Royal Museums Greenwich Peglar papers reading workshop

Join a series of creative reading workshops focused on the Peglar papers, a unique historic manuscript connected to the lost John Franklin expedition. The session begins with an in-person visit to the Caird Library to look at the papers directly, before moving into a programme of collective reading and transcription using high-resolution scans.

Participants will work through the manuscript in order of difficulty, starting with the most legible material and progressing to the most complex pages. The group will compare the papers with contemporary manuscript sources and existing scholarship, while also exploring the document’s gaps, puzzles and unusual creative features, including poetry, labyrinth-like writing and backwards text.

The workshop also takes a queer methodological approach, encouraging interdisciplinarity, reading between the lines, playfulness and close attention to how the papers make meaning. It is designed for anyone interested in manuscript reading, and aims to build confidence in working with difficult historical sources while engaging with polar history in a collaborative setting.