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Report on Visiting Professional Fellowship
School of Advanced Study
University of London
January-June 2010
Pat Rogers
University of South Florida
It was a great privilege to hold the Fellowship, to benefit from the resources made available and to enjoy
the support of those concerned with the School. I should like to thank the Dean (both former and current
holders of this post), the staff of the School, and members of the Institute of English Studies, including the
Director, Deputy Director and resident Fellows (who included some former colleagues at King’s College).
It would be invidious to name particular members of staff, other than to thank two with whom I came most
into contact on a day to day basis and regularly facilitated my work, that is Conor Wyer and Jon Millington.
Everyone in the School whom I encountered was uniformly helpful and pleasant in all the dealings I had
with them. Naturally I hope to have benefitted from contact with several distinguished figures in English
studies, bibliography, history and allied fields.
My research centred principally on aspects of early eighteenth-century book history, with particular
reference to Alexander Pope and Edmund Curll, as part of a study of the interaction of authors and
booksellers in the period 1700-1750. The proximity of the Senate House library and the British Library also
made it possible to advance a catalogue of the publications of Curll and bring this longstanding project
close to completion. More widely it was possible to consult a wide range of books and manuscripts on
disparate topics to which I could not normally consult, including many unique or very rare volumes
previously unavailable for examination.
My duties were few. But I was glad to be asked to deliver a School Visiting Professorial Lecture in April
and to give a Dean’s Seminar in June. Equally it was good to have the opportunity to attend seminars given
by others in this series, and to be present at a variety of other events held in the schools of music, history
and classics, as well as to join activities of groups such as the history of libraries research group. I also
attended among other events an inaugural lecture in music, an open day for potential graduate students, a
get-together of Institute personnel on the occasion of the new Dean’s tour of inspection, and one of the
Bloomsbury Breakfasts.
Needless to say, the intellectual stimulation and cultural opportunities offered to me during my stay were
not entirely confined to occasions within the Senate House. For example, I was able to attend in person
events held by bodies such as the Antiquarian Society of London; the British Academy; and the Royal
Society of Literature – normally not accessible to me. The Johnson Society of London kindly gave me a
dinner to mark election as a vice-president. During a two-week stay by my wife, halfway through my
tenure, we managed to mix some touristy days with visits to places of interest, mostly close at hand, such as
the Foundling Hospital Museum, Handel House, Benjamin Franklin’s House, the Imperial War Museum,
Banqueting House, St Martin’s in the Fields, Dr Johnson’s House, Kensington Palace and Hampton Court.
We also took the chance to explore the area around Covent Garden where Curll’s business premises lay.
Most of these attractions I had never visited, or had not seen for many decades. For the first time in a
generation I was able to hear leading orchestras and performers at venues such as the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
It is unlikely I will have the chance to do many of these things again and I am grateful for these
opportunities alongside the formal research on which I was chiefly engaged.
Outside London I had three brief speaking engagements. These were a talk in February to the eighteenthcentury study group in Pembroke College, Cambridge; a talk in March to the book history seminar at the
Centre for the History of the Book, University of Edinburgh; and a presentation in April for the Liverpool
Literature Seminars, held at the Department of English, University of Liverpool. Each of these was a quick
in-and-out trip involving a single night’s absence, but they proved useful in allowing me to meet some
eminent scholars and promising graduate students, as well as renew acquaintance with some collaborators
and colleagues who are generally several thousand miles distant.
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Finally I should like to thank the staff of the Housing Services for their efficiency and courtesy in
connection with the excellent accommodation I enjoyed in such a handy location at Torrington Square.
Like everyone I came across in London, they did everything possible to make my stay both useful and
pleasurable. The experience gave me a much clearer idea of the workings of the School and I came away
with an enhanced sense of its value and indeed its importance within the University as a whole. No other
institute in the UK seems to me to have such a crucial role in fostering advanced work in the humanities.