Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 44

[cahn]

Not only are these posts still going, there is now (more) original research going on in them deciphering and translating letters in archives that apparently no one has bothered to look at before?? (Which has now conclusively exonerated Fritz's valet/chamberlain Fredersdorf from the charge that he was dismissed because of financial irregularities and died shortly thereafter "ashamed of his lost honor," as Wikipedia would have it. I'M JUST SAYING.)

Comments

Re: Archive updates

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, no, the Prussians have finished my latest order too soon! (Not something I usually complain about, haha.) They were taking 6-7 weeks, yet it's been only 3 weeks and I received my invoice today, meaning I should get the scans in a couple days, when they receive the wire transfer.

My life is officially TOO awesome. :P

I also heard from the Lower Saxons today, who estimate "at least two weeks" for the Peter Keith material. Which, given the amount of material and the fact that the Prussians have been known to take 7 weeks for much less than that, is way lower than I'd anticipated.

...Maybe I can get away with a light work schedule in a couple weeks. :P

Re: Archive updates

[selenak]

Yowsers. Clearly, you inspired them with your interest! Meanwhile, how about a preliminary collection of all the Fredersdorf letters plus translations at Rheinsberg? You can always delete it later once you publish your essay, but it might be helpful to have them all in a more accessible place than various threads?

Re: Archive updates

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yeah, as I mentioned in regard to Cahn's prodding me about the essay last week, I am collecting transcriptions plus translations into a single file for easier reference during the essay writing process. I've been avoiding putting them in Rheinsberg, though, until I make up my mind about whether that would be a bad idea re publication possibilities someday (same reason my Peter Keith essay isn't in there).

That said, I feel kind of bad about depriving our Rheinsberg readers of a lot of the most exciting discoveries on the grounds that I *might* want to publish them someday, when I have such a bad track record of finishing things! (The Peter essay at least is advanced enough I feel pretty good about getting it publication-ready, although if there's *too* much new material in the archives it might make the project even bigger and more overwhelming! But I'm also pretty motivated rn, so we'll see. Maybe even in a couple weeks!)

TL;DR: Holding off on Rheinsberg for now.