Publications – Brief Overview
Penelope Corfield writes on unexpected as well as expected subjects. In that context, the best compliment she ever received as author came from an academic friend who had seen a first draft of Time and the Shape of History: ‘Reading your book made me think strange thoughts’.
Her research and publications in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British history keep her grounded. She has produced numerous essays as well as book publications, especially The Impact of English Towns 1700-1800 (1982); as co-editor with Derek Keene, Work in Towns, 850-1850 (Leicester, 1990); as editor, Language, History & Class (Oxford, 1991); Power & the Professions in Britain 1700-1850 (1995; pprbk 1999); as co-author with C. Evans, Youth & Revolution in the 1790s (Stroud, 1996); as co-author with C. Harvey and E.M. Green, The Westminster Historical Database: Voters, Social Structure and Electoral Behaviour, with CD-ROM (Bristol, 1998); Time & the Shape of History (2007); as co-author with E.M. Green and C. Harvey, Elections in Metropolitan London, 1700-1850: Vol. 1 Arguments & Evidence (Bristol, 2013, pp. 1-481); Vol. 2, Metropolitan Polls (Bristol, 2013, pp. 482-863), with summary overview in PJC website as Pdf30; and with co-editor L. Hannan, Hats Off, Gentlemen! Changing Arts of Communication in the Eighteenth Century/ Arts de communiquer au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 2017).
At the same time, Penelope publishes on History as a subject of study – a field now becoming defined as Historiology (see essays on History-Making) – and on the relationship of long-term Time and History (see essays on Time&History). That range is unusual. For example, her interest in historical periodisation has led to her 2019 contribution entitled ‘Primevalism: Saluting a Renamed Prehistory’, in A. Baysal, E.L. Baysal and S. Souvatzi (eds), Time and History in Prehistory (2019), pp. 265-82. Whether it’s wise to write on such a range of eras and themes, in this age of specialisation, is a moot point. Colleagues often react with bemusement or incomprehension. However, as far back as she can remember Penelope has always been interested in the very long term – an interest which was consolidated (rather than simply created) by reading at the age of 16 a study entitled The Living Past. (For this study, see ‘An Unknown Book which Influenced Me’ in Time&History 5.3.5). Hence, far from regretting that she has devoted time to thinking and writing about Time, she is proud that these ‘wacky’ themes have kept her, intellectually speaking, on her toes.
Put in the simplest terms, PJC’s constant intellectual ambition has been to avoid being corralled into just one intellectual approach to History, or into just one sub-specialism of History, or into just one period of History. When she was appointed as a Professor, she was asked to choose a descriptive term to explain herself to the world. Such as: Professor of Urban History; or Professor of British History; or whatever. She firmly declined, saying that she just wants to be Professor of History, which remains her title.
Put into the deepest terms, the reason for PJC’s desire not to be corralled stems from her desire to find her own holistic resynthesis, putting the bits and bobs of History together into one grand ‘big picture’. That ambition may sound pretentious; may even be pretentious. But it is what she is seeking. Like her uncle the historian Christopher Hill (whose Marxism she does not share), PJC loves the great admonition that was penned by novelist E.M. Forster in 1910: ‘Only connect! … Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted … Live in fragments no longer!’ For own part, PJC does consider her own experiences in work and life to be cumulatively non-fragmented. And she consciously studies to improve her philosophy and interpretation of History: it’s connective work in progress.
PJC as Interviewer/Interviewee
As Interviewer
1985, 1992 Interviewed Christopher Hill and E.P. Thompson for Interviews with Historians (1986; 1993): now in DVD Video Interviews with Historians, available from London University’s online store:
PJC’s Interview with Christopher Hill = https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/19480973
PJC’s Interview with E.P. Thompson = https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b7d248e3b.
As Interviewee
1993 PJC interviewed for Channel 4/Bandung programme Rear Window E.P. Thompson: A Life in Dissent. Interviewees PJC and Luciana Castellina. Available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eirT8D28bTk.
1994, 1997 P.J. Corfield Interviewed by Kazuhiko Kondo, June 1994, in Japanese journal Shiso, 873/3 (1997), pp. 86-101.
2005 P.J. Corfield: Interviewed on British History by Toshio Kusamitsu for Japan’s University of the Air: Reader in British History (Tokyo, 2005), ch. 5 plus three taped discussion sessions for students.
2008 P.J. Corfield interviewed by Danny Millum (August 2008), for the Institute of Historical Research’s website Making History: for which see the following link www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/interviews/Corfield_Penelope.
BOOKS
The Impact of English Towns 1700-1800 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982), pp. vi + 206; hardback + paperback (reprinted 1989). Japanese edition with new introduction, translated by S. Matsusuka & K. Sakamaki (Sanrei Shobo, Tokyo, 1989).
Work in Towns 850-1850, edited with Derek Keene (Leicester University Press/Pinter Publishers, Leicester & London, 1990), pp. xiv + 250.
F.J.Fisher: London and the English Economy 1500-1700, edited with N.B. Harte (Hambledon Press, London, 1990), pp. x + 208.
Language, History and Class edited essays (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991), pp. viii + 320; hardback + paperback.
Power and the Professions in Britain 1700-1850 (Routledge, London, 1995), pp. x + 269; hardback 1995; paperback 1999.
Youth and Revolution in the 1790s: Letters of William Pattisson, Thomas Amyot and Henry Crabb Robinson, written with Chris Evans (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1996), pp. vii + 200.
The Westminster Historical Database: Voters, Social Structure and Electoral Behaviour, with CD-ROM, by C. Harvey, E.M. Green and P.J. Corfield (Bristol Academic Press, Bristol, 1998), pp. xiii + 193: paperback.
Time and the Shape of History (Yale University Press, 2007), pp. xx + 310. For a short overview + list of chapters, see 5.1.1.
Elections in Metropolitan London, 1700-1850: Vol. 1 Arguments and Evidence (pp. 1-481); Vol. 2, Metropolitan Polls (pp. 482-863), by Edmund M. Green, Penelope J. Corfield and Charles Harvey (Bristol Academic Press, Bristol, 2013).
Hats Off, Gentlemen! Changing Arts of Communication in the Eighteenth Century/ Arts de communiquer au XVIIIe siècle, edited by Penelope J. Corfield and Leonie Hannan (Honoré Champion, Paris, 2017), pp. 345.
PAMPHLETS
Towns, Trade, Religion and Radicalism: The Norwich Perspective on English History (Centre for East Anglian Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 1980), pp. 1-40.
Industry and Urbanisation in Eighteenth-Century England, edited with P.Clark (Leicester University Centre for Urban History, Working Paper no. 6, Leicester, 1994), pp. 1-93; with introduction pp. vii-x.
Naming the Age: History, Historians and Time (Royal Holloway Inaugural Lecture series, Egham, 1996), pp. 1-36.
Vauxhall and the Invention of the Urban Pleasure Gardens (History & Social Action Publications, London, 2008), pp. 51; + expanded 2nd edn Vauxhall, Sex and Entertainment: London’s Pioneering Urban Pleasure Garden (History & Social Action Publications, London, 2012). Now on PJC website as Pdf39.
ESSAYS IN REFEREED JOURNALS
‘Rooms and Room Use in Norwich Housing. 1680-1730’, with Ursula Priestley, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 16 (1982), pp. 93-123. Now on PJC website as Pdf23.
‘Giving Directions to the Town: The Early Town Directories’, with Serena Kelly, Urban History Yearbook 1984 (1984), pp. 22-34. Now on PJC website as Pdf11.
‘Class by Name and Number in Eighteenth-Century England’, History, 72 (1987), pp. 38-61. Also published in P.J.Corfield (ed.), Language, History & Class (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991), pp. 101-30. Now on PJC website as Pdf7.
‘Small Towns, Large Implications: Social and Cultural Roles of Small Towns in Eighteenth-Century England and Wales’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 10 (1987), pp. 125-38. Also published in A.Maczak and C.Smout (eds), Wolfenbütteler Forschungen, 47: Gründung und Bedeutung kleinerer Städte im nördlichen Europa der frühen Neuzeit (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1991), pp. 85-101.
‘Dress for Deference & Dissent: Hats and the Decline of Hat Honour’, Costume: Journal of the Costume Society, 23 (1989), pp. 64-79. Now on PJC website as Pdf8. Also transl. into German by E.Hellmuth and publ. in K.Gerteis (ed.), Zum Wandel von Zeremoniell und Gesellschaftsritualen in der Zeit des Aufklärung, special edn. of Aufklärung, 6 (1991), pp. 5-18.
‘Walking the City Streets: The Urban Odyssey in Eighteenth-Century England’, Journal of Urban History, 16 (1990) pp. 132-74. Now on PJC website as Pdf10.
‘Georgian Bath: Matrix & Meeting Place’, Connecticut Review, 12 (1990), pp. 69-79. Also published in revised format as ‘Georgian Bath: The Magical Meeting Place’, History Today, 40 (1990), pp. 26-33. Also publ. in Mssrs Frühsorge, Kleuting & Kopitsch (eds), Stadt und Bürger im 18 Jahrhundert (Wolfram Hitzeroth Verlag, Marburg, Germany, 1993), pp. 158-68.
‘E.P. Thompson, Historian: An Appreciation’, New Left Review, 201 (1993), pp. 10-17.
‘The City of Norwich as a Case History of Long-Term Urban Survival’, in Japanese transl. in Japan’s Comparative Urban History Review, 13 (1994), pp. 29-46.
‘Record Linkage Theory and Practice: An Experiment in the Application of Multiple Pass Linkage Algorithms’, by C. Harvey, E.M. Green and P.J. Corfield, History & Computing, 8/2, (1996), pp. 78-89.
‘History & the Challenge of Gender History’, Rethinking History, Vol. 1/3 (Winter 1997), pp. 241-58. With PJC reply to criticisms from June Purvis and Amanda Weatherill, entitled ‘From Women’s History to Gender History: A Reply to “Playing the Gender History Game”’, Rethinking History, Vol. 3/3 (Autumn 1999), pp. 339-41. Original essay and responses now on PJC website as Pdf6. Text and following debate also reprinted in S. Morgan (ed.), The Feminist History Reader (Routledge, London, 2006), pp. 116-29.
‘A Conversation with Vera Bácskai: Urban History in Hungary’, an in-depth interview and analysis, Journal of Urban History, 25 (1999), pp. 514-35.
‘Continuity, Change and Specialisation within Metropolitan London: The Economy of Westminster, 1750-1820’, by P.J. Corfield, C. Harvey and E.M. Green, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 52/3 (1999), pp. 469-93.
‘Westminster Man: Charles James Fox and his Electorate, 1780-1806’, by P.J. Corfield, E.M. Green and C. Harvey, Parliamentary History, 20 (2001), pp. 157-85.
‘Christopher Hill’s Intellectual Trajectory: From Biblical Protestantism to Humanist Marxism’, transl. By Paola Redaelli as ‘Il percorso intellectuale di Christopher Hill: Dal protestantismo biblico all’umanesimo marxista’, in Italia Contemporanea, 232 (2003), pp. 491-505. Now posted in English on PJC website as Pdf50; also posted on Verso website July 2018: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3934-christopher-hill-s-intellectual-trajectory-from-biblical-protestantism-to-humanist-marxism#_ftn14
‘“We are all One in the Eyes of the Lord”: Christopher Hill and the Historical Meanings of Radical Religion’, History Workshop Journal, 58 (2004), pp. 110-27. Now on PJC website as Pdf5.
‘Returning Again to History’s Big Picture?’ in translation by Alessandro Magherini, as ‘Tornare alla grande storia?’ Italia Contemporanea, 250 (2008), pp. 89-102.
‘Historians and the Return to the Long Term’, in Japanese translation for History Collection (Toyo University, Japan, 2008); reissued in new set of essays: I. Okamoto (ed.), Transnationalisation and the Problem of Culture (Toyo University, Japan, 2015), pp. 169-85.
‘Rhetoric, Radical Politics and Rainfall: John Thelwall in Breconshire, 1797-1800’, Brycheiniog, Vol. 40 (2009), pp. 17-36. Now on PJC website as Pdf14.
‘From Poison Peddlers to Civic Worthies: The Reputation of the Apothecaries in Georgian England’, Social History of Medicine, 22 (2009), pp. 1-21 + online. Now on PJC website as Pdf13.
‘POST-Medievalism/Modernity/Postmodernity?’ in special issue of Rethinking History, 14/3 (Sept. 2010), pp. 379-404. Now on PJC website as Pdf20.
‘British History: The Exploding Galaxy’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 34/4 (Dec. 2011), pp. 517-26: also on-line www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com. Now on PJC website as Pdf24.
‘Business Leaders and Town Gentry in Early Industrial Britain: Specialist Occupations and Shared Urbanism’, Urban History, Vol. 39/1 (2012), pp. 20-49. Now on PJC website as Pdf25.
‘“An Age of Infidelity”: Secularisation in Eighteenth-Century England’, Social History, Vol. 39 (June, 2014), pp. 229-47. Now on PJC website as Pdf33. Also translated into Chinese by Xiangpeng Liu, for journal British Research, Vol. 7 (2015), pp. 49-62.
‘Michael Thompson’s Intellectual Outlook’, History Workshop Journal, 86 (Autumn 2018), pp. 306-10.
‘Eighteenth-Century Britain and Spain: Do their Imperial Histories Fit into a Common Grand Narrative?’ updated (2019) for China’s International Comparative Literature, Vol. 3, no. 1 (2020), pp. 9-30. Also on PJC website as Pdf28.
ESSAYS IN EDITED COLLECTIONS
(NB: A number of the essays originally published in refereed journals, listed above, have also been republished in edited collections)
‘A Provincial Capital in the Late Seventeenth Century: The Case of Norwich’, in P. Clark and P. Slack (eds), Crisis and Order in English Towns 1500-1700: Essays in Urban History (Routledge, London, 1972), pp. 263-310. Republished in P. Clark (ed.), The Early Modern Town: A Reader (Longman, London, 1976), pp. 233-72.
‘Economic Issues and Ideologies’, in C.S.R. Russell (ed.), The Origins of the English Civil War (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1973), pp. 197-218.
[volume reprinted many times since 1973]
‘Urban Development in England and Wales in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, in D.C. Coleman and A.H. John (eds), Trade, Government & Economy in Pre-Industrial England (Weidenfeld, London, 1976), pp. 214-47. Republished in J. Barry (ed.), The Tudor and Stuart Town: A Reader in English Urban History, 1530-1688 (Longman, London, 1990), pp. 35-62.
‘Economic Growth and Change in Seventeenth-Century English Towns’, in The Traditional Community under Stress (Open University Urban History, Milton Keynes, 1977), pp. 31-71.
‘The Industrial Town before the Factory, 1680-1780’, in The Rise of the New Urban Society (Open University Urban History, Milton Keynes, 1977), pp. 71-104. Extracts from this publication used as on-line tutorial material by Department of History, University of Edinburgh.
‘The New Babylons’, in L. Smith (ed.), The Making of Britain IV: The Age of Revolution (Macmillan Education, London, 1987), pp. 49-62.
‘Defining Urban Work’, in P.J. Corfield and Derek Keene (eds), Work in Towns, 850-1850 (Leicester University Press/Pinter, Leicester and London, 1990), pp. 207-30.
‘F.J.Fisher and the Dialectic of Economic History’, in P.J. Corfield and N.B. Harte (eds), F.J. Fisher: London and the English Economy, 1500-1700 (Hambledon Press, London, 1990), pp. 3-22. In edited version, now on PJC website as Pdf46.
‘Historians and Language’, in P.J. Corfield (ed.), Language, History and Class (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1991), pp. 1-29. Slightly amended text also translated into Greek for publication in journal Histor, 12 (May 2001), pp. 5-43.
‘The Identity of a Regional Capital: Norwich since the Eighteenth Century’, in P. Kooij and P. Pellenbarg (eds), Regional Capitals: Past, Present, and Future Prospects (Van Gorcum, Assen, The Netherlands, 1994), pp. 129-47.
‘Concepts of the Urban Middle Class in Theory and Practice: England, 1750-1850’, in B. Meier and H. Schultz (eds), Die Wiederkehr des Stadtbürgers: städtereformen im europäischen Vergleich – European Bourgeoisie in Comparative Perspective (Arno Spitz, Berlin, 1994), pp. 237-69.
‘Sociability and Small Towns in Eighteenth-Century England’, transl. into Hungarian, in G. Gyani (ed.), Historical Dilemmas of the Modern City: A Modern Város Történeti Dilemmái (Debrecen, Hungary, 1996), pp. 1-14.
‘The Rivals: Landed and Other Gentlemen’, in N.B. Harte & R. Quinault (eds), Land and Society in Britain, 1700-1914: Essays in Honour of F.M.L. Thompson (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1996), pp. 1-33. Now on PJC website as Pdf9.
‘East Anglian Towns, 1540-1840: Regional Survey’, in P. Clark (ed.), Urban History of Britain, Vol. 2: 1540-1840 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000), pp. 31-48.
‘Songs, Satire and City Life: Pro-Urban Popular Traditions in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, in R-E. Mohrmann (ed.), Städtische Volkskultur im 18 Jahrhundert: Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century European Towns (Bohlau Publishers, Cologne, 2001), pp. 143-56. Now very slightly adapted on PJC website as Pdf44.
‘Eighteenth-Century Lawyers and the Advent of the Modern Professional Ethos’, in P. Chassaigne and J-P. Genet (eds), Droit et société enFrance et Grande Bretagne: Law and Society in France and England (Sorbonne Publications, Paris, 2003), pp. 103-26. Now on PJC website as Pdf12.
‘Norwich on the Cusp: From Second City to Regional Capital’, in C. Rawcliffe and R.G. Wilson (eds), Norwich since 1550 (Hambledon, London, 2004), pp. 139-66. Now on PJC website as Pdf26.
‘Historians and the Return to the Diachronic’, in G. Harlaftis, N. Karapidakis, K. Sbonias and V. Vaiopoulos (eds), New Ways of History: Developments in Historiography (I.B. Tauris, London and New York, 2010), pp. 1-32, 187-92, 227-9. Now on PJC website as Pdf27.
‘The English Urban Renaissance in the Long Eighteenth Century: Reconstructing Urban Spaces’, in Japanese transl. in T. Nakano (ed.), In Search of Urban Spaces in England in the Long Eighteenth Century: Rethinking the ‘Urban Renaissance’ (Tosui Shobo: Tokyo, 2012), pp. 3-12.
‘Cities in Time’, in P. Clark (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (OUP: Oxford, hardback 2013; ppbk 2016), pp. 828-46. Now on PJC website as Pdf29. Chinese translated edn of entire volume in preparation.
‘History and the Temporal Turn: Returning to Causes, Effects and Diachronic Trends’, in J-F. Dunyach (ed.), Les âges de Britannia: Repenser l’histoire des mondes Britanniques: (Moyen Âge-XXIe siècle) (Rennes, 2015), pp. 258-73. Now on PJC website as Pdf37.
‘Time and the Historians in the Age of Relativity’, in Alexander C.T. Geppert and Till Kössler (eds), Obsession der Gegenwart: Zeit im 20. Jahrhundert/ Obsession with the Here-and-Now: Concepts of Time in the Twentieth Century (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), pp. 71-91. Now on PJC website as Pdf38.
‘Primevalism: Saluting a Renamed Prehistory’, in A. Baysal, E.L. Baysal and S. Souvatzi (eds), Time and History in Prehistory (Routledge, 2019), pp. 265-82. Available on PJC website as Pdf/53.
‘Enlightenment Womanhood, Manhood, Sexualities, and Personhood: A Thematic Overview’, starting Section 2/Gender, in L. Andries and M.A. Bernier (eds), L’Avenir des Lumières/The Future of Enlightenment (Éditions Hermann, Paris, July 2019), pp. 89-105. Available on PJC website as Pdf/55.
SHORTER ESSAYS
‘The Georgian Town: New Perspectives’, in Life in the Georgian Town (Georgian Group Publications, London, 1986), pp. 7-14.
‘John Thelwall in Wales: New Documentary Evidence’, with Chris Evans, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 59 (1986), pp. 231-9.
‘From Rank to Class: Innovation in Georgian England’, History Today, 37 (Feb. 1987), pp. 36-42.
‘The Democratic History of the English Gentleman’, History Today, 42 (Dec. 1992), pp. 40-7. Transl. into Hungarian as ‘Az angol gentleman különös története’ in Rubicon (Budapest, 1995), pp. 18ff. Also revised as ‘The Contentious History of the English Gentleman’ with added footnotes, transl. into Japanese, in Shiso, no. 873 (Issue 3, 1997), pp. 67-85.
‘Entretien avec E.P.Thompson – l’esprit Whig sans l’elitisme’, transl. extract from interview, published in Liber: revue européenne des livres (Dec. 1993), Supplement 100 of Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales (ed. P. Bourdieu), pp. 4-5, 29-30. Full interview also transl. into Italian, Quaderni Storici, n.s. 92 (Aug. 1996), pp. 405-27. French translation authorised in 2011 to appear in special issue of Vacarme, no. 56 (Summer, 2011), pp. 4-8.
‘Georgian England: One State, Many Churches’, History Today, 45 (April 1995), pp. 14-21.
‘New Approaches for Old Towns?’ review essay in Journal of Urban History, 23/1 (Nov. 1996), pp. 94-107.
‘London and the Modern Monarchy’, History Today, 49 (Feb. 1999), pp. 6-13.
‘Songs and the City’, in Swedish journal Aktuellt om historia, 1999/1 (1999), pp. 8-13.
‘Court and Anti-Court: London and the British Monarchy in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, in C. Brice (ed.), Proceedings of the École Française de Rome, III (Rome, 1999), pp. 381-94.
‘A Women’s Life in Other Ages’ by Arnold Toynbee, in Italian transl. with editorial introduction by P.J. Corfield and Paolo Ferrari, Italia Contemporanea, 216 (Sept. 1999), pp. 221-35. Extract published in full-page spread as ‘Elogio dell’Harem: In Praise of the Harem’, in La Repubblica, Sunday 2 Jan. 2000. Full English text ‘“A Woman’s Life in Other Ages” by Arnold Toynbee, with Editorial Introduction’ by P.J. Corfield and Paolo Ferrari, also publ. in Historical Research, 74 (Feb. 2001), pp. 1-16.
‘Donne e storia: tre proposte’, Italia Contemporanea, Vol. 222 (March 2001), pp. 113-14, with responses from Anna Beltametti and Roberta Fossati, together forming a colloquium ‘Ma il Novecento è stato davvero il secolo delle donne?: Was the Twentieth Century Really the Century of Women?’, pp. 113-22.
‘Eighteenth-Century Lawyers and the Advent of the Professional Ethos’, adapted text in Japanese transl., in Japan Comparative Urban History Review, 21 (2002), pp. 33-48.
‘On Economic History and Urban History’, in T. Nakano and K. Susuki (eds., Studies in English Urban History: Urban Society and Region (Nihon-Hyoronsha, Tokyo, 2004), pp. 357-67.
‘Christopher Hill’s Intellectual Trajectory: From Biblical Protestantism to Humanist Marxism’, in Japanese transl. by S. Sugawara, in J. Iwai and H. Onishi (eds), The Seventeenth-Century Revolution Debates (Kyoshin Ueno, Tokyo, 2005), pp. 103-30.
‘Proto-Democracy: London Electors and the Civic Constitution, 1700-1850’ (2008), pp. 15: essay transl. into Japanese, in P.J. Corfield, Britain and Modernity? Three Essays (Waseda University, 2009). Also published in same collection ‘Naming the Age: How Eighteenth-Century Britons saw their Own Times’ in P.J. Corfield, Britain and Modernity? Three Essays (Waseda University, 2009). Plus in same collection ‘Historians and the Return to the Long Term’ in P.J. Corfield, Britain and Modernity? Three Essays (Waseda University, 2009): see http://hdl.handle.net/2065/29918.
‘Teaching History’s Big Pictures: Including Continuity as well as Change’, Teaching History: Journal of the Historical Association, 136 (Sept. 2009), pp. 53-9. Now on PJC website as Pdf3.
‘The New “Aristocracy of Talent”: Formulations of the Coming Meritocratic Ideal, 1750-1830’, in T. Kusamitsu (ed.), Tokyo History Report (University of Tokyo publication, Tokyo, 2010), pp. 5-17.
‘Thelwall versus Wordsworth: Alternative Lifestyles in Repressive Times’, pp. 1-22 (March 2012), published in Thelwall Studies within website of John Thelwall Society: http://www.johnthelwall.org/. Now on PJC website as Pdf22.
‘John Burns – Response to a Revisionist’s View’ in Wandsworth Historian, no. 100 (Autumn 2015), pp. 16-17.
‘Social History as Revealed by Gesture: Changing Eighteenth-Century Styles of Meeting and Greeting’, for Bulgarian journal Istorija – “История/ Научно списание – History: Bulgarian Journal of Historical Education, 26/3 (2018), pp. 231-8.
‘John Thelwall: How to Champion Democracy’, illustrated short essay in History Today, Vol. 69, no. 1 (Jan. 2019), pp. 78-83.
‘The Story of Wandsworth’s Meritocrats’, Wandsworth Historian, 96 (2013), pp. 3-7. Also on PJC website as Pdf32.
JOURNALISM/COMMENTARIES
‘Tinker, Tailor, Bleeder, Grieve: Divisions of Labour in the Eighteenth Century’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 671 (13 Sept. 1985), p. 13.
‘Computerising Urban Occupations’, in Humanities Communication Newsletter, 7 (Leicester University, Leicester, 1986), pp. 10-12. Also publ. in P. Denley and D. Hopkin (eds), History and Computing (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1987), pp. 68-71.
‘Introduction’, to J. Smith, The Speckled Monster: Smallpox in England, with Reference to Essex (Essex Record Office, Colchester, 1987), pp. 11-12.
‘Hats for Choice or Protocol?’ in British Hat Guild Newsletter, 1/90 (1990), pp. 1-2.
‘Historians and the Linguistic Turn’, publ. as ‘Turning Point for the Past’, Times Higher Education Supplement, 969 (31 May 1991), p. 16.
‘The Age of Vauxhall’, London Topographical Society Newsletter, 33 (Nov. 1991), pp. 1-3.
‘Postmodernism and the Historians’, publ. as ‘Footnotes Overshadow the Page’, Times Higher (15 May 1992), p. 15.
‘Points of Entry: The London Apothecaries Hall’, History Today, 45 (March 1995), pp. 56-7.
‘F.M.L. Thompson: An Appreciation’, in N.B. Harte and R. Quinault (eds), Land and Society in Britain, 1700-1914: Essays in Honour of F.M.L. Thompson (Manchester, 1996), pp. ix-xi.
‘The Case of The Cabinet: Did Mary Wollstonecraft join the Norwich Radicals?’ Times Literary Supplement, 4903 (21 March 1997), pp. 11-12.
‘Laughing at the Learned’, comment in ‘Cross-currents’, History Today, 47 (Dec. 1997), pp. 3-5. With invited update/reflections by K. Davison, ‘Something to Laugh About’, History Today, 67 (March 2017).
‘Songs as a Source for the Study of Urban Culture in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Jahrbuch für Volksliedforschung, 43 (1998), pp. 132-3.
‘Urban History Outreach – Swedish Style: A Conference Report’, Urban History, 26/1 (May, 1999), pp. 98-101.
‘Making “Herstory” their Story’ – contribution to Soapbox, Times Higher, 1402 (17 Sept. 1999), p. 18.
‘Christopher Hill: Methodism and Marxism’, The Historian, 87 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 21-3. Expanded version on PJC website as Pdf48.
‘History in Britain and Japan: The Present State of Play’ – plenary conclusion in D. Bates and K. Kondo (eds), Migration and Identity in British History: Proceedings of the 5th Anglo-Japanese Conference 2006 (2007), pp. 289-92. Also by PJC in this volume, ‘Commentary’ on paper by Takashi Ito, pp. 128-9; ‘Introduction’ and ‘Comment’ on paper by Toshio Kusamitsu, pp. 145, 158.
‘The End is Nigh’, History Today (March 2007), pp. 37-9.
‘The Big Picture’s Past. Present and Future’, Opinion: Times Higher, 27 July 2007, p. 14.
‘History’s Big Picture in Three Dimensions’, The Historian: Journal of the Historical Association (Winter 2007), pp. 26-30.
‘Historians and the Return to the Big Picture’, summary translated in Japan’s Comparative Urban History Review (Dec. 2007), pp. 4-5.
‘All People are Living Histories: Which is why History Matters’. A conversation-piece for those who ask: Why study History? (pp. 14) – published within IHR History Project, Making History: The Discipline in Perspective (Nov. 2008). Now on PJC website as Pdf1. Extracts used by State of Arizona, ELA History Tests (2016).
‘Diversions, Dalliance and Devilry on the South Bank’, Battersea Society Newsletter (Summer 2008), p. 4.
‘Knowledge-based Skills’, published as ‘Hobbling around with the Burden of Easily Forgotten Information’, The Times Higher, 25 Sept. – 1 Oct. 2008 (pp. 24-5). Now on PJC website as Pdf16.
‘How to Get Back’, reviewing Historiology, Times Literary Supplement, 21 November 2008, no. 5512, p. 22. Now on PJC website as Pdf4 under title ‘’How Historiology Defines History’.
‘Meditations by a Disaffected Auditocrat’, Oxford Magazine, 285 (Hilary Term, March 2009), pp. 3-4. Now on PJC website as Pdf15.
‘Christopher Hill: Marxist History and Balliol College’, Balliol College: Annual Record (2009), pp. 39-41. Now on PJC website as Pdf49.
‘Fantasias and Pleasure Gardens in Georgian and Victorian London’, International Magazine for Follies, Grottoes and Garden Buildings, 77 (Autumn, 2010), pp. 16-18; also reprinted in Dorset Gardens Trust Journal, 1 (Jan. 2011), pp. 28-31.
Chair’s Summary re Day 3/Session 1 at 6th Anglo-Japanese Conference of Historians 2009 – in K. Kondo and M. Taylor (eds), British History, 1600-2000: Expansion in Perspective (2010), pp. 133-4.
Illustrated Report: ‘Building Social Capital through Community Politics in an Inner London Borough: The Labour Party in Battersea, 1908-2008’ by Councillor Tony Belton (Wandsworth Borough Council) and Prof. Penelope J. Corfield (Royal Holloway, London University), in Senshu University Social Capital Review, 1 (July 2010), pp. 37-65.
Short Report on New York’s Highline Park in Leicester University’s Urban History Newsletter, Vol. 5, No 1 (Dec. 2010), p. 1: also online at http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/urbanhistory/news/newsletter/dec2010.
‘Dorothy Thompson and Birmingham’, for Centre for West Midlands History Newsletter (August 2011), pp. 2-3.
‘Running for Office: London’s Long History of Voting’, History Today, vol. 62 (May 2012), pp. 3-4.
‘History’s Big Picture in Three Dimensions’, The Historian: Journal of the Historical Association (Winter 2007), pp. 26-30.
‘Introduction: The Maldons of England’, to J.R. Smith, The Borough of Maldon, 1688-1800: A Golden Age (Brewin Books, 2013), pp. xvi-xviii.
‘Signposts: The Lure of the Georgian Age’, History Today, 64/1 (Jan. 2014), pp. 57-58.
‘The Georgians: A Short Introduction’, for Chinese Social Sciences Today (Jan. 2014), responding to questions: ‘Why does the Study of the Georgian Age matter to Society today?’ and ‘How I See the Georgian Age’.
RECOMMENDED BOOK OF 2014: short commentary on Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Paris, 2013), transl. A. Goldhammer (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 2014), in History Today, 64/12 (Dec. 2014), p. 55.
‘Remembering Conrad Russell, Historian and “Last of the Whigs”’, pp. 1-9 – expanded text from talk, originally from notes, at IHR Panel, 22 October 2016: originally pub. on IHR BLOG SPOT (Dec. 2016) and on Bedford Society E-Newsletter (Jan. 2017). Now on PJC website as BLOG/72 (Dec. 2016).
RECOMMENDED BOOK OF 2016: short commentary on J.R. Gillingham, The EU: An Obituary (Verso, Cambridge, 2016), in History Today, 66/12 (Dec. 2016), p. 56.
COMMENTARY ‘How I Write as a Historian’ (600 words) at invitation of Keith Livesey, aka Buff-Coat, publ. in e-book K. Livesey (ed.), A Trumpet of Sedition: How I Write, Why I Write (2018): http://keith-perspective.blogspot.com/2018/05/why-i-write-how-i-write-edited-by-keith.html. Annotated text also on PJC website as BLOG/88 (April 2018).
‘Christopher Hill: The Marxist Historian as I Knew Him’, written 2004; first publ. with slight amendments in Nov. 2018: see PJC website Pdf47.
‘The Remarkable Charlotte Despard’ for Battersea Labour Party Annual Report: 2018, ed. Tony Belton (Feb. 2019), pp. 27-8. Expanded also in 4.3.5 (Jan. 2019).
‘Foreword’ to Margaret Bird, Mary Hardy & Her World, 1773-1809 (Burnham Press, Kingston upon Thames, 2020), 4 vols, pp. viii-ix in each volume. Now on PJC website as Pdf59.
WEBSITE CONTRIBUTIONS
‘Interview with PJC’ for Making History: The Discipline in Perspective – Institute of Historical Research History Project Website (launched Nov. 2008); plus accompanying text by PJC ‘History Viewed Long’, now posted on PJC website as Pdf2.
‘Climate Reds: Responding to Global Warming with Relative Optimism’, paired with Mark Levene, ‘Climate Blues: Or How Awareness of the Human End might Re-instil Ethical Purpose to the Writing of History’: formerly on Rescue/History website. Now on PJC website as Pdf21.
‘Britain’s Political, Cultural & Industrial Revolutions: As Seen by Eighteenth-Century Observers and Later Historians’; in web-journal Current Research: Literature, Culture and Media (Syddansk University, Odense, Denmark, 2013): ISSN 1903 5705. Also on PJC website as Pdf31.
Note: Also translated into Chinese by Kang Ye, for journal New History, Vol. 14 (2015), pp. 112-33 (publ. by Daxiang Press).
Scholarly website: www.londonelectoralhistory.com ‘London Electoral History, 1700-1850: Steps towards Democracy’ (launched: 21 October 2013 – followed by Google upload), created by Charles Harvey (Newcastle University), Penelope J. Corfield (Newcastle University & Royal Holloway, London University) and Edmund M. Green (Newcastle University). Note: The London Electoral History Project migrated institutionally in Feb. 2015 to Newcastle University at http://leh.ncl.ac.uk.
Note: See too, the two-vol. printed version of all LEH website texts and tables, by Edmund M. Green, Penelope J. Corfield and Charles Harvey, Elections in Metropolitan London, 1700-1850: Vol. 1 Arguments and Evidence; Vol. 2, Metropolitan Polls (Bristol, 2013), cited above in Books. Summary overview available in PJC website as Pdf30.
Two sections of this website, written by PJC, were published separately. See PJC, ‘Short Summary – Proto-Democracy’ (2016), being LEH section 1.10, in PJC website as Pdf34.
And PJC, ‘Lords & Ladies: Titles, Status, and Precedence’ (2016), being LEH section 7.13, in PJC website as Pdf35.
The launch of LEH website was commemorated in PJC BLOG, published online on 18 Feb. 2014, by History of Parliament website = http://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/launching-the-new-website-london-electoral-history-1700-1850/.
COMMISSIONED REPORT
Reputation and Loss in a Victorian Family: The Pattissons of Witham in 1859 (1997), pp. 1-52, being 16,500-word commissioned report for Pattisson family with copy deposited at Essex Record Office (1997).
Penelope J. Corfield
Penelope J. Corfield is a historian, lecturer and education consultant. She currently serves as the President of the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ISECS).
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