Dr. Tara Lyons
banner
tarallyons.bsky.social
Dr. Tara Lyons
@tarallyons.bsky.social
Professor; Old books, women and libraries, early modern book storage; book trade, English literature, drama, cats, horses, bees, and little furry critters
Pinned
In 1671, Rachel (Fane) Bouchier, the Countess of Bath, purchased £200 of books for the library at @tcddublin.bsky.social The books were housed together and known as “The Countess of Bath’s Library.” This week I reconstructed the bequest, with the help of the amazing TCD librarians.
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
Just discovering this database of books as symbols in Renaissance art--a wonderful resource #EarlyModern #HerBook basiraproject.org
BASIRA • Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art
basiraproject.org
August 27, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
Today on the blog: a fascinating discussion by @franceswolfreston.bsky.social on a book on marriage and choosing a wife owned by Elizabeth Cromwell, a cousin of Oliver Cromwell earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com/2025/08/04/e... #HerBook #EarlyModern
Alexander Niccholes, A Discourse of Marriage and Wiving (1615)
A Discourse of Marriage and Wiving and of the Greatest Mystery Therein Contained: How to Choose a Good Wife from a Bad was written by Alexander Niccholes, self-identified as a “Batchelour in the Ar…
earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com
August 4, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
Just read (+ blurbed) the galleys of this book! It's 🌟🎉🪴🔥💕!! A thrilling, moving, heartening text, given shape through @dorothyjberry.bsky.social's + @wehere.bsky.social's clever play on bibliographic + bureaucratic form. Such a ✨ mix of protocol + improvisation. Can't wait to see this out in the 🌏
There is so much bad news on micro and macro levels lately, I will share a little personal win. Here is a sneak peek at a very early dummy of the interior layout for my book "The House Archives Built, and Other Thoughts on Black Archival Possibility," upcoming from @wehere.bsky.social press.
August 12, 2025 at 12:31 AM
A fantastic book history project!
August 4, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
And ... voila!

Thanks again to my sharp-eyed copyeditor, and to @joshuajfriedman.com and @bcdreyer.social!

Just more evidence that social media can be a force for good (grammar) ...
July 31, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Wow, is the spine still intact?!! Incredible!
I love a chonky codex (but this one is early c18)
July 31, 2025 at 7:24 PM
This is what I’m talkin’ about!! Thick, stout, and chonky!!
July 31, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Early Modern Biblionerds: I’m looking for some thick books before 1700. what is the longest book (in pages, not words) printed before 1700? what about in quarto format?
July 31, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
#Bees 🐝 1744 book! "Melisselogia: Or, the Female Monarchy..." printed in London for author John Thorley.
4 plates of illustrations & 10 chapters covering everything bees!
Catalog: bit.ly/melisselogia...
#Pollinators #18thCentury #NatureSky #IllustratedBooks #NaturalHistory #nature #RareBooks
July 24, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
The real reason academic conferences exist is that after you have marinated your brain in hundreds of books on a single field of study for 10+ years there are only so many people you can speak coherent sentences to, and it’s a pleasure to have them all in one place 😅
July 10, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
Booklist preserved from 3rd century Memphis (P. Petropol. 13).

Kind of cool to see that they had a copy of Aristotle's "Athenaion Politeia" (line 12)! (From Wilcken "Chrestomathie" n. 155)
July 6, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
‘As J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, she criss-crossed the Atlantic in pursuit of rare manuscripts to add to his collection, outbidding and outsmarting rivals wherever she went.’

Francesca Wade on Belle da Costa Greene:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Francesca Wade · Why waste time hot airing? The Best-Paid Woman in NYC
In​ her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene was one of the best-paid women in New York City. As J.P. Morgan’s personal...
www.lrb.co.uk
June 25, 2025 at 1:15 PM
What an accomplishment! Amazing work here on Alice Thornton!
Big news! The digital edition of Alice Thornton's four Books is now complete and online. There are 1,019 pages (c. 270,000 words) of Thornton’s life-writings in both modernised and semi-diplomatic versions and they are fully searchable.
#EarlyModern 🗃️ 📚 📜
thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/posts/news/2...
Full and Final Edition Now Available
News article - 24 February 2025
thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk
June 27, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
@serenadyer.bsky.social & I are thrilled to announce that our edited book is out now!

It focuses on how processes of making, experimenting, experiencing, & reconstructing illuminate understandings around manual labour & material life.

Overview 🧵 on 📕 chapters & our contributors! 👇
January 6, 2025 at 1:52 PM
In 1671, Rachel (Fane) Bouchier, the Countess of Bath, purchased £200 of books for the library at @tcddublin.bsky.social The books were housed together and known as “The Countess of Bath’s Library.” This week I reconstructed the bequest, with the help of the amazing TCD librarians.
June 26, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
📢WILLS TRANSCRIBATHON KLAXON📢

Join us on Thursday 24 July to transcribe wills and go behind the scenes of the wills project!

In person and on Zoom - full details & registration here: willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com

#EarlyModern 🗃️ #transcription @leverhulme.ac.uk @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social
June 24, 2025 at 7:46 AM
So many baby horses in Ireland this time of year! I’m in love 😍
June 22, 2025 at 9:37 PM
This symposium looks fabulous!
June 22, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
📣 CFP: Shakespeare Quarterly special issue

Shakespeare’s Twenty-First Century / The Twenty-First Century’s Shakespeare

This will be Vanessa I. Corredera, Arthur L. Little, Jr. and my first issue as Editors! Please submit your finest!

More info: networks.h-net.org/group/announ...
June 20, 2025 at 12:19 PM
I wrote about the library of Katherine Blount’s daughter, Catharina (Blount) Freman. Check it out below:
June 19, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Trolley #2 complete! The Countess of Bath, Rachel (Fane) Bourchier purchased books for Trinity Dublin College in 1671. One was Kircher’s Oedipus Aegyptiocus (1654), a fascinating (albeit flawed) work of orientalist scholarship.
June 19, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Trolley #1. I’m at Trinity Dublin for the next two weeks to reconstruct the Countess of Bath’s library. Thanks to the library staff for helping make this happen. Now, back to work— there are more than a hundred volumes to examine. Happy days ahead.
June 17, 2025 at 11:52 AM
I’m honored to be part of this incredible lineup. See you in Dublin!
I’m running a Symposium on Shakespeare and Ireland @tlrhub.bsky.social on June 14! It promises to be a rich discussion and all are welcome. Please register here: tinyurl.com/yc2a7dyf
June 10, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by Dr. Tara Lyons
Today on the blog: a post by Joe Black on a copy of Robert Hill's popular Pathway to Piety in which multiple women have written their name and one used it to record some sad family history earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com/2025/06/06/r... #EarlyModern #HerBook
Robert Hill, The Path-Way to Pietie (1629)
Robert Hill’s Path-Way to Pietie was an early seventeenth-century bestseller. First published in 1606 under the title Christs Prayer Expounded, the book went through eight editions by 1629, with a …
earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com
June 6, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Read about the fabulously named “Elizabeth Skippe” and her book below.
May 20, 2025 at 4:40 AM