Dr. Molly G. Yarn

Author - Editor - Researcher

Academic CV

Education

University of Cambridge, PhD in English, 2015 to 2019

Dissertation title: ‘The Hidden History of Women Editing Shakespeare, 1800-1950’

Supervisor: Dr Jason Scott-Warren

King’s College London, MA in Shakespeare Studies (Distinction), 2013-2014

Thesis Title: An Edition of Act IV of Philip Massinger’s The Duke of Milan

Supervisor: Professor Gordon McMullan

Tufts University, BA in Drama, 2005-2009

Publications

Shakespeare’s ‘Lady Editors’: A New History of the Shakespearean Text (monograph), Cambridge University Press, 2021/2 [Reviewed in Times Literary Supplement (6 October 2022); Shakespeare Quarterly (73.3-4); Parergon (39.2)]

‘‘Edith Rickert, John Manly, and Women’s Scholarly Networks’ in Collaborative Humanities Research and Pedagogy: The Networks of John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert, ed. by Katherine Ellison and Susan Kim, Palgrave Macmillan (2022)

Review of Zachary Lesser, Ghosts, Holes, Rips and Scrapes: Shakespeare in 1916, Bibliography in the Longue Durée, in Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 35 (2022): 232-235

‘“All the Youth of England are on Fire” (for Shakespeare): Evelyn Smith’s Henry V,’ The Hare: An Online Journal of Untimely Reviews, 5.3, 2021

‘Katharine Lee Bates and Women’s Editions of Shakespeare for Students’ in Women’s Labour and the History of the Book in Early Modern England, ed. by Valerie Wayne, Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare (2020)

A correction to the identity of “Mrs. Furnivall” in Harvard’s Houghton Library Archives’, Notes and Queries, Volume 65, Issue 3, 1 September 2018, Pages 401–402

Editorial, Bibliographical, and Public Humanities Work

Co-Editor, The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works, Revised Edition, ed. by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, Bloomsbury Publishing (2022)

‘John Suckling, Fragmenta Aurea (1658)’, Early Modern Female Book Ownership blog, 4 January 2022

‘Precarity, Privilege, and Publication’, fifteeneightyfour blog (CUP), 21 December 2021

Curator and Researcher, Rasmussen-Hines Collection: Private Collection of Prof. Eric Rasmussen and Victoria Hines (2021-Present) [@_RHCollection on Twitter]

Editorial Curator, The Sonnet Project, Jermyn Street Theatre, March-August 2020 as part of their online Brave New World season. Posted daily on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. (See press coverage here, here, here, and here.)

‘Doubt and Disillusionment in Postwar France’, 360° Viewfinder: The Killer (dir. Darko Tresnjak), Theatre for a New Audience, 2014

‘Sources: Timur the Lame’, 360° Viewfinder: Tamburlaine (dir. Michael Boyd), Theatre for a New Audience, 2014

Interviews and Media

‘A Woman’s Voice May Do Some Good’Shakespeare Unlimited [Folger Shakespeare Library’s podcast]

‘New book celebrates the lost work of Shakespeare’s female editors’, article by Allison Flood for the Books section of The Guardian, 9 December 2021

Interview with Andy Kesson for A Bit Lit digital platform, September 2019 

Interviewer, An Evening with Actor Simon Russell Beale, Cambridge Arts Theatre, February 2017

Invited Speaker

“Editing Shakespeare: A Conversation with Shakespeare in Prison Alums,” presented by Detroit Public Theatre, 14 July 2023

‘Shakespeare’s “Lady Editors”’, given for the Shakespeare Conversations series at County College of Morris (NJ), 28 April 2022

‘A Tangled Web: Women Editors and the New Shakspere Society’, given at Connecticut College, October 2019

‘Recovering Women Editors of Shakespeare’, given at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, October 2019

‘Daughter of Lamb, Daughter of Bowdler: Charlotte Yonge Edits Shakespeare’, given at the Charles Lamb Society’s annual Study Day, London, December 10, 2016

‘Women Editors of Shakespeare’ given at Shakespeare for all ages and all times, Cambridge University Library, April 23, 2016

Teaching

Guest Lecturer, ‘Women and the New Bibliography’ for ‘Making Shakespeare’ Module, Professor Andrew Murphy, Trinity College Dublin, November 2021

 Guest Lecturer, ‘Editing and Gender’ for Bibliography and Literary Research Methods Course, Professor Heidi Craig, Texas A&M, November 2021

Guest Lecturer, “Women Editing Hamlet, or Hamlet 2 (and 3, and 4, and 5…)’,” for ENGL 3563: Shakespeare, Professor Dianne Mitchell, University of Colorado, Boulder, March 2021

Co-Lecturer, “William Shakespeare and Giuseppe Verdi’s Othello: An Analysis,” Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Georgia, March 2020

Guest Lecturer, “Theatre and Culture: Rise from Ritual,” Professor Virginia Anderson, Connecticut College, October 2019

Substitute Teacher, Grades 9-12, Athens Academy, 2019 to Present

Undergraduate dissertation supervisor, Cambridge, 2016 to 2019

Substitute Teacher, Grades 9-12, Athens Academy, 2014-15

Conference Papers

“The Walls of Baynard’s Castle: Anne Clifford, Ruth Raworth, and Their Books.” Early Modern Women and their Books Panel, organized by Martine van Elk, Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 2023

‘The Social Lives of Shakespeare Editors.’ The Shakespeare Editor: Lives and Labors Panel, organized by Claire M. L. Bourne and Molly G. Yarn, Shakespeare Association of American Annual Meeting, Jacksonville, FL, April 2022

‘Revolutions and Thunderstorms: Personal Lives and Public Editorial Work,’ USTC Book Conference, Gender and the Book Trades, University of St. Andrews, 16-19 June 2021

‘The Citational Ouroborous: Circular Citation in Collation and Textual Notes.’ For ‘The Politics of Textual Editing, Bibliography, and Book History’ seminar, Shakespeare Association of America Conference, April 2021

‘‟We are their parents and original”: Textual Reproduction and Editorial Taxonomy.’ For ‘Edition/Copy: New Approaches to Reading and Editing Early Modern Books’ seminar, Shakespeare Association of America Conference, April 2020

‘‟A Thorough Piece of Work”: Katharine Lee Bates and the Revaluation of Student Editions of Shakespeare.’ For ‘Women and Book History’ seminar, Shakespeare Association of America Conference, March 2018, Seminar Participant

‘Ghosts in the Margins: Early Women Editors of Shakespeare’, Paper at the 2016 British Shakespeare Association Conference

Events and Conference Sessions [As Organiser]

Seminar: “Embodied Scholarship in a Dis/Embodied Age.” International Shakespeare Conference, Stratford-upon-Avon, 20-22 July 2023

Seminar: “Shakespeare’s Editors” [with Claire M. L. Bourne, Penn State]. Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting, Jacksonville, FL, April 2022

Panel: “The Shakespeare Editor: Lives and Labors” [with Claire M. L. Bourne, Penn State]. Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting, Jacksonville, FL, April 2022

Funding

The Katherine Pantzer Junior Fellowship in the British Book Trades, Bibliographical Society of America, 2023

The Monticello College Foundation Fellowship for Women and Mellon Foundation Fellow, Newberry Library, 2022-2023

James M. Osborn Fellowship, Beinecke Library, Yale University, 2022

Katherine F. Pantzer Fellowship, Houghton Library, Harvard University, 2023

University of Chicago Library Robert L. Platzman Memorial Fellowship, Summer 2017

Alumni Award for Contribution to the Arts, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, 2018

Travel Bursary, Faculty of English, Cambridge, 2018

Thriplow Fund Award, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, 2018

George Bidder Fund Award, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, 2017

Research Bursary, Faculty of English, Cambridge, 2017

Morris True Brown Prize, Tufts University, 2009

Dramaturgy

Interview with director Tom Littler (Program), Romeo and Juliet, The Marlowe Society, Cambridge Arts Theatre, January 2018

Script Adaptation, A Cure for a Cuckold, The Marlowe Society, University of Cambridge, October 2017

Script Adaptation, Ralph Roister Doister, The Marlowe Society, University of Cambridge, March 2017

Program Note, Edward II, The Marlowe Society, Cambridge Arts Theatre, February 2017

Script Adaptation (with Tom Littler and Gabbie Bird), All’s Well That Ends Well, Reading at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, November 2016

Employment

Freelance Indexer, Editor, and Proofreader, 2021-Present

Social Media Manager, Rasmussen-Hines Collection, 2021-Present

Social Media Manager, Renaissance Research Group, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, 2016-2017

Digital Copy Editor, Drama Online, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015

Humanities Intern, Theatre for a New Audience (NYC), 2014

Editorial Intern, Academic Division, Bloomsbury Publishing (NYC), 2013

Editorial Intern, Arden Shakespeare/Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing (London), 2013

Background image from sample book held at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (public domain)