William Poole
2004- Galsworthy Fellow in English, New College; Fellow Librarian (2011-); Senior Tutor (2018-)
2000-2004: Research Fellow, Downing College, Cambridge
1995-2000: BA, MA, MSt, DPhil, New College and Linacre College, Oxford
1989-1995: Madras College, St Andrews (state)
For the college, at undergraduate level I teach all aspects of English literature c. 1500-c. 1830. I am also Senior Tutor, Fellow Librarian, and one of the two college trustees for the annual college Reading Party in the Alps. I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (2015-), and a Fellow (governor) of our sibling in Winchester, Winchester College (2015-). At graduate level, I supervise doctorates in both English and History. I am also, with James Willoughby of New College, the co-editor of the Bibliographical Society’s journal, The Library, which appears quarterly.
Research Interests
My interests lie in the field of early modern studies, specifically:
- Literary history
- Intellectual history
- History of science
- Bibliography and palaeography
- History of libraries and collections
My specific current projects are:
- Early European sinology, c. 1580-c. 1740
- Oxford books and book economy from c. 1580 to c. 1700,
- The Scottish Neo-Latin poet Peter Goldman of Dundee (1587/8-1628)
- The shelf-lists and benefactors register of Oxford’s Anatomy School Museum, c. 1630-1780
- An edition of the correspondence of experimental philosopher Robert Hooke
- A co-edited edition of the correspondence of the antiquary John Aubrey
Selected Publications
I have published over a hundred articles or chapters for learned journals or edited collections. Books and editions include:
- Thomas Hyde, Epistola de mensuris et ponderibus Serum seu Sinensium (Oxford, 1688): A forgotten chapter in the history of Sinology. Oxford: Editiones Rariores, 2021.
- Wykehamist Pattern Poems, 1573–1618. With Jessi Glueck and Stephen Anderson. (Winchester, 2021).
- John Milton, Manuscript Writings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
- Geometry and Astronomy in New College, Oxford: On the Quatercentenary of the Savilian Professorships, 1619–2019. With Christopher Skelton-Foord. Oxford: New College, 2019.
- John Fell’s New Year Books, 1666–1686. Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 2018.
- John Wilkins (1614–1672): New Essays. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
- Milton and the Making of ‘Paradise Lost’. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2017.
- ‘The Letters of Shen Fuzong to Thomas Hyde, 1687-88’, electronic British Library Journal (2015), article 9.
- Wadham College Books in the Age of John Wilkins (1614–1672). Oxford: Wadham College, 2014.
- John Milton, Areopagitica and Other Writings. London: Penguin, 2014.
- John Aubrey and the Advancement of Learning. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2010.
- The World-Makers: Scientists of the Restoration and the Search for the Origins of the Earth. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010.
- Francis Lodwick, Writings on Language, Theology, and Utopia, ed. Henderson and Poole. Oxford: OUP, 2010.
- Milton and the Idea of the Fall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; paperback 2009.
- Francis Godwin, The Man in the Moone (1638). Ontario: Broadview Press, 2009.
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