Victorian Shakespeare

 Because the reception, reading, and production history of Shakespeare's plays --  particularly in the in the Victorian period -- has in many ways affected the way that we look at those works today, I would be interested in a digital Victorian Shakespeare archive. Michael Goodman, a PhD candidate at the University of Cardiff, published this September as part of his doctoral work the Victorian Illustrated Shakespeare Archive, a collection of 3000 illustrations from Victorian editions of the works of Shakespeare. I find his work to be quite interesting, but I would like to take it further and look at information similar to what Cordell talks about in his piece: newspapers and other periodicals, books, personal diary entries, letters, and the like.  Many of the traditional modes and  moments in productions of specific Shakespearean plays originated in this period, and I would be interested to be able to draw out information about the ways that those modes evolved with in the period and were accepted or others  rejected that may not have reached us today.

 I certainly have very little experience creating digital interface is, and the ability to research these type of artifacts with in the time. It's not something I am fluent at, so both of these would be steep learning curves  and areas I would need help with.  There's also really a question of accessing the correct materials. Knowing when and where to go, and then being able to actually physically access them.