Mary Anne Rawson's The Bow in the Cloud (1834): A Digital Edition and a Network Analysis of Anti-slavery Literature

FAIN: FEL-289788-23

Christopher Ohge
University of London (London WC1E 7HU United Kingdom)

Research and writing towards a digital edition of Mary Anne Rawson’s abolitionist anthology The Bow in the Cloud (1834).

This project is an interactive multimedia digital edition of The Bow in the Cloud, an 1834 anti-slavery anthology that was edited by the British abolitionist Mary Anne Rawson. The edition reveals the unfolding of the anthology's hitherto unexamined manuscript archive and uses network analysis methods to reveal the connections between the elements of the anthology and wider aspects of transatlantic anti-slavery publishing.

Associated Products

Mary Anne Rawson's The Bow in the Cloud (1834): A Scholarly Edition (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Mary Anne Rawson's The Bow in the Cloud (1834): A Scholarly Edition
Author: Christopher Ohge
Abstract: The Bow in the Cloud is an anti-slavery anthology that was published in 1834 by the London firm of Jackson & Walford, in St. Paul’s Churchyard. The anthology consists of 86 poems and prose pieces by a mixture of well-known and non-professional writers involved in anti-slavery societies throughout Great Britain. It was edited by Mary Anne Rawson, née Read (1801–1887), who sought to create what she called in her Preface to the anthology ‘a structure of moral and literary architecture’. This digital edition shows how the anthology was constructed based on the surviving documentary evidence. There are three parts to the edition: the published version of The Bow in the Cloud (along with the attendant manuscripts from the scrapbook relating to each piece); a selection of important unpublished material, including poems that were submitted but not published in 1834, letters from authors who declined to contribute to the anthology, and letters from contributors who offered thoughts on the anthology; and text analysis, network analysis, and mapping tools to demonstrate the social and semantic networks, as well as the geographical clusters, of the people associated with the anthology.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://antislavery-anthologies.org/books/bow-in-the-cloud/index
Primary URL Description: Home page for the Bow in the Cloud digital edition
Secondary URL: https://github.com/cmohge1/bow-in-the-cloud-edition/tree/master
Secondary URL Description: GitHub repository for the project
Access Model: Open access

Editing the Editor: Reconstructing Mary Anne Rawson’s Anti-Slavery Anthology The Bow in the Cloud (1834) With Digital Tools (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Editing the Editor: Reconstructing Mary Anne Rawson’s Anti-Slavery Anthology The Bow in the Cloud (1834) With Digital Tools
Author: Christopher Ohge
Abstract: This keynote lecture presented an interactive multimedia digital edition of The Bow in the Cloud, an 1834 anti-slavery anthology that was edited by the British abolitionist Mary Anne Rawson. The edition reveals the unfolding of the anthology's hitherto unexamined manuscript archive and uses network analysis methods to reveal the connections between the elements of the anthology and wider aspects of transatlantic anti-slavery publishing.
Date: 06/22/2024
Primary URL: https://www.documentaryediting.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ADE-2024-Program.pdf
Conference Name: Association for Documentary Editing

Editing Anti-Slavery Archives and Modelling Sustainable Publications: The Case of Mary Anne Rawson’s The Bow in the Cloud (1834) (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Editing Anti-Slavery Archives and Modelling Sustainable Publications: The Case of Mary Anne Rawson’s The Bow in the Cloud (1834)
Abstract: How can digital scholarly editing recover under-examined anti-slavery literary archives and introduce new paths for critical interpretation and historical scholarship? And how can such a project ensure sustainable publications? A digital scholarly edition of The Bow in the Cloud, an 1834 anti-slavery anthology edited by Mary Anne Rawson, an activist from Sheffield, uses editorial and text analysis tools to make accessible distributed data on the genesis and historical significance of this anthology and its neglected manuscript archive. Using the semantic web authoring tool Scalar, the project combines Transkribus, TEI-XML, network analysis tools, linked open data standards, and a graph database to model relationships between archival documents as well as creative-critical practices. It also uses a principle of distributed data to make various representations of the project’s dataset useful for various purposes. This kind of digital publication strategy employs an integrative and interdependent approach by featuring new modes of presentation, enriching library catalogs and digital image collections with IIIF (https://iiif.io/) technology, and building an edition with analysis tools. The edition lays the groundwork for a detailed, dynamic, and flexible engagement with the making of a significant anti-slavery publishing event.
Author: Christopher Ohge
Date: 11/17/23
Location: University of Cambridge, Centre for Digital Humanities
Primary URL: https://www.cdh.cam.ac.uk/events/37247/
Primary URL Description: Centre for Digital Humanities Event description
Secondary URL: https://christopherohge.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Editing-Anti-Slavery-Archives-and-Modelling-Sustainable-Publications_-The-Case-of-Mary-Anne-Rawsons-The-Bow-in-the-Cloud-1834-CDH.pdf
Secondary URL Description: PDF of the event description

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