Digital Edgeworth Network

数字埃奇沃斯网络探索和分析著名作家玛丽亚·埃奇沃斯(Maria Edgeworth，1768-1849)和埃奇沃斯家族的手稿档案。这一合作数字网络项目回应了埃奇沃斯论文的规模和范围，采取了跨学科的方法，未来可以通过开放获取的数字资源扩大规模，供历史、文学和政治领域的学者使用。从17世纪到19世纪，与埃奇沃斯家族有关的丰富而多样的文件收藏被爱尔兰海隔开，也与其位于朗福德郡埃奇沃斯敦的原始家园隔绝。都柏林的爱尔兰国家图书馆和牛津的Bodleian图书馆的手稿档案几乎平分，包括数千项手稿草稿、素描、家庭信件，其中只有一小部分是印刷版的，更少的是需要进行学术编辑的。埃奇沃斯的档案提供了关于十九世纪初最有影响力的小说家之一玛丽亚·埃奇沃斯的文学生涯的重要证据(手稿和信件)；理查德·洛维尔·埃奇沃斯(Richard Lovell Edgeworth)(1744-1817年)的教育、农业和政治理论与实践；在爱尔兰、英国、欧洲和印度有联系的大家庭在艺术、文学和科学知识的生产方面进行交流和合作的方式；政治竞争和变革时期的英爱关系史。在埃奇沃斯传记作家玛丽莲·巴特勒担任总编辑的12卷纸质学术版(1993、2003)的启发下，评论界对这部作品的兴趣大幅上升。埃奇沃斯的书信选集已经出版，最近的一次是瓦莱丽·帕肯纳姆的玛丽亚·埃奇沃斯来自爱尔兰的信件(都柏林：利利普特出版社，2017)。然而，信件和小说的印刷版并没有传达档案中所显示的扩展通信和相关网络的广度、多样性和相关性。数字人文科学的方法和技术不仅使人们能够更多地利用手稿档案，而且能够以新的方式分析和理解手稿档案，从而为学术研究人员和文化遗产提供潜力。这一及时的建议建立在现有的非正式网络的基础上，并在英国-爱尔兰关系气候不断变化的背景下，巩固和嵌入了以前的非正式联系，以促进更好的理解或我们共同的过去，以实现互利。通过文学史、通信网络、数字技术和遗产专家之间的合作，该网络将探索重新整合分裂的档案并传播其意义的方法。拟议的活动跨越学科、地理和部门界限，促进科克大学和牛津大学、都柏林图书馆和牛津大学的学术研究人员与一个文化遗产组织(埃奇沃斯敦地区发展协会)之间的合作。网络的公共活动--包括在埃奇沃斯敦开发新资源和激发当地学童对Bodleian图书馆和爱尔兰国家图书馆手稿材料的创造性反应--旨在促进社区和对这些资源的创造性参与，重点是更好地了解玛丽亚及其家人在十八世纪和十九世纪全球范围内的联系。这项工作将为探索未来利用数字技术使档案图像和信息栩栩如生、使丰富的遗产体验以及更广泛地传播新的学术理解奠定基础。

The Digital Edgeworth Network explores and analyses the manuscript archive of the celebrated author Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) and the Edgeworth family. This collaborative digital network project responds to the scale and scope of the Edgeworth papers, taking an interdisciplinary approach that can in the future be scaled up via an open access digital resource for the use of scholars in history, literature and politics. The rich and varied collection of papers related to the Edgeworth family from the 17th to the 19th century is divided by the Irish Sea and also cut off from its original home in Edgeworthstown, County Longford. The manuscript archives split almost equally between the National Library of Ireland, Dublin and the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, comprise many thousands of items including manuscript drafts, drawings, family correspondence, of which only a tiny percentage is available in print, and even less is subject to scholarly editing. The Edgeworth archive offers important evidence (manuscript drafts and correspondence) about the literary career of one of the most influential novelists of the early nineteenth century, Maria Edgeworth; the educational, agricultural and political theory and practice of Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817); the ways in which an extended family with connections in Ireland, England, Europe and India, communicated and collaborated in the production of art, literature, and scientific knowledge; the history of Anglo-Irish relations in a period of political contest and transformation. Inspired by a 12 volume print scholarly edition (1993,2003) under the general editorship of Edgeworth's biographer, Marilyn Butler, there has been a significant surge in critical interest in the work. Selections of Edgeworth's letters have appeared in print, most recently Valerie Pakenham's Maria Edgeworth's Letters from Ireland (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2017). Print editions of letters and the fiction do not however communicate the breadth, variety and relevance of the extended correspondence and related network made apparent in the archive. Digital humanities' approaches and techniques make it possible not only to increase access to the manuscript archive, but also to analyse and understand it in new ways that offer potential to academic researchers and for cultural heritage. This timely proposal builds on an existing informal network and, in the context of the changing climate of British-Irish relations, solidifies and embeds previously informal connections to promote better understanding or our shared past for mutual benefit. Through collaboration between specialists in literary history, correspondence networks, digital technology, and heritage, the network will explore ways of re-uniting a divided archive and communicating its significance. The proposed activities cross disciplinary, geographical and sectoral boundaries and promote collaboration between academic researchers at the Universities of Cork and Oxford, libraries at Dublin and Oxford, and a cultural heritage organization (Edgeworthstown District Development Association).The network's public activities -- including the development of new resources at Edgeworthstown and the stimulation of creative responses from local school children to the manuscript materials in the Bodleian libraries and the National Library of Ireland -- have been designed to promote community and creative engagement with the resources, focusing on understanding better the global connectedness of Maria and her family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This work will provide the basis for exploring the future use of digital technology to bring archival images and information to life, enabling rich heritage experiences, as well as the wider dissemination of new scholarly understanding.