{"id":616,"date":"2013-01-21T17:59:10","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T17:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/?page_id=616"},"modified":"2022-06-22T09:09:25","modified_gmt":"2022-06-22T09:09:25","slug":"leigh-penman","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/?page_id=616","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Penman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1>How Large was Hartlib\u2019s Archive? A Quantitative Analysis and Comparative Reassessment<\/h1>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/?page_id=187#2011-Seminars\">2011 Seminar Series<\/a> \/ Thursday 9 June, 2011<\/h2>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-616-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/cofk.history.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/penman_edited.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/cofk.history.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/penman_edited.mp3\">http:\/\/cofk.history.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/penman_edited.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p><strong>Dr Leigh Penman<\/strong> (University of Western Australia) provides both startling new quantitative insights into the original scope of Samuel Hartlib\u2019s correspondence, and a rich narrative explanation of why his epistolary corpus has descended to us in such partial form. In the first half of the paper, Penman describes the dimensions and attributes of the intelligencer&#8217;s extant archive, most of which survives among the holdings of Sheffield University Library (and was previously digitized by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sheffield.ac.uk\/hri\/projects\/projectpages\/hartlib.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hartlib Papers Project<\/a>). He also introduces some brand new Hartlib letters he has located in other international repositories, and uses an algorithm \u2013 developed\u00a0in partnership with a theoretical physicist \u2013\u00a0to estimate the total extent of the original archive.\u00a0Penman goes on to speculate on why only around 42% of this original corpus has descended to us. In a painstaking reconstruction of the archive\u2019s passage through space and time \u2013 and through different \u2018microsociologies\u2019, in Penman\u2019s memorable phrase \u2013 he describes the steady attrition of Hartlib\u2019s papers through thefts and fires while he was still alive; the sale and scattering of papers by his two sons following his death; and the relocation of the papers to Brereton Hall in Cheshire around 1664, where they fell prey to the systematic manipulations of John Worthington, William Brereton, and others. He also discussed further archival tampering in the nineteenth century, evidence for which is liberally scattered throughout the papers (for example in the wrappers of the surviving \u2018bundles\u2019), as well as in several long-overlooked scholarly articles.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; How Large was Hartlib\u2019s Archive? A Quantitative Analysis and Comparative Reassessment 2011 Seminar Series \/ Thursday 9 June, 2011 Dr Leigh Penman (University of Western Australia) provides both startling new quantitative insights into the original scope of Samuel Hartlib\u2019s correspondence, and a rich narrative explanation of why his epistolary corpus has descended to us [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":187,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-616","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11978,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/616\/revisions\/11978"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.culturesofknowledge.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}