...has been treated to a wonderful private view of Sambourne House/Leighton House collections and archives: drawers full of uncatalogued letters, pull-out sliding racks replete with sketches, pictures, and diaries, stimulating conversations with experts. I feel so lucky.

Sean Penn.

C'était ma critique de Une bataille après l'autre.
#OneBattleAfterAnother #PTA

NEW ISSUE ALERT! It's a happy day when you find the latest VPR in your mailbox. This number includes the 2024 VanArsdel and Expanding the Field essays as well as articles on asylum periodicals and the bookselling trade. Treat yourself to some delightful reading: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55567 @rs4vp.org

A really fine summary of this important aspect of the 19th-c newspaper press. Thanks, too, to the always terrific Victorian Commons for the link to this splendid clip about Dickens's experience as a Parliamentary reporter: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AROf... #19thc #C19th @rs4vp.org

✨ It's official! We're now accepting proposals for #RSVP2026, "Movements and Migrations"! We invite scholars to examine the relationship between periodicals, migrations, and movements for our 2026 conference in Dublin. Full CFP and more details on our main website.

Only a few days left to register for our "Pictorial Punch - Treasures from the Archive" study day, to be held at the #BritishLibrary on November 7.

Information and registration here: pictorial-punch.sciencesconf.org/registration

Une trame commune, trois histoires singulières et des personnages qui circulent entre les films comme ils parcourent la ville. C'est drôle, très poétique, onirique par moments. J'au beaucoup aimé.
#LaTrilogiedOslo

Looking forward to meeting again the lovely @rs4vp.org community in Chicago!
conference.rs4vp.org

Honoured and delighted to have been selected for an American Trust for the British Library Research Fellowship 2025-2026!

I am very grateful for this opportunity to spend time working on the Punch Archive at the BL and on the extraordinary C19 collections at the Houghton Library, Harvard University

CFP: Essays in Honor of Brian Maidment (Proposals due May 15; Essays due Nov. 1). Guest editors Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge invite proposals for a special issue of VPR. For full details, visit rs4vp.org/cfp-vpr-spec... @rs4vp.bsky.social

Many thanks to everyone who joined us online and on campus for our seminar on Wednesday afternoon! So proud of the amazing 19C research undertaken by our staff & students. We're especially grateful to Jereon Salman from Utrecht for his fascinating plenary on European penny prints and modernist art.

Thanks Helena!

Thrilled to announce that I have been awarded a Houghton Library Visiting Fellowship, Harvard University, for 2025-2026!

Very grateful for this opportunity, and looking forward to a bookworm year 📚

Excellent news! 'Pictorial Punch - Treasures from the Archive' has received the support of the @paulmelloncentr.bsky.social

Don't miss our November 7, 2025 study day at the British Library. CFP available below.

A lovely, erudite, and extremely generous scholar, from whom I learnt so much. Brian will be greatly missed.

What a lovely surprise, today, to learn that @universite-caen.bsky.social holds complete runs of The Yellow Book and The Savoy! The collections will now be given pride of place among our Victorian holdings. #TheYellowBook #TheSavoy

Yes, and the men follow the show live on their phones, visible on the table. Those Regency Tinder kids...

simultaneously horrific and amazing www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...

Wonderful findings in Punch's Pocket Book today: a child's multicoloured collage and a student's sketches (1879 & 1880). Also found: a coded message!

Six years ago our MP of the Month for February was Charles Tilston Bright, a pioneering telegraph engineer, who laid the first Atlantic telegraph cable. He was Liberal MP for Greenwich. Find out more about him in our blog: victoriancommons.wordpress.com/2019/02/20/m...

Going through some absolutely wonderful boxes of preparatory sketches for Punch by Leech, Tenniel, Furniss and many others. Seeing art in the making is just fantastic (and very moving). #BritishLibrary #ArchivesandManuscripts #PunchArchive

A Victorian take on gender terminology from Punch's Pocket Book for 1854.