Maria Edgeworth Letters

FAIN: PW-285095-22

Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, NC 27109-6000)
Jessica Richard (Project Director: July 2021 to present)

Planning for the creation of a fully searchable corpus of Maria Edgeworth’s letters through crowdsourced transcription, expert annotation, and TEI-encoding. Her letters are held at 26 libraries across the United States and United Kingdom, and this would be the first effort to unite them digitally.

The Maria Edgeworth Letters project provides open access to the thought and wide-ranging correspondence network of an extraordinary woman writing at the turn of the nineteenth century whose ideas on gender, race, religion, education, and science have important ramifications today. The grant would support the early stages of development of a digital edition of the letters of Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849), an Anglo-Irish novelist and educational theorist who was more famous in her day than Jane Austen. Her letters, held at archives around the world, have never been comprehensively edited or accessible; this digital project will gather the scattered letters and create their associated metadata, allowing for network and other analyses. This collaborative endeavor between four universities provides research and learning opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students and engages the public through the Zooniverse crowdsourcing initiative.

Associated Products

Report on Zooniverse Public Engagement (Report)
Title: Report on Zooniverse Public Engagement
Author: Hilary Havens
Abstract: The Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (MELP) has a public-facing component that solicits transcriptions of Maria Edgeworth’s letters through Zooniverse (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mariaedgeworthletters/maria-edgeworth-letters). Zooniverse (https://www.zooniverse.org/), “the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research,” is a crowdsourcing platform that enables millions of volunteers to participate in research projects. There is a wide range of projects on the Zooniverse platform: many of them are in the sciences, and some of the most popular projects are related to identifying astronomical features and classifying nature. Volunteers can contribute to these research projects through Zooniverse’s user-friendly interface by answering straightforward questions, taking an image survey, drawing shapes and figures, or transcribing text. Text transcription is central to MELP: MELP was one of the earliest projects to crowdsource transcriptions on Zooniverse. From roughly May to October 2022, 860 volunteers transcribed 744 letters, or roughly 3000 manuscript pages, by Edgeworth and her circle using Zooniverse’s “transcription task.”
Date: 10/31/2022
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xNenZOOejOHObHXpNAiRz1ZJkg4bTUQHl5S4nYvNMos/edit?usp=sharing

Report on Technical Editor Skills and Qualifications (Report)
Title: Report on Technical Editor Skills and Qualifications
Author: Hilary Havens
Author: Susan Egenolf
Abstract: Project team developed a report on necessary skills and qualifications for a technical editor to supplement the scholarly skills of the academic co-editors.
Date: 2/28/2025
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cmsjVNbgq171hR6ja8ITU6LU2_n8hUP6PDeDTKpu25o/edit?usp=sharing

MELP DH Summer Seminar Assessment (Report)
Title: MELP DH Summer Seminar Assessment
Author: Robin Runia
Abstract: In Summer of 2023, the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (MELP) developed, under the leadership of Carrie Johnston, a week-long seminar to train 7 students (4 from Wake Forest University and 3 from Xavier University of Louisiana) for a month of paid research with oversight by Jessica Richard and Robin Runia. The Seminar was designed to introduce students to Digital Humanities concepts and project design and Maria Edgeworth. It also trained them in TEI for the encoding of letters for MELP.
Date: 6/5/2023
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IUk-EB5sOyIeZBGp1oZKM6WsqWVt7FeAVG7FlEEZeOg/edit?usp=sharing

Report on Efficacy and Cost of IIIF (Report)
Title: Report on Efficacy and Cost of IIIF
Author: Meredith Hale
Abstract: The MELP project team decided not to pursue IIIF during the implementation phase of the NEH grant. Another viewer, OpenSeaDragon (https://openseadragon.github.io/) is being used on the beta site (https://melp.dh.tamu.edu/) as it replicates some of the features of a IIIF viewer like Mirador or Universal Viewer. For instance, OpenSeaDragon allows users to zoom into scans of letters closely, which is useful in deciphering challenging handwriting. To date, the team has not had a need to enable annotation of scans, as would be possible in IIIF. Finally, OpenSeaDragon supports IIIF’s APIs and could be built upon in the future if the full suite of IIIF features is desired (https://openseadragon.github.io/examples/tilesource-iiif/). The project team currently works closely with Texas A&M’s Center for Digital Humanities Research, which has a IIIF server available, if needed, for MELP. Texas A&M’s Libraries are also a full member of the IIIF consortium (https://iiif.io/community/consortium/members/).
Date: 2/28/2025
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iI6E1F7hr9_elagFd8eOdfyCM_j0ItgmfRlYuJYO00A/edit?usp=sharing

Report on Database Structure (Report)
Title: Report on Database Structure
Author: Bryan Tarpley
Author: Susan Egenolf
Abstract: Report on the Database Structure of the Maria Edgeworth Letter Project as Developed in the granting period.
Date: 2/28/2025
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IwqWSdwd3MPaWluKmzbpO9wk14TGpKiyei1z2cQEIcw/edit?usp=sharing

Report on appropriate creative commons licensing of encoding production (Report)
Title: Report on appropriate creative commons licensing of encoding production
Author: Meredith Hale
Abstract: The Maria Edgeworth Letters Project decided to assign Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licenses (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) to all of our encoded files. It is assigned through inclusion in the XML files using both the textual name of the license and the URI that will lead potential users to the appropriate terms of reuse. This license was chosen as it is recommended in the TEI Consortium Guidelines (https://tei-c.org/guidelines/licensing-and-citation/). According to the guidelines, “The CC+BY licence is generally appropriate for usages which treat TEI content as data or documentation.” This license is widely used by other projects and institutions. One example is the Map of London Project created by the University of Victoria (https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/legal.htm).
Date: 2/28/2025
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_wJGP1OnDx1u16P0ko3z_FS7wgbwXZ8ADCsp0n0ZoO8/edit?usp=sharing

Application for NEH Humanities Collections References and Resources Implementation Grant 2025 (Report)
Title: Application for NEH Humanities Collections References and Resources Implementation Grant 2025
Author: Hilary Havens
Author: Susan Egenolf
Author: Robin Runia
Author: Meredith Hale
Author: Jessica Richard
Abstract: This MELP Implementation application proposes to build on the significant scholarly outcomes accomplished through the NEH Foundations grant awarded in 2022. During the Foundations funding period, the multi-institutional MELP team built and populated a wireframe, a pilot website, and a bespoke database of Edgeworth’s correspondence; we produced more than 200 transcribed and encoded letters, project workflows, taxonomies of named entities (people, places, and published works) using linked open data, two peer-reviewed journal articles, and numerous conference presentations and “transcribe-a-thons,” where we synchronously transcribed the letters with volunteers; we developed significant public humanities engagement with volunteers through our crowdsourced transcription site on the Zooniverse platform; and we expanded digital humanities capacity for undergraduate and graduate students at our institutions. Following our Foundations period work, we are now poised to fully build MELP out as a robust digital edition of letters to and from Maria Edgeworth. Drawing on the expertise of Edgeworth scholars, digital humanists, librarians, and technology specialists, as well as the participation of volunteer transcribers, MELP will make images and metadata of all letters publicly available and will offer an increasing corpus of plain-text and TEI-encoded transcriptions over time within an entity-searchable database.
Date: 7/7/2024
Primary URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16MGRuCVhAFPgJ0wFyolMh4JVZbN_Q7sp/view?usp=sharing
Primary URL Description: Full proposal as submitted to NEH.
Secondary URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/124bXLB5p47v2MLqg4rhmrio7OOy5w5z_/view?usp=sharing
Secondary URL Description: Confirmation of submission from University of Tennessee Knoxville.

Maria Edgeworth Letter Project Website wireframe--mobile (Web Resource)
Title: Maria Edgeworth Letter Project Website wireframe--mobile
Author: KWALL
Abstract: Mobile interface of the wireframe designed by KWALL firm as the structural foundation of the Maria Edgeworth Lettter Project digital archive. Design was funded by the grant.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fGUdAbxbfza0C7QVco_nsw3KRzw3Lej7/view?usp=sharing
Primary URL Description: PDF of the wireframe as it appears on mobile devices.
Secondary URL: http://mariaedgeworth.org
Secondary URL Description: Live wireframe can be seen here

Maria Edgeworth Letters Project Wireframe--desktop (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Maria Edgeworth Letters Project Wireframe--desktop
Author: KWALL
Abstract: Desktop version of the wireframe produced by KWALL and funded by the grant. Provides the structural foundation of the web display of the MELP database.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yyy16Cey3XDn-Rwjn6C-JfRz80N62yyU/view?usp=sharing
Primary URL Description: PDF of wireframe as it appears on desktop devices.
Secondary URL: http://mariaedgeworth.org
Secondary URL Description: Live version of the wireframe can be viewed here.

Advisory Board Report #1 (Report)
Title: Advisory Board Report #1
Author: Jessica Richard
Abstract: First of two reports to MELP Advisory Board.
Date: 10/31/2023
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LQuQ3gZLvMtZTTvVLycTLXLILFTBc3yx0Z-CYdksX-w/edit?usp=sharing

Advisory Board Report #2 (Report)
Title: Advisory Board Report #2
Author: Jessica Richard
Abstract: 2nd of 2 reports to MELP Advisory Board on project progress.
Date: 2/28/2025
Primary URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LBn6NQm-n4qPKuGgBmvgb8t26Cr35MBTvaDK5YtGTxE/edit?usp=sharing

MOU Regarding CoDHR at TAMU (Report)
Title: MOU Regarding CoDHR at TAMU
Author: Susan Egenolf
Abstract: Memo of Understanding regarding technical support for Maria Edgeworth Letters Project by the Center of Digital Humanities Research (CoDHR) at Texas A&M University.
Date: 3/21/2024
Primary URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1amV8HNR7eti8TQFMJMbRumpVqqWZQk2v/view?usp=sharing

Abstract of Transcriptions/TEI/Website Deliverables (Report)
Title: Abstract of Transcriptions/TEI/Website Deliverables
Author: Hilar Havens
Abstract: The primary deliverables of our NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Foundation grant were to produce 200 Zooniverse letter transcriptions and corresponding TEI files associated with complete metadata, as well as uploading the transcriptions, TEI, and metadata to a pilot site. We have exceeded the number of projected transcriptions and encodings. The Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (MELP) hosts a public GitHub repository that contains 262 TEI encoded letters produced during the NEH grant period. The repository is available here: https://github.com/Maria-Edgeworth-Letters-Project/me-tei. The letters have been uploaded into a no-SQL database called Corpora (https://corpora.dh.tamu.edu/), which was designed and is managed by our technical editor, Bryan Tarpley. Through a WordPress plug-in, the transcriptions, TEI, and metadata of those 262 letters are all available on our pilot website. The pilot website is available here: https://melp.dh.tamu.edu/.
Date: 2/28/2025
Primary URL: http://https://docs.google.com/document/d/1spm2a0LvY-5nuKT04v0gnAYU9j_3Xx8x_zmjvrPqYTc/edit?usp=sharing

Communities of Collaboration: Building the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (Article)
Title: Communities of Collaboration: Building the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project
Author: Hilary Havens
Author: Susan Egenolf
Author: Jessica Richard
Author: Robin Runia
Abstract: The Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (MELP) is a digital, searchable, open-access archive of Edgeworth's correspondence that is building a collaborative international community, simulating the sprawling network encompassed in her letters, and demonstrating how Edgeworthstown in Ireland became an important node in the exchange and production of knowledge in the Romantic period. With more than 15,000 manuscript pages from over thirty archives, MELP crowdsources transcriptions through the Zooniverse platform, edits and encodes them through collaborative workflows across five universities, and assembles taxonomies of people, places, and works mentioned in the letters in order to create a sustainable digital project.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1353/srm.2024.a943147
Primary URL Description: DOI link to journal website online publication
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Studies in Romanticism
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

From Archive to Database: Using Crowdsourcing, TEI, and Collaborative Labor to Construct the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (Article)
Title: From Archive to Database: Using Crowdsourcing, TEI, and Collaborative Labor to Construct the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project
Author: Jamie Kramer
Author: Hilary Havens
Author: Meredith L. Hale
Author: Eliza Alexander Wilcox
Abstract: This article unpacks the archival, textual, and encoded layers that comprise the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (MELP), an open-access digital archive containing the correspondence of the Anglo-Irish Regency author Maria Edgeworth and her circle. These layers reveal the impossibility of flattening or standardizing our work and instead advocate for a more inclusive and collaborative digital humanities model that accommodates both institutional and volunteer labor. Just as different methods were used to approach each archive and manage our project across multiple institutions, each transcription requires a different level of care, especially as various notes and collaborators are cited in the final project. Through the use of TEI, we can flexibly represent diverse aspects of each letter while still maintaining a database-readable structure. We endeavor to connect each person, place, or work identified in Edgeworth's letters and our database to a larger network of linked data in order to place our project in conversation with other archival resources. For entities that are unidentified or unknown, we create new name authority files or produce internal data files that can be viewed by our collaborators and users. MELP's flexible structure thus allows it to strive for interoperability while refusing to efface the individual traces of its collaborators, entities, and material artifacts.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/18/2/000424/000424.html
Primary URL Description: Website for Digital Humanities Quarterly
Access Model: open access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ)
Publisher: Association for Computers and the Humanities; Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations

“Zooniverse and the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Zooniverse and the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project”
Author: Susan Egenolf
Author: Hilary Havens
Abstract: We were invited to present to the Zooniverse team of developers and researchers regarding the Maria Edgeworth Letters Project and the ways in which we implemented the Zooniverse platform and transcription task. We gave a project overview and discussed next steps, including using the Zooniverse platform ALI/CE (Aggregate Line Inspector/Collaborative Editor) for transcription reconciliation, finding controlled authorities, encoding letters in TEI, and uploading them to our GitHub Repository.
Date: 3/20/2024
Primary URL: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mariaedgeworthletters/maria-edgeworth-letters
Conference Name: Zooniverse Zoominar

Encoding Edgeworth: TEI Development for Correspondence and Entity Indices (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Encoding Edgeworth: TEI Development for Correspondence and Entity Indices
Author: Meredith Hale
Abstract: The Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (MELP) aims to make an open-access digital archive containing the complete correspondence of the Anglo-Irish Regency author Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) and her circle. TEI is central to this project as it is used to encode the text of the letters, create indices of named persons, places, and works, and ensure interoperability of the project long term. Letters in both English and French are present in the corpus. To date, over 200 letters have been encoded and made available on our beta site - https://melp.dh.tamu.edu/. In the next three years, this inter-institutional collaborative project plans to encode an additional 500 letters and provide minimal metadata for all remaining digitized letters using elements with the teiHeader. This presentation will cover the workflows currently being used to achieve this work as well as challenges the team is currently working through. For current workflows, the majority of encoding is completed by graduate assistants who are aiming to advance their skills in the digital humanities. These students use a TEI template to guide their letter encoding while spreadsheet data entry is the foundation for the indices. Adding entities to the indices involves in depth authority research using VIAF, GeoNames, Wikidata, and the Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF). Separate TEI files for persons, places, and works are subsequently generated from the spreadsheets using GREL in OpenRefine. GitHub is key to managing the TEI contributions of all project contributors for version control purposes. As many in the humanities have not used GitHub previously, training is essential. Possible solutions for future work will also be featured. As the team continues to add entities to our indices, opportunities to further capitalize upon the content negotiable authorities we have added needs to be explored. At present on our beta site the links are simply displayed when an established entity is present in a lett
Date: 10/9/2024
Primary URL: https://doi.org/0.5281/zenodo.14681130
Primary URL Description: Link to the presentation slides (as a PowerPoint and PDF) as well as a translation of the presentation script to Spanish
Conference Name: 2024 Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Maria Edgeworth Transcribe-a-thon (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Maria Edgeworth Transcribe-a-thon
Author: Hilary Havens
Author: Meredith Hale
Abstract: We hosted a transcribe-a-thon for our Edgeworth letters project through our project’s Zooniverse webpage (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mariaedgeworthletters/maria-edgeworth-letters).
Date: 4/13/2023
Primary URL: https://incs2023.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/incs-2023-v30-4.15.2023.pdf
Primary URL Description: INCS conference program
Secondary URL: https://incs2023.wordpress.com/
Secondary URL Description: INCS 2023 conference link
Conference Name: Interdisciplinary Nineteenth Century Studies

Maria Edgeworth Transcribe-a-thon (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Maria Edgeworth Transcribe-a-thon
Author: Susan Egenolf
Author: Hilary Havens
Author: Robin Runia
Author: Jessica Richard
Abstract: We hosted a transcribe-a-thon for our Edgeworth letters project through our project’s Zooniverse webpage (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mariaedgeworthletters/maria-edgeworth-letters).
Date: 8/2/2022
Primary URL: https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nassr/pages/3073/attachments/original/1656932205/BARS_NASSR_22_Official_Programme.pdf?1656932205
Primary URL Description: BARS 2022 conference program
Secondary URL: https://www.nassr.ca/nassr_bars_2022
Secondary URL Description: BARS 2022 conference link
Conference Name: British Association for Romantic Studies

Maria Edgeworth Transcribe-a-thon (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Maria Edgeworth Transcribe-a-thon
Author: Jessica Richard
Author: Susan Egenolf
Author: Hilary Havens
Author: Robin Runia
Abstract: We hosted a transcribe-a-thon for our Edgeworth letters project through our project’s Zooniverse webpage (https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/mariaedgeworthletters/maria-edgeworth-letters).
Date: 3/9/2023
Primary URL: https://asecs.org/meetings/past-and-future-annual-meetings/asecs-2023-annual-meeting/
Primary URL Description: ASECS 2023 conference program and website
Conference Name: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

“Maria Edgeworth in the Zooniverse: Crowdsourcing her Correspondence" (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Maria Edgeworth in the Zooniverse: Crowdsourcing her Correspondence"
Author: Susan Egenolf
Abstract: The Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (MELP) is a digital open-access archive of the Anglo-Irish author Maria Edgeworth's correspondence that simulates, both in structure and in content, the sprawling network encompassed in Edgeworth's letters. MELP is a digital environment that is building a collaborative international community as it generates new knowledge about Edgeworth’s own diverse and wide-ranging epistolary network. Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849), corresponded throughout her life with her large family, politicians, writers, scientists, and other major thinkers in England, Ireland, continental Europe, Southeast Asia, and North America. There are an estimated 10,000+ extant manuscript pages in archives, institutions, and private collections worldwide, the vast majority of which have never been published or given scholarly editorial treatment. Within our digital archive, MELP will offer photographic images of the letters alongside raw text and TEI (Text Encoding Initiative)-encoded transcriptions on an accessible website and in a searchable database. We believe that our database will demonstrate the interconnection of the provincial and the cosmopolitan in the Romantic era, showing how Edgeworth's Town in Ireland is a node in an international network. As Edgeworth exchanged ideas, books, seeds, and fabrics with correspondents throughout the world, we are able to trace the global exchange of knowledge in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Since we first conceived of this project in 2017, our goal was always that it would be public-facing. One thing that we did not anticipate when designing our project and preparing it for Zooniverse was the public engagement in our process. We’ve had 860 citizen volunteers who have transcribed 744 letters, or roughly 3000 manuscript pages, by Edgeworth and her circle in the first stage of our project on the Zooniverse platform. As the project progressed, the volunteers themselves contributed to our knowledge
Date: 4/4/2024
Primary URL: https://asecs.org/meetings/past-and-future-annual-meetings/asecs-2024-annual-meeting-3/
Primary URL Description: ASECS 2024 Annual Meeting website and program
Conference Name: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference 2024, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The Maria Edgeworth Letters Project: A Collaborative Digital Edition (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: The Maria Edgeworth Letters Project: A Collaborative Digital Edition
Author: Jamie Kramer
Author: Jessica Richard
Abstract: A roundtable presentation on collaboration in digital humanities projects such as MELP
Date: 4/6/2024
Primary URL: https://asecs.org/meetings/past-and-future-annual-meetings/asecs-2024-annual-meeting-3/
Primary URL Description: ASECS program and website
Conference Name: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Maria Edgeworth Letters Project
Author: Susan Egenolf
Author: Jessica Richard
Author: Hilary Havens
Author: Robin Runia
Author: Carrie Johnston
Author: Bryan Tarpley
Author: Meredith Hale
Abstract: Pilot website displaying images of Edgeworth letters alongside TEI-encoded transcriptions.
Year: 2025
Primary URL: http://mariaedgeworth.org
Secondary URL: https://melp.dh.tamu.edu/
Secondary URL Description: Another web instance of our pilot site.
Access Model: open access

GitHub Repository for Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (Web Resource)
Title: GitHub Repository for Maria Edgeworth Letters Project
Author: MELP Team
Abstract: GitHub Repository for Maria Edgeworth Letters Project
Year: 2025
Primary URL: https://github.com/Maria-Edgeworth-Letters-Project/me-tei

Corpora Database for Maria Edgeworth Letters Project (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Corpora Database for Maria Edgeworth Letters Project
Author: Bryan Tarpley
Abstract: The letters have been uploaded into a no-SQL database called Corpora (https://corpora.dh.tamu.edu/), which was designed and is managed by our technical editor, Bryan Tarpley.
Year: 2025
Primary URL: https://corpora.dh.tamu.edu/

Transcription and Reflection Essay: Lesson Plan & Assignment (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Transcription and Reflection Essay: Lesson Plan & Assignment
Author: Susan Egenolf
Abstract: This assignment is suitable for high school to college students and may be customized depending upon the Zooniverse transcription projects available when the assignment is implemented.
Year: 2025
Primary URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FHoNLrRsuG35Kb9CvpLWtfuE0NK_Q2lV/view?usp=sharing
Audience: Undergraduate

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