
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
I wrote about the library of Katherine Blount’s daughter, Catharina (Blount) Freman. Check it out below:
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Trolley #2 complete! The Countess of Bath, Rachel (Fane) Bourchier purchased books for Trinity Dublin College in 1671. One was Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiocus (1654), a fascinating (albeit flawed) work of orientalist scholarship.
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Trolley #1. I’m at Trinity Dublin for the next two weeks to reconstruct the Countess of Bath’s library. Thanks to the library staff for helping make this happen. Now, back to work— there are more than a hundred volumes to examine. Happy days ahead.
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
I’m honored to be part of this incredible lineup. See you in Dublin!
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Martine van Elk @martinevanelk.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Today on the blog: a post by Joe Black on a copy of Robert Hill's popular Pathway to Piety in which multiple women have written their name and one used it to record some sad family history earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com/2025/06/06/r... #EarlyModern #HerBook
earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com
Robert Hill, The Path-Way to Pietie (1629)
Robert Hill’s Path-Way to Pietie was an early seventeenth-century bestseller. First published in 1606 under the title Christs Prayer Expounded, the book went through eight editions by 1629, with a …
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Read about the fabulously named “Elizabeth Skippe” and her book below.
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Tamara Atkin @tamarajatkin.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
I wrote a thing about a book owned by Bathsua Reginald Makin that I found in @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social whilst working on their early records. earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com/2025/05/07/h... Thanks to @martinevanelk.bsky.social and @tarallyons.bsky.social for hosting #herbook
earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com
Hieronymous Megiser, Thesaurus polyglottus, vel Dictionarium multilingue (Frankfurt, 1603)
By Tamara Atkin The daughter of an Anglican schoolmaster, Bathsua Reginald (Reynolds) Makin was celebrated in her time as “England’s most learned lady.” Known for her verse collection, Musa Virgina…
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Jay Moschella @jaymoschella.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
Complete ream wrapper used to bound a late 18th-century Boston carpentry account book. This would have been the outer packaging for a ream of imported Dutch paper.
"Pro patria" (size) label, printed in red, on the front and back cover of the account book, showing the full size of the sheet.Front cover only, showing half of the label with title "Wood Books no.3" written in.First page of the account book itselfBack cover, showing half of the red printed label.
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ANZAMEMS @anzamems.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
CFP Reminder: Marginalia and the Early Modern Woman Writer, 1500-1700 #medieval #earlymodern www.anzamems.org/?p=...
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Matthew Steggle @matthewsteggle.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Delighted to say that my article, "The Shakspaires of Trinity Lane: A Possible Shakespeare Life-Record" is now fully published and open-access! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
The Shakspaires of Trinity Lane: A Possible Shakespeare Life-Record
Hereford Cathedral Library holds a fragmentary seventeenth-century letter addressed to a ‘Mrs Shakspaire’, concerning her husband’s dealings with a fatherless apprentice named John Butte or Butts. ...
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Women’s libraries— one name at a time!
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
First Talk from the new project is in the books!
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
🔥🔥🔥
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John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 23/03/2025
Picture embroidered by Martha Hollis, England, 1660. Aged 10. (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Does anyone know when JISC LibHub might be back up and working again?
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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
In the 1790s a London woman named Eliza Denyer developed a modest reputation as a restorer of medieval manuscripts. She was forgotten by scholars and, in one case, her restorations were deliberately replaced by a man’s. I recovered her story & tracked all her known work here: tinyurl.com/2ktztx2e
Part of a page of a medieval manuscript that had a hole cut into it. Underneath it is a restoration of a large decorated B, which would have been in this place, and which was restored by Eliza. The letter emulates the medieval style of script, but the image inside it is in a late 18th century style, showing a verdant tree standing against a green bucolic landscape.
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Old Paper Collector @oldpapercollector.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
I’ve now gathered five books from the Carmelite convent #Elzendaal in #Boxmeer, all 17th-century devotional works. Their bindings, inscriptions, and ownership marks reveal a deep history of monastic reading and spiritual life. A fascinating glimpse into a cloistered past! #herbook #bookhistory
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Martine van Elk @martinevanelk.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Today on the blog, a rich post by @michelinewhite.bsky.social on a fascinating copy of the romance Argenis by John Barclay, owned by three different generations of early modern Scottish women buff.ly/GJYrHCa #EarlyModern #HerBook
earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com
John Barclay’s Argenis (1628) and Three Generations of Erskine Women from Scotland
Figure 1. John Barclay, Argenis (London, 1628). Carleton University, PR 2209 B35 A73. Photos by Micheline White. All images reproduced with permission. There is something special about a book treas…
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Dr. Tara Lyons @tarallyons.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
Tiny vellum-bound books in the Egerton Traveling Library (1615), likely gifted to Thomas Egerton by William Hakewill.
miniature vellum volumeBinding for the box for the little libraryBindings of books in the travelling library
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Martine van Elk @martinevanelk.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Today on the blog: another wonderful post by Joe Black about an entertaining sermon on marriage, joint male/female early modern ownership, and a connection to Mary Wroth buff.ly/41kAMlT #EarlyModern #HerBook
earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com
Robert Wilkinson, The Merchant Royall: A Sermon Preached at the Nuptials of the Lord Hay and His Lady (1607)
A woman, according to Jacobean royal chaplain Dr Robert Wilkinson (d.1617), “is like a Ship indeed, for first whosoever marries, ventures; he ventures his estate, hee ventures his peace, he venture…
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Nomadic Warriors for Pritzker @nomads.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
There are literally hundreds of research projects here at UIUC being destroyed by the cuts to the NSF, NIH, NIFA, USAID. It’s an incomprehensible waste of scientific progress and human capital.
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Katie Birkwood @girlinthe.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
#RareBooks types, have you ever seen paper decorating like this before? It's definitely not tree calf: it's definitely some sort of paint or ink on paper. The ink is very shiny. The overall effect is very purple. I've never seen the like. 📚 Complete book here: archive.org/details/b285...
Cover of a book. It's decorated with paper covered in purple swirls that move horizontally from the sides towards the middle, and then plunge downwards like a waterfall in a central column.
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Mychal Threets @mychal3ts.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Dorothy B. Porter changed libraries 💜 The Dewey Decimal System used to only have two classifications for Black people: 325 (colonization) & 326 (slavery). Each book by a Black person was put into one of these classifications. A book of poetry? Classified as colonization. Enter Dorothy B. Porter 🧵
Dorothy Porter in 1939, at her desk in the Carnegie Library at Howard University. Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Manuscript Division, Howard University
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