Tannahill's Correspondence
In his 1876 edition of Tannahill, David Semple wrote that "In the present age, there is a stronger desire to read the Correspondence of an Author and see his inner life than existed in former times." All parts of that statement still ring true today; understanding the life of an author is of primary importance if a reader hopes to truly understand his or her work within any reasonable context.
This section of Transforming Tannahill was developed during summer 2014 with the support of an undergraduate Honors Program research grant. I travelled to Scotland and visited the University of Glasgow's special collections to create transcriptions of dozens of Tannahill's letters directly from the holograph manuscripts held there. I also visited Glasgow's Mitchell Library, the Paisley Central Library, and the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. These texts are all currently displayed on Transforming Tannahill alongside photographs of the original manuscript. Unfortunately, the primary source text, the University of Glasgow's MS Robertson, is very delicate and unable to be photographed professionally or scanned. The photographs taken for this project are all my own work with the permission of the special collections staff, and are meant for comparison and reference purposes only.
This section of Transforming Tannahill was developed during summer 2014 with the support of an undergraduate Honors Program research grant. I travelled to Scotland and visited the University of Glasgow's special collections to create transcriptions of dozens of Tannahill's letters directly from the holograph manuscripts held there. I also visited Glasgow's Mitchell Library, the Paisley Central Library, and the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. These texts are all currently displayed on Transforming Tannahill alongside photographs of the original manuscript. Unfortunately, the primary source text, the University of Glasgow's MS Robertson, is very delicate and unable to be photographed professionally or scanned. The photographs taken for this project are all my own work with the permission of the special collections staff, and are meant for comparison and reference purposes only.
As the above chart shows, instances of Tannahill's recovered correspondence increase sharply in 1807, the year Tannahill published his collection The Soldier's Return. It is uncertain whether this increase is due to more correspondents of Tannahill's keeping his letters due to his increased fame, or Tannahill began sending more letters during this period. I believe that both are contributing factors to the increase.
The chart also shows that there are currently 36 letters from MS Robertson available for reference here on Transforming Tannahill. I have copied a further 27 letters from Semple's 1876 edition of Tannahill that I was unable to locate the original manuscripts for. These letters will be uploaded at the earliest possible time, and the source text noted. The below chart (currently static, but I will eventually recode in JavaScript) shows the relationship between Tannahill and his correspondents in terms of numbers of letter he sent them that have also been recovered. The nodes (points) represent different correspondents, and the edges (arrows) are weighted according to how many letters Tannahill sent to that person. James Clark, James King, and James Barr were Tannahill's most frequent correspondents.
The chart also shows that there are currently 36 letters from MS Robertson available for reference here on Transforming Tannahill. I have copied a further 27 letters from Semple's 1876 edition of Tannahill that I was unable to locate the original manuscripts for. These letters will be uploaded at the earliest possible time, and the source text noted. The below chart (currently static, but I will eventually recode in JavaScript) shows the relationship between Tannahill and his correspondents in terms of numbers of letter he sent them that have also been recovered. The nodes (points) represent different correspondents, and the edges (arrows) are weighted according to how many letters Tannahill sent to that person. James Clark, James King, and James Barr were Tannahill's most frequent correspondents.
All letters are arranged by date and grouped by year of creation. Use the menu and arrows to navigate between letters.
Transforming Tannahill will eventually use more TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) compliant XML than this current iteration, which is HTML-heavy. TEI is the preferred format of the MLA (Modern Language Association) and most digital archives because it reintroduces structure and meaning to the texts. HTML uses mark-up for presentation purposes; TEI uses it to make the text machine-readable, leaving presentation to external XSLT or CSS instead. Texts become self-contained databases suited for further analysis rather than isolated, styled text only intended for web consumption. All newly added Tannahill letters are being added in TEI-XML, and the previously added letters will be re-coded in TEI-XML before switching over Tannahill's published works. For an example of a Tannahill letter using TEI-XML, visit this page.
Transforming Tannahill will eventually use more TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) compliant XML than this current iteration, which is HTML-heavy. TEI is the preferred format of the MLA (Modern Language Association) and most digital archives because it reintroduces structure and meaning to the texts. HTML uses mark-up for presentation purposes; TEI uses it to make the text machine-readable, leaving presentation to external XSLT or CSS instead. Texts become self-contained databases suited for further analysis rather than isolated, styled text only intended for web consumption. All newly added Tannahill letters are being added in TEI-XML, and the previously added letters will be re-coded in TEI-XML before switching over Tannahill's published works. For an example of a Tannahill letter using TEI-XML, visit this page.