12 Days of Christmas roundup

Author
micheledrisse
Published Date
December 23, 2014

It’s almost Christmas! That means good cheer, Christmas spirit and….a fight to the death competition?!

Although technically the 12 days of Christmas begin with 25 December, we won’t be around over the break – so we had a 12 Days of Christmas #12off competition with the Museum of English Rural Life and the Ure Museum in early December! We’d like to think that we came out on top. Here’s what we came up with – follow us on Twitter or Tumblr to see the other collection’s choices.

On the 12th day of Christmas, my archive gave to me…12 chocolate biscuits (Huntley and Palmers collection)
On the 11th day of Christmas, my library gave to me…11 ornaments (Owen Jones, Grammar of Ornament)
On the 10th day of Christmas, my archive gave to me…10 massive ledgers (WH Smith archive)
On the 9th day of Christmas, my library gave to me…9 small vignettes (Vincard’s L’art du typographie)
On the 8th day of Christmas, my library gave to me…8 Mills and Boons (from our Mills and Boon library)
On the 7th day of Christmas, my library gave to me…7 hydra heads (from Topsell’s History of Serpents)
On the 6th day of Christmas, my library gave to me…6 heliocentric orbits (Copernicus, De Revolutionibus)
On the 5th day of Christmas, my archive gave to me…five allied leaders (from the Republic of Salo archive)
On the 4th day of Christmas, my library gave to me…four winged monkeys (from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900)
On the 3rd day of Christmas, my library gave to me…three medieval pigs (from our Book of Hours)
On the 2nd day of Christmas, my library gave to me…two angelfish (from Bloch’s 1796 Ichthyologie)
On the first day of Christmas, my library gave to me…a microscopic flea (from Hooke’s 1665 Micrographia)

Published Date
March 9, 2026

Visualising class, disability, and race on the Victorian stage

Content warning: the Spellman Collection contains offensive language, imagery, and ideology. This blog post discusses racism, blackface and ableism. Learn…

Published Date
February 23, 2026

Challenging our view of rigid Victorian gender boundaries through music covers

In the first of two blog posts showcasing the research potential of our Spellman Collection of Victorian music covers, we…

Published Date
February 13, 2026

Mills & Boon: The Surprise Archive 

Having long been a lover of a good romance novel, it was a dream come true to be granted permission…

Published Date
February 2, 2026

Festivals of the Imagination: early editions of novels and poetry by James Joyce 

In 2020, Stephen James Joyce, Joyce’s grandson, bequeathed the Solange and Stephen James Joyce Collection to the University of Reading Special…

James Joyce is sitting on a chair. His young son has his arm around his father's neck and they are holding hands.
Published Date
December 9, 2025

Family photos from the personal archive of James Joyce

The Solange and Stephen James Joyce Collection The University of Reading has acquired a major collection of books, documents and…

Published Date
November 24, 2025

A Century in Print: Exploring Student Life Through University of Reading’s Magazines (Part 2)

We continue our journey through the extensive range of periodical publications housed in the University History collection, also known as…

All news and views