Dr Jessica Purdy

Associate Lecturer in British History, c. 1500 - c. 1700

Researcher profile

Phone

+44 (0)1334 46 2914

Email

jp232@st-andrews.ac.uk

 

Biography

I received my PhD in Early Modern Book History from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2021 for a thesis entitled 'Parish Libraries and their Readers, 1558-1709'. My research examined the creation and composition of early modern parish libraries in England and analysed the thematic reading interests of readers through extant marginalia. 

Before joining the School of History at the University of St Andrews as Associate Lecturer in Early Modern History, 1500-1700 in August 2022, I was Lecturer in Early Modern British History at Manchester Metropolitan University.

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and I also hold a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. 

Teaching

Sub-Honours:

- MO2008: Scotland, Britain and Empire, 1500-2000 (module coordinator, 2023-2024)

Honours:

- MO3040: From Cradle to Grave: Living and Dying in Early Modern England, 1500-1800 (module coordinator)

- MO3047: The Tudors: Power and Piety in the Sixteenth Century (module coordinator)

- MO4967: Elizabethan England (module coordinator)

Research areas

My research focuses on library history, the history of reading, and identity. I am particularly interested in why libraries were founded in early modern England and Scotland and the educational purposes that they served. I am also interested in the books people read in the early modern period and how these readings impacted their identity and the their understanding of the world around them. 

More broadly, I am interested in the cultural and social history of the Tudor and Stuart courts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and I can often be found critiquing films and TV shows on these topics in my classes.

In 2021, I co-edited a volume of essays entitled Communities of Print: Books and their Readers in Early Modern Europe with Dr Rosamund Oates at Manchester Metropolitan University. In 2023, my first monograph, Reading Between the Lines: Parish Libraries and their Readers in Early Modern England, 1558-1709, was published.

Selected publications

• Open access

  Access, restrictions and readership in early modern parish libraries

  Purdy, J. G., Aug 2024, In: Library & Information History. 40, 2, p. 86-100

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

• Early modern English parish libraries: collecting and collections of the Francis Trigge Chained Library and the Gorton Chest Parish Library

  Purdy, J. G., 23 May 2024, Publishers, censors and collectors in the European book trade, 1650-1750. der Weduwen, A. & Hansen, A.-M. (eds.). Leiden: Brill, p. 189-209 21 p. (Library of the written word; vol. 126).

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

• Reading between the lines: Parish libraries and their readers in early modern England, 1558-1709

  Purdy, J. G., 13 Nov 2023, Leiden: Brill. 334 p. (Library of the written word; vol. 120)

  Research output: Book/Report › Book

• Review of Mel Evans, Royal Voices: Language and Power in Tudor England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)

  Purdy, J. G., 22 Jun 2022, In: Royal Studies Journal. 9, 1, p. 103-105

  Research output: Contribution to journal › Book/Film/Article review › peer-review

• 'For the edification of the common people': Humphrey Chetham's parish libraries

  Purdy, J. G., 25 Nov 2021, Communities of print: books and their readers in early modern Europe. Oates, R. & Purdy, J. G. (eds.). Leiden: Brill, p. 79-96 18 p. (Library of the written word; vol. 99).

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

• Communities of print: books and their readers in early modern Europe

  Purdy, J. G. (Editor) & Oates, R. (Editor), 25 Nov 2021, Leiden: Brill. 254 p. (Library of the written word; vol. 99)

  Research output: Book/Report › Anthology

• Introduction

  Oates, R. & Purdy, J. G., 25 Nov 2021, Communities of print: books and their readers in early modern Europe. Oates, R. & Purdy, J. G. (eds.). Leiden: Brill, p. 1-14 14 p. (Library of the written word; vol. 99).

  Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

 

See more publications