Our Chinnery summer transcription is proving something of a ‘staggerer’. In a second guest blog, V&A research fellow Patrick Conner provides some help, explaining how Chinnery used shorthand in his sketches, as well as recurring phrases and signs and potential pitfalls.
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Chinnery Summer Transcription Challenge
This summer, we’re taking a break from decoding Dickens and turning attention to another user of the Gurney shorthand system: the artist George Chinnery (1774-1852). Can you crack Chinnery’s shorthand annotations?
Deadline: 15 September 2023.
Charles Dickens, George Chinnery, and Gurney shorthand
What did Charles Dickens and the artist George Chinnery have in common? Both were practitioners of Gurney’s Brachygraphy shorthand. Find out more about what connects these two fascinating figures in a guest blog by Patrick Conner.
Letter to Bentley progress
May’s ‘Letter to Bentley’ shorthand decoding challenge turned out to be the trickiest yet. Find out more about our progress here…
‘Easter Nonsense’ aka ‘All privileges…’ transcript
The ‘Easter Nonsense’ challenge has turned out to be a critique of hereditary privileges. Read the text and download a transcript here.
Past events
Find out more about past Dickens Code events
Letter to Richard Bentley: Fill in the gaps challenge
Our challenge for May 2023 aims to ‘fill in the gaps’ in a partially transcribed letter to Victorian publisher Richard Bentley.
Deadline: 31 May 2023
‘Didactic’ transcript
‘Didactic’ has turned out to be a short piece criticising Rome and commenting on Catholicism in terms similar to Dickens’s ‘Pictures from Italy’ (1846). Download a transcript here.
Easter ‘Nonsense’ Challenge
Can you help us complete transcription of Arthur Stone’s Notebook A? This time the sentences may not be connected to one another, so we’ll need to treat them as separate items. Download an entry form here and give it a go!
Deadline: 30 April 2023