Culture24's top ten literary history and heritage stories of 2014
This article originally appeared on Culture24.
It was a vintage year for the UK's literary heritage - here are ten of the most popular Culture24 stories of 2014
A memoir of Jane Austen© West Dean College and GardensWhat is it about Jane Austen that get's the web talking? If we knew, we would bottle it and sell it. This story about a note handwritten by Austen in 1814, which experts said could throw light on her thought processes relating to her great morality novel, Mansfield Park, was our most popular literary history story of the year.
Curator Natalie McCaul with the Richard III House Book in York© Yorkshire MuseumA parchment shown in York recounted Richard III's decision to watch Corpus Christi Mystery Plays, detailed the money spent on hosting the Royal visit and revealed the preparations made by planners to welcome him.
© National Library of AustraliaThe personal accounts of 18th century British prisoners who escaped New South Wales on a journey across Australia were revealed by University College London. Discovered in the personal collection of Jeremy Bentham, these vivid accounts brought to life one of the most notorious escape stories of colonial Australia.
A Study in Scarlet, cover for sheet of notes© Courtesy the Conan Doyle EstateThe first Sherlock Holmes ever committed to paper, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the opening lines of a notebook the author used while practising medicine in Southsea between 1885 and 1889, went on public view in a story of a “terrified woman” rushing to a taxi.
A sketch in the margin of the Book of St Albans© Cambridge University LibraryA passionate pencil portrait of a saucy couple, lewdly embracing at the foot of an otherwise untarnished page in one of the most famous and collectable books in English printing history; just one of the unexpected highlights in an exhibition at Cambridge University showing how ancient books were used and abused.
William Shakespeare © University of Texas Portrait Gallery via Wikimedia CommonsIn June, a unique and valuable set of handwritten Shakespeare documents held at the National Archives got UNESCO recognition. Highlights included a letter patent authorising Shakespeare and his companions to perform plays throughout the realm under royal patronage and William Shakespeare’s will, made in March 25 1616 and authenticated in June 22 1616, bearing his signature.
Jane Asher launches Cakespeare© Victoria and Albert Museum, LondonAnother Bard-inspired story centred around a Cakespeare competition, launched by the V&A to bake a cake for the Bard's 450th birthday - resulting in some weird and wonderful creations.
Elsa Lanchester and Boris Karloff in The Bride of Frankenstein (1939)© Universal / The Kobal CollectionAutumn drew visitors to the British Library, where two and a half centuries of Gothic literature and its many guises: brooding and bloodthirsty, supernatural and salacious, dark and decadent. It all made for a complex and contradictory but somehow compelling journey in to the very nature of Gothic.
A painted Wheel of the Year on display alongside folkloric books at Cornwall's Museum of Witchcraft© Museum of WitchcraftFor World Book Day we selected ten of the best British venues to see the most famous and unusual books ever written. Our miscellany included strange Wicca tracts from the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall and the Illuminated Medieval Manuscripts of the Fitzwilliam Museum.
New adventures at Moat Brae House in Dumfries© Graeme Robertson“Our aims are to nurture the memories of past writers and to encourage the emergence of new young talent – to respect our extraordinary literary inheritance and to enable children's imaginations to fly, like Peter Pan,” said Joanna Lumley, the Patron of the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust. The Trust had saved the Georgian town house just days before the building was due to be demolished in 2009.
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More from Culture24's review of 2014:
Top ten science and nature stories of 2014
Top ten archaeology stories of 2014
Top ten military history stories of 2014
