Over the past six years I have had URSS students working on the Shirley project during the summer vacation. I am looking to recruit another URSS student for the summer vacation 2013, and interested students who will probably graduate in June 2013 (though particularly keen second years will be considered) are encouraged to contact me. Details of the scheme are here http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/skills/urss/students/. Please note that the closing date is likely to be in February 2013.

The AHRC-funded "Shirley Project", based at Warwick, Anglia Ruskin and Durham Universities, will produce a 10 volume modernised edition for Oxford University Press of The Complete Works of James Shirley, as well as an old-spelling electronic edition. The General Editors are Eugene Giddens, Barbara Ravelhofer and myself. James Shirley was a (good) playwright, an admirer of Shakespeare if the allusions in his works are anything to go by and wrote successfully for the stage between c. 1628 and 1642. You can find out more about him in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

The summer URSS internship would offer the chance to work with Professor Giddens and me on the project, based in Cambridge University Library for four weeks in August (though timing may be flexible). It would suit a student interested the works of Shakespeare's later contemporaries who is planning to continue their studies at MA level in this area, but students still making up their mind about further study would also be considered. It would be an advantage to have done the Seventeenth Century Literature and Culture or Early Modern Drama (and enjoyed them) but, again, other experience in this area of study would be perfectly valid. The internship would involve checking of texts for the electronic edition and would also include an introduction to collation, and the opportunity to use these skills on certain of Shirley's plays. A keen eye for detail is the biggest requirement.

You can see some of my past URSS students' work here.