Happy 2022 from the American Trust for the British Library (ATBL)! Despite the global upheavals caused by the Omicron Covid-19 variant, the British Library and we at the ATBL have continued to find creative ways to connect, learn, and engage. Below you can find some of the many exciting virtual events upcoming at the British Library, as well as some of the myriad stories told via Library collection highlights.

If you are based in the UK or find yourself in London in the near future, I encourage you to experience the Library's fascinating Ludwig van Beethoven exhibition, on view until late April 2022, as well as the last few weeks of the well-reviewed Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens exhibition, open through the end of February 2022.

At the ATBL, the application deadlines for our 2022-2023 ATBL Transatlantic Fellowships are fast approaching, and we are excited to soon welcome this second Fellowship cohort into the ATBL fold. Our 2021-2022 ATBL Transatlantic Fellows are currently preparing to showcase their British Library and partner organization research at the annual Modern Language Association conference - one of the many ways our Transatlantic Fellowship program provides young scholars with opportunities for professional growth. Stay tuned, as well, for forthcoming news about ATBL programming and events to help enliven the grey of winter!

Until then - I wish you and yours a safe and peaceful start to the new year.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Berkowitz, MA, PhD

Executive Director

The American Trust for the British Library

Join journalist Shafi Musaddique and award-winning writer and historian Professor Jerry Brotton to explore the impact of cultural and political exchange between England and the Muslim world during the Elizabethan era.

This virtual event will engage with how Elizabethan England's relationships with Muslim allies influenced life of the period from trade to Islam's influence on William Shakespeare's works.

Cost: £5.00. Click the image to register.

Hibernia Regnum, vulgò Ireland (Maps.*10805) © British Library Board

Join a panel of experts as they look back on Tudor Ireland’s complex relationship with England, exploring Ireland before the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558, the impact her reign had for her "unwelcome inheritance", and the legacy of these conflicted and troubled times.

Cost: £5.00 for non-British Library Members; free for British Library Members. Click the image to register.

Egerton Gospel (P. Lond. Christ. 1, P. Egerton 2), Mid 2nd century, British Library, Egerton Papyrus 2.

Click image to watch the video.

William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience [A facsimile of a colored and gilded copy of the first edition], 1923, British Library, C.71.d.19.

William Blake and 18th-Century Children's Literature

Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt, with a few of Lord Surrey, Anthony Lee, Richard Hatfield, and E. K. [Edmund Knyvet?]; and with others in autograph by Thomas Lord Howard (written in the Tower), his wife Lady Margaret [afterwards Countess of Lennox], her son "Harry Stuart" [Lord Darnley] and Mary Shelton [the mistress of Sir John Clere?], earlier half of XVIth cent., British Library, Add MS 17492.

Explore the 16th-Century Devonshire Manuscript, Containing Poems Written by the Court and Inner Circle of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn

British Library Announces Spring/Summer 2022 Exhibitions, Opening Across the UK

The newly announced Spring/Summer 2022 exhibition program at the British Library takes innovative and thought-provoking shows across the UK - including the first major British Library exhibition, Living with Machines, to be hosted in Leeds, the future site of the Library's major Northern England research center to be housed in the historic Temple Works building.

Click image for more details.

Charlotte Brontë manuscripts. Image courtesy of Sotheby's.

Revisit the News about the British Library and Saving the Honresfield Collection - a Story in which ATBL Support Played a Critical Role to Preserve These Treasures for Public View!

The British Library recently announced that, thanks to a $20 million collective fundraising campaign among British libraries, museums, and supporters, the Honresfield Library collection has been acquired on behalf of the United Kingdom, and of researchers all across the globe. 

Click image for more details.

The British Library's Black Literature Timeline tells the story of Black British literary history in 50 texts. Each point in time contextualizes a key work through historical background and additional text resources. The project also includes a downloadable PDF poster version of the Timeline for classroom reference. Click the image to access the Timeline and the downloadable PDF.

Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, 25 September 1690. This was the first multipage newspaper published in the American colonies; it can be found on the full-text, remotely-accessible e-resource ‘Early American Newspapers.’