Annalisa Nicholson
@apuddleofmuddle.bsky.social
Early modernist and Research Fellow in French at KCL
Working on women, exile, gender, Huguenots, Francophonie, queer libertines ~ she/her
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/annalisa-nicholson
Working on women, exile, gender, Huguenots, Francophonie, queer libertines ~ she/her
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/annalisa-nicholson
Unboxing my author copies to finally hold the finished book in my hands. What a feeling! I started this research during my MA in 2016, and 1 PhD and 2 research fellowships later it’s finally here. Coming soon to a research library near you! ✨
November 11, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Unboxing my author copies to finally hold the finished book in my hands. What a feeling! I started this research during my MA in 2016, and 1 PhD and 2 research fellowships later it’s finally here. Coming soon to a research library near you! ✨
Did anyone else feel their heart leap with the news that the British Library are aiming to relaunch their archives and manuscript catalogue in early December? Can't wait to see you old friend 😭
October 31, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Did anyone else feel their heart leap with the news that the British Library are aiming to relaunch their archives and manuscript catalogue in early December? Can't wait to see you old friend 😭
Starting some new writing today on a favourite topic - libertine women - with some motivational libertine treats
September 12, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Starting some new writing today on a favourite topic - libertine women - with some motivational libertine treats
✨Excitingly my monograph now has a cover!✨ It’s out in November @bloomsburyhist.bsky.social, which means there will finally be a whole book on Hortense Mancini’s salon, the eager few will be relieved to know. It comes with an academic price tag £££ but will be Open Access. Library orders welcome 🙏
September 9, 2025 at 9:30 AM
✨Excitingly my monograph now has a cover!✨ It’s out in November @bloomsburyhist.bsky.social, which means there will finally be a whole book on Hortense Mancini’s salon, the eager few will be relieved to know. It comes with an academic price tag £££ but will be Open Access. Library orders welcome 🙏
Graveyard exploring today & spent a while gazing at this early eighteenth-century stone with skull and fletched arrow decoration - beside it was the grave of Henry Fawcett, husband of the indomitable Millicent Garrett Fawcett
September 7, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Graveyard exploring today & spent a while gazing at this early eighteenth-century stone with skull and fletched arrow decoration - beside it was the grave of Henry Fawcett, husband of the indomitable Millicent Garrett Fawcett
This week I gave a paper in the TUNNEL SHAFT of the Brunel Museum, which was very cool in every sense
August 29, 2025 at 12:53 PM
This week I gave a paper in the TUNNEL SHAFT of the Brunel Museum, which was very cool in every sense
My review of The Graces: The Extraordinary Untold Lives of Women at the Restoration Court is out now in the August issue of @historytoday.com. Stans of the Stuarts, the Roaring Restoration, and early modern women - this book is for you 💘
August 6, 2025 at 10:25 AM
My review of The Graces: The Extraordinary Untold Lives of Women at the Restoration Court is out now in the August issue of @historytoday.com. Stans of the Stuarts, the Roaring Restoration, and early modern women - this book is for you 💘
Travelling home after a wonderful day in York at the Women’s Worlds workshop where we explored the relationship between salons and slave ports, organised by the brilliant @susannah-lw.bsky.social. Inspired by the new methodologies being pioneered by young scholars and cultural heritage sites ✨
July 25, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Travelling home after a wonderful day in York at the Women’s Worlds workshop where we explored the relationship between salons and slave ports, organised by the brilliant @susannah-lw.bsky.social. Inspired by the new methodologies being pioneered by young scholars and cultural heritage sites ✨
A wonderful evening celebrating the launch of Breeze Barrington’s The Graces 🚀. All about the most exciting, innovative, and scandalous women of seventeenth-century England. Tasters of the book are in her article on Maria of Modena in this month’s BBC History magazine @historyextra.bsky.social
July 17, 2025 at 8:02 AM
A wonderful evening celebrating the launch of Breeze Barrington’s The Graces 🚀. All about the most exciting, innovative, and scandalous women of seventeenth-century England. Tasters of the book are in her article on Maria of Modena in this month’s BBC History magazine @historyextra.bsky.social
My partner likes to joke the French will put a croissant on anything - after we saw a croissant-handbag in a Paris boutique. Read a review this morning about French imperialism in India & the ‘Croissant’ vessel dispatched from France to the East Indies, imagining a little pastry logo on the mast 🥐🌜
July 13, 2025 at 8:53 AM
My partner likes to joke the French will put a croissant on anything - after we saw a croissant-handbag in a Paris boutique. Read a review this morning about French imperialism in India & the ‘Croissant’ vessel dispatched from France to the East Indies, imagining a little pastry logo on the mast 🥐🌜
It is endlessly infuriating to me that Caster Semenya, and other women athletes, are punished for "naturally produc[ing] higher levels of testosterone than most women" - when that very same capacity is celebrated, rewarded, given medal after medal in the men's sports
July 10, 2025 at 5:57 PM
It is endlessly infuriating to me that Caster Semenya, and other women athletes, are punished for "naturally produc[ing] higher levels of testosterone than most women" - when that very same capacity is celebrated, rewarded, given medal after medal in the men's sports
Somehow things have conspired so that I am doing two proofs and two indexes this month(!). But I am so excited for my first academic book - and my little edition of Hortense Mancini’s letters - to be out in the world soon 🌍. A summer of printing and proofs 💫
July 10, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Somehow things have conspired so that I am doing two proofs and two indexes this month(!). But I am so excited for my first academic book - and my little edition of Hortense Mancini’s letters - to be out in the world soon 🌍. A summer of printing and proofs 💫
Lazy Sundays with Breeze Barrington’s new book on women at the Restoration court. Review out soon! 🌸🌻🌷
July 6, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Lazy Sundays with Breeze Barrington’s new book on women at the Restoration court. Review out soon! 🌸🌻🌷
Snippets from the terrific talks and conversations we’ve been having at Cultures of Philosophy in Exeter the past few days on women and natural philosophy - featuring a cameo from Saint-Évremond in a paper not by me! Bravo @cultphil.bsky.social
June 4, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Snippets from the terrific talks and conversations we’ve been having at Cultures of Philosophy in Exeter the past few days on women and natural philosophy - featuring a cameo from Saint-Évremond in a paper not by me! Bravo @cultphil.bsky.social
Left my first Women in French @wif-ukire.bsky.social conference full of hope & admiration for the future of our field. Every panel was so engrossing that I’ve no conference pics except these two of the nun’s seminary we stayed in - what a location!
June 1, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Left my first Women in French @wif-ukire.bsky.social conference full of hope & admiration for the future of our field. Every panel was so engrossing that I’ve no conference pics except these two of the nun’s seminary we stayed in - what a location!
When I started working on Hortense Mancini nine years ago, every book said that (almost) none of her letters had survived. Since then, I’ve managed to find about seventy… transcribed them, translated them, and proofs are now here! 😍✨😭
May 15, 2025 at 2:05 PM
When I started working on Hortense Mancini nine years ago, every book said that (almost) none of her letters had survived. Since then, I’ve managed to find about seventy… transcribed them, translated them, and proofs are now here! 😍✨😭
On this magnificently sunny day, I worked in the Royal Society Library for the first time - an unexpectedly peaceful space, would 100% recommend. Need to gear more of my research towards natural philosophy
May 14, 2025 at 4:08 PM
On this magnificently sunny day, I worked in the Royal Society Library for the first time - an unexpectedly peaceful space, would 100% recommend. Need to gear more of my research towards natural philosophy
If Rapunzel was wisteria
May 4, 2025 at 5:33 PM
If Rapunzel was wisteria
Happily made it to ‘Rise Up’ at the Fitzwilliam today. The beautiful double portrait of Dido Belle and Elizabeth Murray is even more gorgeous irl. And loved seeing all the playbills advertising Ira Aldridge as Othello, Macbeth & King Lear 🎭
April 11, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Happily made it to ‘Rise Up’ at the Fitzwilliam today. The beautiful double portrait of Dido Belle and Elizabeth Murray is even more gorgeous irl. And loved seeing all the playbills advertising Ira Aldridge as Othello, Macbeth & King Lear 🎭
Can't help but add 2 pence bc I am a (precarious) academic and my brother is a plumber. He helps family with repairs and manual expertise, and I help with CVs, education advice, difficult texts (like jobs apps and mortgage agreements). I'd like to think we "improve society" in complementary ways ☯️
April 9, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Can't help but add 2 pence bc I am a (precarious) academic and my brother is a plumber. He helps family with repairs and manual expertise, and I help with CVs, education advice, difficult texts (like jobs apps and mortgage agreements). I'd like to think we "improve society" in complementary ways ☯️
It’s Friday, the sun is gleaming, & I am working on my shiny new project on Huguenot women, beginning with the indomitable Marie Dentière
February 28, 2025 at 9:16 AM
It’s Friday, the sun is gleaming, & I am working on my shiny new project on Huguenot women, beginning with the indomitable Marie Dentière
A virtual Glastonbury-style queue this morning for the St James’s Palace tour so I can find out whether the ghost of Hortense Mancini really haunts the rooms 👻
February 25, 2025 at 11:13 AM
A virtual Glastonbury-style queue this morning for the St James’s Palace tour so I can find out whether the ghost of Hortense Mancini really haunts the rooms 👻
I’m probably the last person to discover this but I was today years old when I found out ‘geyser’ is pronounced ‘geezer’ which (as a Londoner) I’m struggling to take seriously
February 22, 2025 at 4:02 PM
I’m probably the last person to discover this but I was today years old when I found out ‘geyser’ is pronounced ‘geezer’ which (as a Londoner) I’m struggling to take seriously
Final checks for the monograph at The National Archives… and then I promise to work on something that isn’t to do with Hortense Mancini
February 14, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Final checks for the monograph at The National Archives… and then I promise to work on something that isn’t to do with Hortense Mancini