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Handwritten verses from a nineteenth-century Cambridgeshire poet – who died destitute despite royal patronage – have been saved by Cambridge ̽»¨Ö±²¥ Library. 

Dr John Leigh has written the first book exclusively devoted to the duel in literature. In Touché, he offers a compelling picture of the ways in which novelists, playwrights and poets have used duelling as a trope to reveal the extent of manly valour, trickery and sheer foolishness.

New film series Novel Thoughts reveals the reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists and peeks inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives. In the seventh film, Professor Carol Brayne explains how being able to experience life as lived by other people through the works of Dickens, Gaskell and Eliot has given a broader perspective to her work.

A letter written in 1868 by Charles Dickens, the bicentenary of whose birth falls today, to his son Henry, who had newly arrived at Cambridge, reveals a touching concern for Henry’s welfare in matters physical, moral and spiritual.