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Samantha Rayner, Professor of Publishing and Book Cultures, Department of Information Studies, delivers her Inaugural Lecture.

This lecture will look at the contribution Una Dillon and her contemporary women booksellers made to the British book trade in the 1930s-1960s. It will explore how bookselling developed during this period, and highlight some of the histories which, as in Una Dillon’s case, are now literally hidden behind the bookshelves of the bookshop she created.

About the speaker: Samantha J. Rayner is Professor of Publishing and Book Cultures in the Department of Information Studies at UCL, and is also Vice Dean for Wellbeing for the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for English Studies. She is General Editor for an Elements series on Publishing & Book Culture with Cambridge University Press, and co-Director of the Bookselling Research Network and the Bloomsbury CHAPTER (a collaboration with the IES). She researches bookselling, publishing, and book history topics, as well as reading for wellbeing / bibliotherapy; she also has strong connections with Arthurian and medieval research.

Inaugural Lecture Series 2021-22

This lecture is part of the 2021/22 series for UCL's Faculty of Arts & Humanities and Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences. The series provides an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the achievements of our professors who are undertaking research and scholarship of international significance, and offers an insight into the strength and vitality of the arts, humanities and social sciences at UCL. All our lectures are free to attend and open to all. You don't have to be a UCL staff member or student to come along. Lectures begin at 18:30 and are typically one hour long. A drinks reception will follow, to which everyone is welcome to join. We look forward to meeting you at one of our events. For information on other upcoming lectures please visit: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/social-historical-sciences/news-events/inaugural-lectures

18:00: Registration Opens

18:30: Lecture begins

19:30: Drinks Reception

If you have registered for the live streaming you will receive a link the day before the event.

We aim to make our events as inclusive as possible so if you have any accessibility requirements please let us know in advance so we can try to make reasonable adjustments and ensure the appropriate measures are taken.

• The Roberts G06 Sir Ambrose Fleming LT is located on the ground floor of Roberts Building (Malet Place entrance).

• There is step free access into the lecture theatre. The corridor outside the lecture theatre(s) is sufficiently wide enough (150cm+) to allow wheelchair users to pass.

• There is level access to the designated seating from an entrance.

• The door(s) for the lecture theatre(s) is/are not push pad activated.

• There are no chairs with armrests on both sides within the lecture theatre(s).

• There is staggered seating within the lecture theatre.

• The steps to the staggered seating do not have handrails.

• This lecture theatre does not have a hearing assistance system.

• There are accessible toilet facilities within this venue.

View the full access guide on the AccessAble website.

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- Please also note that as not everyone who books a place for the in-person lecture attends, to make sure we have a full house we register more people than places. We do our best to get the numbers right, but unfortunately we occasionally have to disappoint people. In this case, or in case of late arrival and a full lecture theatre, we have an overspill room where you can watch the event on live-streaming.

Una Dillon and the ‘formidable’ women booksellers of London, 1930s-1960s.