Over the month of August, it was my privilege to stay at the Holly Terrace house while carrying out my research and my stay was as pleasant and productive as I could have hoped. Owing to the courtesy of the Robert Anderson Charitable Trust, I was able to visit several institutions in London and gather an abundance of materials which will be instrumental in writing my monograph on the late-Victorian Jewish immigration.

In the main library of University College London

Most of my working hours were spent in the British Library. Their unparalleled stock enabled me to consult all of the secondary sources I required for my research, but could not access in Serbia. Later parts of the day were usually spent in the UCL Library, which offered the convenience of ready access to their well-stocked bookshelves. The British Library newsroom also enabled me to trace many of the primary sources I was looking for. I searched through numerous late-Victorian publications and found quite a few articles which will be useful in developing, supporting and illustrating my arguments.

The one unfortunate circumstance in the British Library was that the newsroom computers were still shut down as a precautionary measure after the recent cyber-attack. (As circumstance would have it, the newsroom computers are just getting back in use the past few days.) For that reason, I could only use physical copies of periodicals and micro films, which meant limited access and slower progress, as I searched by perusal rather than digitally.

On the other hand, access to the physical copies of 19th-century periodicals was a rare pleasure in itself and also led to a handful of lucky findings. For instance, while looking into the William Booth and Salvation Army outlets and their interaction with the Jewish community, I stumbled upon Booth’s review of Oscar Wilde’s Ballad of Reading Gaol, a poem I wrote a paper on a few years ago and will certainly write another one. This review is not cited anywhere in Wildean literature (it has been mentioned only once, but misattributed to another journal) and I will certainly make use of it.

The LSE Library was kind to grant me access to the Charles Booth Archive, which holds a variety of documents — mostly handwritten, but also typed and printed — associated with the Jewish community of the late-Victorian London. I read the correspondence of Jewish religious leaders of the time, statistical reports, instructions for visiting the Jewish ghetto, etc. I am still getting used to the handwriting of the main notebook, simply titled ‘Jews’, but it seems to me that it offers raw notes which were either used for Booth’s books or left unused.
I had hoped to visit the Jewish Museum in Camden, but they are currently closed until they find a new primary home.

I used the opportunity to re-tread some of the old ground and re-visit the Wildean sites in London known to me from my previous visit. I also indulged my academic curiosity by making brief excursions to literary sites related to the courses I teach. Namely, I visited the Brontë Parsonage and D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum, both of which inscribed vivid imagery into my mind which now complements the works of these authors.

I am profoundly grateful to the Robert Anderson Charitable Trust for granting me this unique opportunity. Should the Trust require my assistance at any future point, I would be glad to provide it.

For more information about the other students in the 2024 cohort please see here.