Wisconsin, U.S.

Since the guitar that Percy Shelley gave to Jane Williams, described in the poem "With a Guitar--to Jane" has not been played at any point during the era of sound recording and is too fragile to be played now, we can only guess what it would have sounded like--or we can try to build a replica (copy) of it and play that. Following this plan, UWGB engineering instructor Prof. Wesley Schroeder is building a replica in his luthiering workshop in northeast Wisconsin. Prof. Schroeder's design of the replica of Jane Williams's guitar is based on meticulous research into the original guitar, based on seventy-nine research photographs taken by Prof. Nesvet in 2019 at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. Prof. Schroeder and I wish we could upload these photos to the COVE, because they're pretty incredible, but "research photos" means, by definition, that you're only allowed to use them for research, not publication. Stay tuned as the semester progresses, and, rural internet willing 'and the creek don't rise,' you will be able to find here on this map node annotation some photos from Prof. Schroeder's process, bringing new meaning to Shelley's phrase "the hand that mocked."