The impact of Covid-19 meant that access to libraries and archives was severely restricted for at least the first twelve-months of the fellowship, and in some cases for even longer. Arrangements for a placement were also amended, and AMW spent three weeks in June 2021 at the Dublin Diocesan Archives Centre where she learned about cataloguing, conservation, and record protection. This practical grounding in archival practices helped inform AMW’s search strategies which initially were reliant on online catalogues and calendars. Once the women’s letters were located, images were requested from the various repositories so that the work of cataloguing could begin. The main details of each letter were uploaded onto EXCEL spreadsheets which were designed for every repository. Fourteen visits were arranged to national and institutional libraries and to private archives, situated across Ireland and Britain. The purpose of those visits was to carry out physical searches of the manuscript holdings in order to locate, document and photograph all of the Boyle women's extant letters. Return visits were arranged to those repositories with large holdings to facilitate the resolution of transcription queries.
Three hundred and eighty-five letters have been identified and photographed to date, and of that number three-hundred and fifty-four letters have been fully transcribed and annotated. The extant letters can be found in twenty-three different repositories located across Ireland, Britain and America. The letters span three generations and represent twenty-five different female correspondents. A transcription policy had to be devised and established at an early point in the editorial process so that each letter could be treated in a similar manner and a consistent approach adopted in regard to spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, annotation, lay-out, and the use of headnotes and footnotes. The edited letters are arranged in chronological order, and while the publisher [IMC] has a minimal footnote policy, readers will have access to supplementary materials including a glossary of archaic terms, a genealogical tree, a biographical register, and a comprehensive index.
A website was designed and published on 20th of April 2021,
https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/WomensEpistolaryNetworks/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie). The website showcases examples of the letters which are presented in their transcribed form, accompanied by a photograph of the original manuscript. The letters are introduced and sorted under different thematic categories: Stages of Womanhood; Women and War; Women and Religion; Women, Medicine, and Health; Women and Politics. A link to the website was circulated for inclusion on the host websites at both Chatsworth House and Petworth House, repositories where the majority of the women’s letters are currently located. Conference papers, lectures, and out-reach events, totaling eight in all, have directed potential users to the website while also enabling the dissemination of the latest research findings. The publication of a monograph and two essays, in addition to three forthcoming biographical entries, has created further opportunities to draw attention to the project and the Boyle women’s letters. The organization of a symposium at Queen’s University Belfast on the 10 June 2022 brought together a range of interdisciplinary experts to present papers and exchange ideas about the latest gendered methodologies and practices which are being used to edit early modern women’s letters. Those conference papers have since been written up, reviewed, and submitted for inclusion in a special journal edition, “Editing Women’s Letters Across Europe, 1500-1800”, which is co-edited by AMW and RW on behalf of, Women’s Writing, with publication scheduled for 2024.
