November 2014 Dinner Meeting

Speaker: Michael F. Suarez

“The Print that Changed the World: The Description of the Slave-Ship Brookes”

This lecture investigates one of the first non-religious images to “go viral” in the Anglo-American world, the slave-ship Brookes (London, 1789). In a richly illustrated talk, Suarez will trace the slave-ship’s subsequent appearances in a remarkable array of printed forms. Seeking to understand the proliferation of this abolitionist image and the modification of its pendant text over time, we will examine publications from England, the U.S., France, and Switzerland to establish the documentary history of a work that was a major historical agent in its multiple and varied textual appearances.

Michael F. Suarez, S.J. is University Professor and Director of Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, where he leads the Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography. The holder of research fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, he is the Honorary Curator of the University of Virginia’s special collections and Professor of English. Additionally, he is the 2014-2015 J.R. Lyell Reader in Bibliography at Oxford University. His recent books include The Oxford Companion to the Book (2010, co-edited with H.R. Woudhuysen), a million-word reference work on the history of books and manuscripts from the invention of writing to the present day. This work was highly acclaimed by both The [London] Telegraph and The Wall Street Journal. He is co-General Editor of The Collected Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online, one of the largest digital humanities projects extant today. Prof Suarez’s two 2014 publications are The Dublin Notebook of Gerard Manley Hopkins (co-edited with L.J. Higgins) and The Book: A Global History (co-edited with H.R. Woodhuysen). Copies of The Book will be available for signing after the event. Cost per book is $30 for this special event.

This dinner meeting will also announce the 2015 Caxton Club Grant recipients.

November dinner: Union League Club, 65 West Jackson Boulevard. This will be a Reverse Program. Timing: spirits at 5:00, program at 6:00, dinner to follow. Reservations are essential to attend either the Program Only or the Program and Dinner. The program is free, dinner is $48, drinks are $5 - $9. For reservations call 312-255-3710 or email caxtonclub@newberry.org. Please reserve by no later than Friday , November 14, 2014.