Grace Touzel
Grace Touzel's PhD explores books made to be written in, or blankbooks, and the lives of those who made them. She seeks to define the ways in which the products and people of the London blankbook trade diverge from those of the printed word, adding a new dimension to the history of the book.
Research
Grace Touzel holds an MA from Monash University (Melbourne) in Library and Information Studies and an MA (Book History) from the School of Advanced Studies. She has been a librarian at London's Natural History Museum (NHM) for over fifteen years. Grace's interest in blankbooks was inspired by research for her MA (History of the Book) dissertation, in which she applied microscopic imaging techniques to seventeenth-century blankbooks from the NHM's Sloane Herbarium. Her PhD research uses physical analyses to identify the materials and methods unique to blankbook binding. Related archival research has provided new insights into the practice, geography, and guilds of London blankbook production. Future avenues will increase knowledge of women's roles in blankbook production, and expand on how the guild affiliations of blankbook binders diverged from those binding print.
Awards have included a LAHP PhD studentship for her current studies, and an AHRC fellowship examining the blankbooks of The Huntington Library in Pasadena (CA).