Printing Tristram Shandy: A Masterclass

Due to unforeseen circumstances, this workshop has been postponed until later in 2020 – more details coming soon

25 March 2020, 1pm-5pm, Senate House Library

26 March 2020, 10am - 5pm, St Bride Foundation

Laurence Sterne’s multi-volume Tristram Shandy (1759–1767) is one of the most creatively printed novels of the handpress period. Novel Impressions is pleased to announce the 1.5-day masterclass Printing Tristram Shandy at Senate House Library and St Bride Foundation, London. Collaboratively, the participants, expert printers and printmakers, and researchers, will create a concertina whose creative structure, genre-defying technical approaches, and integration of text and image will echo that of the first edition of Tristram Shandy.

On Day 1, Helen Williams (Northumbria University) and Elizabeth Savage (Institute of English Studies) will lead an exploration of copies of the first edition to discuss how it was printed—and why it was unlike any novel that was typeset before or after—at Senate House Library. Together with participants, they will also select challenging content to set in type the following day.

On Day 2, at St Bride Foundation, they will be introduced to wood-engraving from Peter S. Smith (Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printermakers), engrave illustrations of the novel’s narrative structures into end-grain maple based on those in the first edition, and typeset imaginative text of their choice with Mick Clayton (St Bride Foundation Workshop Manger) and the workshop team.

The event is free, and materials will be provided. Participants will take home their engraved woodblock and a copy of the concertina. Postgraduate students, early career researchers and academics, printers and printmakers, historians of the 18th century, librarians and curators of printed material, and all others with relevant interests are invited to apply by booking via this page AND ALSO submitting a 100-word statement of interest and a 100-word biography by Wednesday, 11 March 2020 via the project website, which can be reached HERE.

Day 1: 25 March 2020, 1pm-5pm, Senate House Library

Day 2: 26 March 2020, 10am-5pm, St Bride Foundation

Novel Impressions is run by Helen Williams (Northumbria University) and funded by the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Awards. It is a series of research- and practice-led events that will create network of early career researchers, printers, and curators producing print workshops for public audiences inspired by eighteenth-century literature.

n.b. The first day of this event takes place at Senate House Library and the second at St Bride Foundation