Our aim has been to produce a diplomatic transcription of Frederic Madden’s journal for 1826, working from photographs of Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Eng. hist. c. 164, following the original text as closely as possible. Inevitably, editorial choices have been made and these are explained below.
We used Transkribus to produce a draft text from photographs of the journal. Toby Burrows had built a transcription model using scans from microfilms of Madden’s journal, which we attempted to refine. The text produced by these models then required extensive editing. In the process, we adopted some of Transkribus’ standards, including the use of ### to indicate obliterated passages of text that are illegible.
Madden’s journal indicates several phases of editing by Madden, both in the process of writing and subsequently, with some alterations made many years afterwards. In addition to erasures and corrections (usually made by inserting words above the line, which we have indicated with superscript text), some entries were initially written in pencil and then overwritten in ink.
Sometimes Madden inserted additional text, marked with asterisks, either in the margin or written across the text at right angles to the original passage. We have reproduced the asterisks and additional text, but not attempted to replicate the layout of the cross-writing.
Cross-written text in Madden’s journal for 12-16 January 1826
The text presented in these webpages follows the line breaks of the original. However, in giving each entry its own page we have departed from the manuscript, where the text is continuous. Catchwords and page numbers have been omitted.
We have preserved the spelling and grammar of the manuscript. Where Madden transcribes text from medieval manuscripts we have sometimes used the medieval text as a guide, but we have preserved Madden’s spelling where it seems to differ from the medieval manuscript. However, we have standardised the abbreviation marks used by Madden to ‘ or ~, according to which seemed closest to the mark Madden made. Where Madden has occasionally underlined something multiple times we have just used a single line. Madden sometimes made drawings in his journal, and we have included photographs of these in the relevant entries.
In converting the text for a website we wanted to take the opportunity to link references to published texts and manuscripts to other digital records of those works. Similarly, we decided to create indices of people and institutions in order to clarify who or what was being referred to (where it has been possible for us to identify them). Linked terms appear in grey, though they are, of course, not in a different colour in the original manuscript. The indices will be added to as more entries are released throughout 2026.
In the context of his attempt to secure employment at the British Museum, Madden transcribed letters of recommendation which were bound into his journal. These are included here as part of the journal entries.
During his convalescence after a severe illness in September 1826, Madden produced a catalogue of coins. This is also bound into the journal, but is in a different format, being much smaller than the journal itself. As the primary interest of the transcribers is book history, this catalogue has not been transcribed.
The Transcription Team:
Lead transcribers:
Laura Cleaver
Isabel Tookey
Ekaterina Zhernovaya
Additional transcribers:
Riel Hattori-Caspi
Jenny Kenyon
Cathy Leung
Sophie Weinberg
Amanda Zinni