Amy Wells

Thesis title: Reading Childhood: Children, Books, and Stories in the British Country House, c. 1840-1914.

Supervisor: Professor Sophie Ratcliffe, Dr Siân Pooley and Tim Pye

Research Interests: Book History, Histories of Reading, Libraries, Book Collecting, Childhood, Country Houses, Information Behaviour

Doctoral Research: My DPhil research is an AHRC-funded collaboration with the National Trust, exploring the stories within and around children's interactions with books in country houses during the long nineteenth century. By drawing on my comparative and interdisciplinary background in Comparative Literature (BA), Library Science (MA) and English Literature 1830-1914 (MSt), I seek to uncover histories of children's book use from within the National Trust collections through looking at the intersections between the life of a book and the life of its user.

Alongside my DPhil I am a Junior Teaching Fellow in the Ashmolean Museum's Krasis programme, have acted as Teaching Assistant for Prelims Paper 4 and taught at the OxNet and UNIQ outreach summer schools. I am additionally trained and experienced in the rare book trade, having completed the York Antiquarian Book Seminar with a PBFA scholarship and a three-month placement in Rare Books & Manuscripts at Christie's.