Sarah Bull
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sarahebull.bsky.social
Sarah Bull
@sarahebull.bsky.social
5.1K followers 2.5K following 3.2K posts
English professor, book historian. 19th C, mainly. Interested in histories of medicine, sexuality, and print culture, text reuse, IP, letterpress, DH/computational approaches

Book: Selling Sexual Knowledge (CUP, 2025). Working on MANUFACTURING LITERATURE
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sarahebull.bsky.social
A proper holiday party is not a social occasion! It’s a department meeting in December!
November 11, 2025 at 1:21 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
While I know that digitization has made searching trade publications much, much easier, I do wonder if the idea that Sade's work didn't circulate in England was a thing in the C20 because... nobody really checked? Like, here's Justine and Juliette in The Bookseller!
A screenshot of a page from an 1882 issue of The Bookseller, from British Newspaper Archive, listing "Justine et Juliette. Par le Marquis de Sade. 10 vols."
November 8, 2025 at 1:17 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Happy Halloween!
October 31, 2025 at 10:56 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
For instance:
The Court of Assizes of the Seine was occupied on Tuesday with the trial of a lithographic printer, named Schwartchill, and a person named Guerrier, for being concerned in dealing in obscene engravings. It appears from the evidence that, in December last, the police were informed that a box of improper prints had been forwarded from Paris to London by the former prisoner. When the case came to Boulogne the police agents seized it, and Schwartchill being interrogated, declared that his brother, a merchant at London, had written to him for certain prints, which he had procured from Guerrier. The latter stated that he had obtained them from a person named Meyer, who, on hearing of the seizure of the case, had taken to flight. For the defence it was argued that the prisoners could not be said to have acted against public morality in such a way as to meet the law of May, 1819, which speaks of "exposing for sale in France," which they certainly could not be accused of doing. The court admitted the force of the objection, and acquitted the prisoners. Meyer's case was then entered on, and he was condemned by default to a year's imprisonment, 500f fine, and the destruction of the prints seized.
October 30, 2025 at 10:09 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Sometimes you’re having a bad morning and then you get to work to find that a colleague rescued some really neat pubs from the trash (?!) and left them in your mailbox <3 <3 <3
October 21, 2025 at 1:18 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Totally! I'm not sure if I actually recommend this, but the filename appears to also be a place where I make a lot of quick notes for later.🤫
October 18, 2025 at 4:58 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Ok, this is harder than it looks:
October 9, 2025 at 12:03 AM
sarahebull.bsky.social
SIGHTED: The Man of Pleasure’s Pocket Book at the Thomas Fisher Library!
October 7, 2025 at 2:09 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Excited to see that the Thomas Fisher Library has a copy of the book that contains this ad that retains the original "wallet binding with a secret pocket, designed for carrying address cards and a supply of 'shields for Cyprian War' (i.e. condoms)" — thanks for the tip, @victorianlondon.bsky.social
September 21, 2025 at 3:29 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Trying out some new old type very quickly while prepping a typesetting lesson for my students. I need more time for this. I need to make more time for this.
Quick print on red ink postcard stock of the last line of Percy Shelley’s The Mask of Anarchy, ‘Ye are many —- they are few’, spelled out in 36 pt Bodoni bold italic. It’s been posted to a bulletin board covered in various marbled papers.
September 18, 2025 at 3:02 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
An image of a red circle with a diagonal line in the middle, crossing out the word "themes"
September 12, 2025 at 6:29 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
I’m teaching my book history class across campus this semester, so my wonderful dept bought a giant steel work cart. This is going to make the whole mobile book lab thing so much easier! (Some of my colleagues also use material items, e.g. puppets, for teaching, so useful all around, I hope).
A picture of a very large red steel Milwaukee service cart in my department’s hallway, filled with materials for today’s class (less unwieldy than materials are for some weeks - a baking sheet, clay, aprons, clean up stuff, a bag containing chopsticks and gloves for people with sensory sensitivity, scrolls, wax tablets.
September 9, 2025 at 1:31 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Oak galls are so weird-looking but also beautiful. (I’m thinking of trying iron gall ink as a wood stain - experiences?)
September 8, 2025 at 7:50 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
I love that Le Moniteur Universel published this very comprehensive list of titles seized from one guy on the grounds that they were obscene. English papers would never!
A clipping from an 1843 newspaper article that reads: Exécution de l'art. 25 de la loi du 26 mai 1819. Par arrêt de la cour d'assises de la Seine, du 9 août 1842, devenu définitif, le sieur Regnier-Becker, commissionnaire en marchandises, déclaré coupable d'avoir, dans le cours des années 1839, 1840, 1841 et 1842, par des écrits, des imprimés et des gravures, mis en vente, vendus et distribués, commis un outrage à la morale publique et religieuse, ou aux bonnes mœurs, lesdits écrits portant pour titres : Vingt ans de la vie d'une femme, Vingt ans de la vie d'un jeune homme, les Plaisirs de tous les âges, le Cadran de la volupté, la Guerre des Dieux, le Chansonnier des B..., le Libertin de qualité, Félicia ou mes fredaines, la Pucelle d'Orléans, le Chansonnier des filles d'amour, les Amours des dieux païens, le Diable au corps, la Dame de maison, Sainte Nitouche, la Nouvelle Justine, le Mutius français, Mémoire de Suzon, les Progrès du libertinage, l'Enfant du plaisir, la Messaline française, Gravures et recueils de gravures, la Vie de soldat, Histoire universelle hérétique, la Source des plaisirs, la Rosée, Plan de Paris, Béranger, les Sources du plaisir, Douze sujets du jour, Musée des familles, Scènes de la vie intime, Revue dramatique, les Mœurs de Paris, Album hérétique, les Soirées lubriques, le Don du mouchoir, une Veillée de jeunes filles, les Sources du plaisir, Abrégé de l'histoire, le Coup de vent, l'Attente voluptueuse, Esquisses morales, Île d'amour, Musée des familles, les Apprets du bal, Galerie des gardes françaises, Vie du dandy en Europe ; lesdites gravures comprenant en outre plusieurs volumes et recueils sans titre, et un certain nombre de feuilles et sujets détachés, également sans titres, a été condamné à six mois d'emprisonnement et 200 francs d'amende. Le même arrêt a, en outre, maintenu la saisie de tous les objets ci-dessus mentionnés, et en a ordonné la destruction.
September 6, 2025 at 1:12 AM
sarahebull.bsky.social
A watercolour painting of pink and white flowers accompanies a quote from Macbeth: Come what come may Time and the hour Runs through the roughest day’ A pen and ink botanical drawing, c. 1906
September 3, 2025 at 12:37 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
I’m lucky to have a mother with diverse interests who found this lovely early c20 friendship album in a thrift store a few years ago and gave it to me for my birthday. Looking forward to sharing it with my students next week!
A page in the album: A pen and ink drawing of a cat wearing a top hat and carrying a cane, with the caption ‘Dandy Tom’ A page from the album: A beautiful watercolour painting of a vine with purple flowers, with a poem, the song of hope, copied out beneath it. ‘Though the cold brown earth be sodden / By the cheerless winter rain / Soon the violets will be trodden / By the feet of Spring again A page from the album, dated 1916, a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson (I’m writing this alt text on my phone in transit and can’t see the text, sorry!!) A graphic novel style page from the album, a series of drawings of a schoolteacher titled ‘Our Headmaster: A reminiscence of a memorable Euclid lesson’
September 3, 2025 at 12:33 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Welp, I kept going and am well into the 1860s. I guess I'll try to turn this into something!
August 29, 2025 at 9:45 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Spent the morning seeing if I could map some of London pornographers' addresses during the mid-19th century w/ the National Library of Scotland's georeferenced maps. Did I need to do this? Probably not. But very neat to see some of them laid out spatially.
August 29, 2025 at 5:33 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Having read the introduction, I’m excited to read these novels (ok, I’m mostly excited for the most unwanted novel!) and maybe talk about this project with my History of Reading class
Image of a new book I received in the mail, Tom Comitta’s People’s Choice Literature, published by Columbia University Press
August 18, 2025 at 1:21 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
Awkward?

(from Luton Reporter - Saturday 18 August 1877, page 6)
An image of a news report reading: BRETHREN IN DISTRESS. — At the Manchester City Police-court on Monday, John Vincent Druscovich, alias John Vincent, aged 22 years, the brother of Nathaniel Druscovich, of the Metropolitan police, was brought up in custody, charged with conspiring with others to defraud Mr. James Longworth, watch and clock manufacturer, Tyldesley, of eleven pictures, value £54 10s. The prisoner, who was described as a diamond merchant was remanded.
August 14, 2025 at 11:42 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
lololol
"The intoxicated Cattell thus wrote poetry and music; he drew pictures; he even drew a diagram of the brain. He read Shelley’s Adonais while under the influence of hashish and enjoyed it, a fact that he attributed to his having virtually replicated the state Shelley himself had been in when writing the work in the first place. His devotion to psychophysics notwithstanding, much of his experimentation involved reading experiences like that."
August 12, 2025 at 6:22 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
"[Cattell] tried drinking a bottle of wine and then writing out passages of Coleridge by hand, to see how inebriation affected handwriting..."

I love that he chose passages from Coleridge for this experiment... (From Adrian Johns's 2023 book _The Science of Reading_)
The image is of a block of text from Adrian Johns's 2023 book The Science of Reading, which reads: "As he proceeded with this attempt to measure the reading of letters, Cattell also found his interest piqued by another kind of influence. This one was far more risqué. With what he later described as a youthful “spirit of adventure,” he did what a number of venturesome researchers were doing in these years and started to experiment with “stimulant and intoxicating drugs.” The adventure began when a friend introduced him to hashish. Cattell found the experience transformative— it more or less cured him of his melancholy— and decided to make it the starting point for a program of experimental exploration in parallel to his psychophysics of reading. The result was a series of experiences that combined high scientific ideals with adolescent wonder and that soon merged with his reading trials. For example, he tried drinking a bottle of wine and then writing out passages of Coleridge by hand, to see how inebriation affected handwriting. What about chocolate, concentrated caffeine, cannabis, hashish, ether, morphine? For some of these drugs, he later recalled, he..."
August 12, 2025 at 6:16 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
From Victorian spreadsheet to 21st c. spreadsheet

(I'm having a wild Saturday afternoon, folks!)
Screenshot of a scan of a page from the UK Calendar of Prisoners, 1868-1929 on Ancestry.co.uk, listing prisoners from 1871. The visible part of the page has 9 rows and 4 columns, listing the name of the prisoner, their occupation, the magistrate who oversaw their initial hearing, the offence they were charged with, their pleas, and other information. Screenshot of a spreadsheet I'm trying to clean up and finish that attempts to record fairly comprehensive information about obscenity trials in 19th century Britain. It covers a lot of the same information as the Victorian spreadsheet. The visible part covers year tried, defendant descriptions, names, gender, reported ethnicity, address, courts, charges, outcomes of trials, and fairly detailed information about sentences.
August 9, 2025 at 10:15 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
There are statement cane handles, and then there is this:
A snapshot of an ivory cane handle at the science museum shaped like a bust. Half of the bust’s face looks like a chubby child, the other half is a skull. Location: Science Museum, London.
July 31, 2025 at 1:50 PM
sarahebull.bsky.social
A sound strategy for brand differentiation 👀
July 31, 2025 at 8:50 AM