PhD student Katie Hunt and Dr. Leslie Ritchie (Department of English) have co-curated a rare book display for the upcoming annual conference of the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies in Kingston, October 26-30, 2016. The multi-disciplinary SSHRC-supported conference is hosted by Queen's University and the Royal Military College of Canada, and features panels and plenary talks concerning eighteenth-century English and French literature, art, history, philosophy, music, drama, and other subjects.

The book display, centred on the conference theme of "Secrets & Surveillance," draws from several collections at Queen’s W.D. Jordan Special Collections, including the theatre-rich holdings of Robertson Davies’ personal library; the Edith and Lorne Pierce collection of significant early Canadiana; and the Schulich-Woolf collection of early modern texts. It highlights texts germane to the conference, grouped thematically: “Secrets of Eighteenth-Century Science”; “Surveillance, Espionage, & Code"; “Secrets of Travel”; “Trade Secrets,” and “Theatrical Secrets.”

Special thanks to Dr. Alvan Bregman, Curator of Special Collections; Jillian Sparks, Special Collections Librarian, and the staff of W.D. Jordan Special Collections for their kind assistance with this exhibit. The exhibit is on view in W.D. Jordan Special Collections 12 October- 1 November. For more information on the conference, please see the conference webpage: http://www.csecs-scedhs-2016.ca/