Michael Durrant

Contact details

Name:
Michael Durrant
Position:
Lecturer in Book History
Institute:
Institute of English Studies
Location:
The Institute of English Studies School of Advanced Study University of London Senate House London WC1E 7HU
Email address:
michael.durrant@sas.ac.uk
Website:
https://ies.sas.ac.uk/people/dr-michael-durrant

Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:
Early Modern, English Literature, History, History of the book, Library
Regions:
England, United Kingdom
Summary of research interests and expertise:

Michael Durrant is a Lecturer in Book History, with a particular focus on the English book trade in the early modern period. His first monograph explores the lives and afterlives of the seventeenth-century printer, Henry Hills, and the place of the printer figure in the early/modern imaginary. Elsewhere, he has written on Protestant devotion and book use, users manuscript modifications of printed pages, the creative functions of the printers' device, printed waste and unnatested books, and, more recently, the queer potentials of early modern material texts. Michael has also been involved in interdisciplinary research into the role of secrecy and trust in Shakespeare's writings, particularly his sonnets. 

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date Details
01-Apr-2025 “I lie with her and she with me” Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Pleasures of Distrust

Chapters

In, Early Modern Bonds of Trust: From Shakespeare to Milton, ed. by Joseph Sterrett, Alison Findley, and Helen Wilcox (London: Bloomsbury, 2025)

01-Mar-2025 The Queer Lives of The Life of H.H. (1822, 1688, 1650-51)

Journal articles

In Journal of Early Modern Studies, special issue: 'The Politics of Book History: Then and Now', ed. by Zachary Lesser and Georgina WIlson (March, 2025).

01-Sep-2024 The Remedy of Loue (1584): An Unattested Printed Text Found in the Binding of a Chester Court-Book

Journal articles

The Library 25:3 (2024), 325-67

01-Sep-2023 The Goddæuses' Dürer-Inspired Trademark: The Meanings, Origins, and Strategic Uses of a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Printer's Device

Journal articles

In Book History 26:2 (2023), 274-294

01-May-2023 John Harris: From Stage Business to Page Business

Chapters

In The People of Print: Seventeenth Century England, ed. by Rachel Stenner, Kaley Kramer, and Adam James Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).

01-Sep-2021 Simmel and Shakespeare on Lying and Love

Journal articles

In Cultural Sociology 15:3 (2021), 346-363

01-Sep-2020 Old Books, New Beginnings: Recovering Lost Pages

Journal articles

In Inscription: The Journal of the Material Text - Theory, Practice, Criticism  Issue 1 (2020), 

01-Sep-2020 ‘HERSCHEPT HET HERT’: Katherine Sutton’s Experiences (1663), the Printer’s Device and the Making of Devotion

Chapters

In People and Piety: Protestant Devotional Identities in Early Modern England, ed. by Elizabeth Clarke and Robert Daniel (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020)

26-Oct-2018 “Unseen but very evident”: Ghosts, Hauntings, and the Civil War Past

Chapters

In From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past, ed. by Marina Gerzic and Aidan Norrie (London: Routledge, 2018)

01-Sep-2018 Henry Hills and the Tailor’s Wife Adultery and Hypocrisy in the Archive

Chapters

In Forms of Hypocrisy in Early Modern England, ed. by Lucia Nigri and Naya Tsentourou (London and New York: Routledge, 2018)  

02-Jan-2018 ‘Who hears or reads of That, shall publish Thee‘: Print, Transmission, and the King’s Book

Journal articles

Research Projects & Supervisions

Research projects:

Details
The Mount Street Catalogues: Reconstructing a Nineteenth-Century Jesuit Library

Available for doctoral supervision: Yes

Relevant Events

Other editing/publishing activities:

Date Details
2023 Hannah Woolley, The Gentlewomans Companion; or, A Guide to the Female Sex (1673)

2023 Eikon Basilike. The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings (1648/9)

2022 The Great Bible (1540)

2019 Book of Common Prayer (1678)

2017 ‘Facts are not truth’: Hilary Mantel goes on the record about historical fiction

Knowledge transfer activities:

Details
Shakespeare’s First Folio: A Moving Monument

Consultancy & Media
Available for consultancy:
Yes
Media experience:
Yes
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