Developing the first fiction title for the National Maritime Museum’s publishing list has been a fascinating and challenging experience. We are used to publishing catalogues, guidebooks, and books about the collections, but this was a new idea, that as far as we are aware, no other museum has tried.
A member of staff suggested that, to celebrate the Museum’s 70th anniversary this year, we commission a set of short stories loosely inspired by the sea. The sea as ‘literary muse’, if you like. We loved the idea and jumped at the chance to do something innovative and different.
Having spoken to our contacts, we commissioned sixteen contemporary authors – including Sam Llewellyn, Erica Wagner, Chris Cleave, Jim Perrin, and Tessa Hadley – and gave them a fairly loose brief. ‘Just write something that is inspired by the sea’, we said – and the finished book, which publishes today, on World Maritime Day, is the result – sixteen beautiful, funny, strange and challenging stories.
Some are inspired by the NMM collections – like Erica Wagner’s ‘In Time: A Correspondence’ – making reference to a watch from the wreck of the Titanic. Others interpret and build on real historical events – like Jim Perrin’s ‘A Snow Goose’, a haunting and disturbing story inspired by the search for Franklin. Others, such as Martin Stephen’s ‘The Anniversary’, touch on World War 2, taking inspiration from models of Bismarck and King George V.
In many of the stories, the sea seems to hold a somewhat menacing quality, and seems to be a metaphor for the unknown – and sometimes – the horror and fear of death. In others, the sea is a context for adventure, and freedom, such as in Chris Cleave’s ‘Fresh Water’, where a bored night-school teacher decides to up sticks and go in search of adventure on a sailing trip in the Med with the enigmatic and slightly mysterious pupil Danny Zeichner. Or in ‘Devonia’, by Des Barry, a touching and sharply realistic sketch of a school trip on a cruiseliner in the 1970s, the sea is the setting for the blossoming of first love. Nick Parker’s ‘Museum of the Sea’ is a wickedly subversive take on how museums are put together and is a fitting conclusion to the collection.
It’s been a joy working on this book and it has been constantly surprising and challenging to learn how the sea can inspire creative writing on so many different levels. The best part has been hearing colleagues’ and friends reactions to the stories. The short story as a genre is definitely thriving amongst contemporary writing talent and deserves a higher profile than it gets.
The real highlight for me has been getting the book on the Today Programme (on today, 8.00-9.00 – try ‘Listen Again’ if you miss it) – with Eric Wagner in conversation with First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathan Band about the book. A coup for any publisher, let alone a Museum publisher.
Let’s hope this takes NMM Publishing from strength to strength and in new and interesting directions. Whatever the content of each of these fantastic stories, the sea holds not only an immense physical power, but an emotional resonance that cannot be ignored.
Rachel (Publishing)
Rachel Giles is Head of Publishing at the NMM. The NMM’s publishing imprint was launched in 2004.
Sea Stories is available to read in the E-Library, and can be ordered from the NMM Online shop.
If you’ve visited the Caird Library recently you’ll know that in July and August we were on ‘summer hours’, where we close an hour later than usual at 5.45 pm. This is something that we now do every year to match the Museum’s longer opening hours, and it seems to work quite well. Not many readers actually arrive in the last hour, but people do stay and take advantage of the extra time.
Now summer’s officially over we’re thinking about how different hours might work permanently. We’re planning some market research in the next few months, but would be interested in hearing what you think now.
For instance, would a late evening opening really help you with your research? Perhaps until 7pm or 8pm once a week? If so, which day would be best?
Have you ever wished you could use the library on a Sunday? Or that you had 24 hour access?! (I know one public library that has an annual Family History Lock-in, where researchers get to stay all night.)
Would you like straight-forward research access or more special events?
Let us know what you think.
Jill (Head of Library and Manuscripts)
One of the things you’ll see regularly on this blog are the posts called ‘links for [date]‘, or ‘Del.icio.us links for [date]‘.
But what’s so delicious about a link, you may think? Where do these links come from? What is the library doing with these delicious links? Why is it called delicious??
Well I can answer nearly all of these questions right now. (Can anyone help me out with the last one?)
Del.icio.us is a website where you can create an account and save all your favourite websites. So it’s transportable – you can login from any computer and find your favourites without needing to remember the web addresses. You can add keywords – called ‘tags’ – so that you can quickly find the sites you want and group similar sites together. And even better, because del.icio.us is set up to be a social kind of bookmarking, you can also see who else has saved your favourite websites, and what else they’ve got. You never know, they might have something useful you haven’t discovered yet.
Libraries have been doing something similar to this ever since the internet was invented. Visit any library that has a website and I bet you’ll see a page called ‘recommended websites’ or ‘recommended links’. Librarians have been recommending internet resources for years. The beauty of del.icio.us though, is that we can all share the links we like: you can recommend to us, we can recommend to you.
The links you’ll see in blog posts are the new ones we’ve added to our Library del.icio.us collection. You can also browse all the Caird Library del.icio.us, or use the tag cloud here in the right hand column of the blog to see what we’ve tagged under, say family history, or Trafalgar.
Mmm… delicious links. They’re so tasty. Enjoy!
Renee (Digital Resources Librarian)
Did you know that there is a small display case in the Library? It is very easy to walk straight past the case on your way to the desk without stopping to take a look at what is inside. As the current display will soon be changing, this seems a good time to remind you all of its existence.
The display case is used to show off some of our manuscript and rare book collections which tie in with current exhibitions, anniversaries or topics. At present the display case contains material from our Michael Graham Stewart collection of material on the transatlantic slave trade to tie in with this year’s commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.
The material on display includes a slave registration certificate from 1826 for the birth of a baby boy named Japi in Cape Town; an inventory of slaves on the Prospect Sugar Estate in Jamaica in 1820; and an engraving of the slave ship Brookes of Liverpool from 1791 showing how to cram the maximum legal number of slaves into the decks for transportation. It was images such as this that helped to mobilise popular opinion in supporting the abolition of the slave trade.
Next time you are in the Library why don’t you stop by and have a look at the current display before it changes? The next display will be of manuscripts relating to the Great Eastern steamship designed by Brunel. Next January marks the 150th anniversary of the launch of the Great Eastern from a site almost directly opposite the Museum.
Kate (Manuscripts)
Are you interested in researching your family history? Perhaps you have some maritime ancestors but don’t know how to find out about them.
Come along to the E-Library this Saturday afternoon between 12.00 and 16.00, where we will be holding a family history event in partnership with the Museum in Docklands. There will be talks about researching your family history both here at the National Maritime Museum and at the Museum in Docklands, as well as a demonstration from one of our conservators to tell you how to look after your own archive of family papers.
If you have got stuck with your research, come along and see if we can help. We will be pleased to help identify some of those papers you have waiting to be researched, although we will not be able to take them on deposit at the museum.
Of course, the Caird Library will be open so that you can make a start on your research.
The programme for the afternoon is:
12.00-16.00: Archivists, librarians and a conservator available to answer your questions
12.30: Researching your ancestors at the Museum in Docklands
13.30: How to look after your family papers
14.30: Researching your ancestors at the National Maritime Museum
Hope to see you there!
Daphne Knott (Manuscripts Archivist)