PhD placement opportunity: Curating the manuscripts in the Lady Eccles Oscar Wilde Collection
The British Library has released a call for applicants for PhD placements in 2025–26. The PhD placement scheme supports the professional development of researchers for future career paths both within and outside academia.
One of these placements, ‘Curating the manuscripts in the Lady Eccles Oscar Wilde Collection: provenance, preservation and access’, offers an opportunity for a current PhD student to research the provenance of the manuscripts in a major literary collection and to contribute to the care and cataloguing of the collection.
The Lady Eccles Oscar Wilde Collection, also known as the Eccles Bequest, was bequeathed to the British Library in 2003 following the death of its namesake, collector Lady Mary Eccles (1912–2003). The collection consists of printed books, manuscripts, ephemera and artworks relating to the Irish playwright, poet and author Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). The focus of this placement is on the papers and manuscripts in the Eccles Bequest (Add MS 81619–81884). Among them are some of Wilde’s notebooks and letters, drafts of his poems, lectures and plays, as well as correspondence of notable figures connected to Wilde, including Lord Alfred Douglas and George Bernard Shaw.
The primary focus of this placement is to undertake research to document the history and the provenance of the manuscripts collected by Lady Eccles. Additionally, you will create catalogue descriptions for eight correspondence files that remain uncatalogued and help curatorial staff to assess the conservation requirements of the collection.
The placement will be supervised by curators in the Modern Archives and Manuscripts (1600–1950) team within the Western Heritage Collections department.
Please see the project description on the website for further information and read the Application Guidelines carefully before applying. Eligibility criteria, funding information and details of how to apply are available on the British Library website: Research collaboration - The British Library.
The deadline for this call is: 5pm on Friday 21 February 2025.