Mr Douce steps into the nursery and lingers...
The Bodleian Libraries (BODcasts) · Oxford University
July 9, 201530m 43s
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
A lunchtime lecture by Clive Hurst accompanying the exhibition Marks of Genius: Masterpieces from the Collections of the Bodleian Libraries. Some dozen items bequeathed to the Bodleian Library by Francis Douce in 1834 feature in Marks of Genius, ranging from medieval manuscripts to a panoramic print of Shakespeare's London, from Mughal paintings to a bible presented to Elizabeth I.
Three works are known by his name: the Douce Apocalypse, the Douce Pliny, and the Douce Ivory. But Douce wasn't only interested in the spectacular and grand - he collected nursery chapbooks, and nursery rhymes, indeed, he edited a volume of the latter in 1810. It is this area of his collection that this talk investigates.