I am a graduate of the Queen Mary Renaissance Studies MA and now work in publishing. I am interested in the literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, and especially in the history of the book as a material object.

Apart from enjoying the MA enormously, it also afforded a range of excellent opportunities: I was lucky enough to meet hands on, forward-thinking academics, who (as well as being experts in their fields) were also firmly committed to influencing the world beyond – which was both an eye-opener and at the same time incredibly motivating. Their desire to reconcile archive-based studies with new media and online publication was a breath of fresh air.

As well as being lead by exciting people, the MA also ran an excellent calendar of organised outings across London. These were a wonderful way of grounding the abstract study of a period in the places where very often it actually happened; visits like these really gave the things I read and studied a visceral quality. On top of that, the more time you spend in museums, archives and galleries the more you realize that the way in which these places preserve and (re)present history is as much a part of the study as anything else…

Coming from a strictly literature BA, I found the multidisciplinary nature of the MA very exciting. This broadening of horizons (especially the study of the visual arts) was integral in helping me decide on my longer-term career path, and then again in helping me to get a foot in the door.

During my MA, I became interested in a volume of material at the British Library, which I have edited for publication with The History Press (forthcoming, September 2010). Cox’s Fragmenta is a miscellany of amusing journalism from the period 1788 –1822. Contents include frog barometers, spring-powered wigs, short-sighted duellists, sapient pigs and nocturnal liaisons in an Irish bean field.

Francis Cox (1752–1834) left a bemusing legacy of 94 scrapbooks, each massive volume filled with cuttings from the papers of his day. While the collection he bequeathed is unordered and impossible to index, Cox’s Fragmenta brings together best – and strangest – articles in a single book.