Among the small, but highly significant, collection of single-leaf prints amassed by George John, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758–1834), one print has consistently proved controversial. An impression from an etched metal plate, this scene of the Crucifixion bears the ‘impossible’ date of 1430. The date is not the only issue with the impression; stylistically and materially it is unlike any other produced in the fifteenth century. This article examines the impression afresh, recording a variety of oddities and anomalies. It introduces a new piece of physical evidence – the watermark from the paper on which the impression now at the John Rylands Library was printed – before concluding with some observations on the validity and purpose of this extraordinary print.

This article focuses on a copy of the hitherto unknown acting edition of Charles Calvert’s The Tempest in the catalogue of the University of Kent’s Pettingell Collection that offers new insights into Calvert’s Shakespearean revivals in Manchester. It begins by considering the metropolitan influences from which Calvert derived the approach to his revivals, before discussing his experimental adaptations from British, French and American melodramas, culminating in him writing his own original play, The Hive of Life, between his exit from the Theatre Royal in 1860 and his appointment as actor-manager at the Prince’s Theatre in 1864. It then turns to Calvert’s acting edition of The Tempest, explaining how and why he wished to adhere to the ‘genuine’ text, reversing most of Charles Kean’s changes, which he had applied for his revival at London’s Princess’s Theatre in 1857. Finally, it demonstrates how these amendments contributed to the revival’s commercial success, something which had eluded Calvert’s illustrious predecessors.

The eleven unpublished Ur III cuneiform texts presented in this article are housed in the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester. This article publishes two tablets from Puzrish-Dagan which deal with dead animals; six from Umma involving various contents; one from Girsu on the receipt of barley; one from Irisagrig with unclear recording; and one tablet with unknown provenience. Except for one text (no. 8), most are undated because of the damaged and fragmental preservation.

Although the Irish origins of the Brethren are well known, scholars have paid little attention to the growth and impact of this form of evangelical primitivism in Ireland. This article addresses that issue by considering opposition to the Brethren and lay preachers in Ulster after the 1859 revival. It shows how criticism was stimulated by the numerical growth of the Brethren, embarrassment at the religious populism unleashed during 1859 and the perception that the Brethren posed a threat to protestant unity. It considers the critique of the Brethren offered by members of the regionally dominant Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and what their criticisms tells us about the relationships between revivalism and denominations, as well as the subsequent development of the Brethren and popular evangelicalism in Northern Ireland after 1921.