Novello Cowden Clarke Collection Launch

A Special Collections Event in collaboration with LAHRI

Novello Cowden Clarke Collection Launch

Bedford Room

Special Collections Research Centre

Monday 20 November 2023

5.00pm to 7.00pm

Join us to celebrate the launch of the new online catalogue of the Novello Cowden Clarke Collection with a trio of talks. Featuring papers by Dr Rebecca Wade (Novello Cowden Clarke Collection Officer, Special Collections and Galleries), Dr Bryan White (Senior Lecturer, School of Music) and a keynote lecture by Professor Tim Barringer (Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art, Yale University) titled Art/Music/Empire: Intersectional Albertopolis.

 Locks of hair belonging to Mozart and Beethoven, a signed edition of Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley—these items are some of the most well-known in Special Collections. Despite their status and historical interest, the collection from which they came has been less widely visible until now. The Novello Cowden Clarke Collection was donated to the University by descendants of the family in 1953 and represents the activities of an extraordinary Anglo-Italian family of artists, musicians, writers, publishers and actors during the long nineteenth century.

The family were extremely well connected, belonging to key literary and artistic networks. The collection includes letters from some of the century’s most significant figures including Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Leigh Hunt, John Keats, Charles and Mary Lamb, Felix Mendelssohn, William Morris, Florence Nightingale, Gioachino Rossini and Mary Shelley.

This large and diverse collection includes published volumes, pamphlets, periodicals, autographed letters, manuscripts items, sketchbooks, drawings, watercolours and prints, oil paintings, printed and manuscript music, maps, photographs, greetings cards, press cuttings and jewellery. It is considerable research interest to historians of art, literature, music, publishing, performance and health, while also lending itself transdisciplinary approaches.

Through the support of private funding, it has been possible to comprehensively catalogue the entire collection for the first time, with more than 1,700 detailed records now available online.

We have a limited number of places for this launch. Please sign up via this eventbrite link.

If you are unable to sign up but would like to be added to a waiting list, please email [email protected]