Dear all,
Not sure whether you've heard about this already (apologies for spamming your inboxes if you have), but if you're interested in early modern palaeography and have a bit of time to spare, there's a new 'citizen science' project at the Zooniverse that might be of interest to some of you: http://www.shakespearesworld.org/#/
Don't be fooled by the name; it has precious little connection to Shakespeare, really (presumably that's a clever ploy to draw the General Public's interest). It's all about transcribing manuscripts from the Folger Library, predominantly recipe collections and letters, both originals and letters collected in later compilations. From what I've seen so far, the time range is quite broad and covers anything from the early 16th to the early 18th century , so 'Shakespeare's World' apparently includes Alexander Pope. Well, come to think of it, I suppose it sort of does, just not in the way the blurb on the project's homepage seems to imply...
Anyway, it's a great way of honing your manuscript-reading skills, it's fun, *and* there's the added bonus of potentially stumbling across something interesting, so if manuscript work appeals to you at all, I think you should give this one a go!
Elisabeth
PS: For what it's worth, there's even a tenuous Sidney link, which is hopefully enough to justify this post.
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