Hollis Croft by Mili Rajic and illustrated by Dave Howarth is a graphic novel that contains both an imaginative retelling of the research, excavation, and post-excavation processing of the site of Hollis Croft in Sheffield, UK by Wessex Archaeology in 2017, and a creative fictional imagining of the residents of the site around 1850. Using creative fiction as a means of understanding a site is more familiar in North America, where, for example, the stories of people living in urban sites in New York (Yamin, Reference Yamin, Mayne and Murray2001) and Los Angeles (Costello, Reference Costello, Schmidt and Voss2000) have been retold imaginatively, using a mixture of material culture, historical record, and creative license. Hollis Croft, as an urban, mixed-use site, similar in time period and situation to those North American sites, is a good candidate for applying this kind of archaeological writing in the UK. Hollis Croft is located in the industrial centre of Sheffield, and in the nineteenth century was the site of industrial steelworks, public houses, and adjacent to domestic houses. These are the remains that the archaeological assessment uncovered in 2017, and around which this imaginative history has been constructed. Urban archaeology of this kind offers an insight into the everyday material culture and spaces of the worker in the industrial period, whose experience may lie outside of recorded history. In that sense, archaeology can offer a glimpse of working class lives. Cross-disciplinary work between archaeology, history, and social geography as well as creative writing (as in this case), can offer a perspective on working class life that is impossible with one discipline or approach alone. As such, a creative endeavour like Hollis Croft only contributes to the historiography of the urban working class.
The graphic novel tells several stories: the story of the excavation and interpretation of the site by archaeologists, the last performance in Sheffield of equestrian and circus proprietor Pablo Fanque, and a sad story of love between two people in early Victorian Sheffield. The story jumps between the nineteenth century and 2017, and incorporates historical photographs, excavation remains, and archival sources in the illustration. The first thing to note about this work is that it is a transmedial volume. It is a physical book, an online book, a site archive (Carter et al., Reference Carter, Crangle, Rajic and Tuck2020), and a short online summary in the journal Internet Archaeology (Tuck & Rajic, Reference Tuck and Rajic2021). Given the various media involved in creating this work, I will focus first on the way the volume is presented, moving on to a review of the content.
The physical book is a slim, soft bound graphic novel, beautifully illustrated in colour, with a tactility that makes it attractive to hold and to read. At around seventy pages long, the graphic novel is a quick read. A short introduction explains the context in which the graphic novel was written and drawn, and includes acknowledgements. The graphic novel makes good use of double-page spreads to communicate narrative breaks in the story, which jumps forward and back in time between 2017 and the nineteenth century. The panels are arranged clearly, as the story is told through illustration and dialogue and is easy to follow throughout. The print quality is excellent, so that details like the Ordnance Survey maps are easy to read and linger on, aiding in the communication of the site's history. The reader of the physical volume enjoys a short reading experience in the volume itself, and the reader is invited to look to the site archive, deposited on the Archaeology Data Service and with Sheffield Museums (Carter et al., Reference Carter, Crangle, Rajic and Tuck2020). However, it is clear from the start that this volume, while printed, is best read online.
The online version is accessible through Internet Archaeology. A PDF is available to download, but none of the interactive features which make the browser version most enjoyable are available in the PDF download. As such, the graphic novel is best read through the in-browser online reader. The online reader is intuitive, requiring no specialist knowledge or software download to operate. Too many open programmes can slow the pleasing page-turning animation and (sound on) corresponding paper noise. Viewing on mobile confines the reading experience to a single page at a time. Reading on a computer or a tablet offers the best reading experience, as the double-page spreads (mentioned above) are viewed together, to best effect. Throughout the story, small clickable X-marks on the double-page spreads link to additional content, showing the source of artistic inspiration, and the veracity of the contents in their representation of archaeology. For example, a cross on the page illustrating the inside of The Cock public house navigates to section 3.2 of the online article describing the results of the archaeological excavation which evidence the remains of the site (Area B on the Hollis Croft excavation site), while another links to a virtual flyover of the photogrammetric survey of part of the excavation site. One of the X-marks links to a PDF of a standing building report, while another links to an historical photograph of Hollis Croft on the Sheffield Archives website, Picture Sheffield, demonstrating the broad range of evidence that the authors made use of in creating this volume. Crucially, the links do not navigate off-page but instead open a new tab which helps the reader to keep their progress in the story. This is not dissimilar to the difference between a footnote and an endnote in traditional publishing; the reader is not expected to go back and rediscover their place, as the page remains open on the original tab. It does make for a tab-heavy reading experience, but this is a very minor issue.
The story represents a broad demographic in Sheffield in the mid-nineteenth century, and is based on archival research to this effect. The volume is a showcase of the breadth of historical sources and material evidence archaeologists deploy in their research and study of sites. Archives and archaeological sources evidence that Sheffield was a booming industrial city and centre for urban-to-rural migration and immigration, with a diverse population drawn to the city by the heavy steel industry (Cooper, Reference Cooper2021: 182). The book goes further to include stories that may not survive in the archival record, of people who live lives outside of the societal norms. The dangers facing LGBTQ+ people in the past are hinted at in the story. A character recounts the execution by hanging of two men for the crime of homosexuality; this likely refers to the 1835 case of John Smith and James Pratt, the last men hanged for sodomy in Britain (Cocks, Reference Cocks2003: 38). The very real fear of arrest is communicated effectively through the page. The medium necessitates some creative license to communicate emotion. The subject matter encourages the reader to consider those residents of Sheffield's past who have never been recorded or whose stories fell between the pages of history. This graphic novel covers a lot of ground in just seventy pages, without seeming incomplete or generalizing. Indeed, the book itself invites further study through links to reports and sources.
The representation of archaeology in this volume is one of its strengths. Beyond the discipline, across media forms, archaeology is represented inconsistently, often fancifully as the profession of adventurers (Holtorf, Reference Holtorf2007: 63). The practice of archaeology—what archaeologists actually do—is rarely represented fully or fairly. Indeed, even in the most faithful representations of archaeologists at work, excavation is the focus. In this volume, the other work of the archaeologist—desk-based assessment and archival research, finds processing, interpretation, and analysis, even publication—is represented with wit and affection. The professional archaeologists are drawn here as ranging from passionate to jaded, and the conversations that sprout up around a site and its understanding are concisely and humorously depicted. The delightful mundanity of finds processing is rendered in colour. The work of interpreting the site is illustrated as methodical, research-driven, evidence-driven, and unromantic. To anybody who has worked in commercial archaeology in the United Kingdom, the representation of archaeology here is familiar and, thus (to this reviewer, for one) endearing.
To revisit an earlier point, this kind of creative imagining of the sites that archaeologists excavate is more familiar in North American historical archaeology. It is encouraging to see archaeologists engaging creatively like this in the United Kingdom. That this volume came from and was funded by a commercial unit—Wessex Archaeology—rather than university-based archaeological research showcases the vitality of archaeology as a professional pursuit in the United Kingdom. Finally, the subject matter is an affectionate look at both the profession and the city of Sheffield itself, where archaeology has a strong presence. In the notes on this publication in Internet Archaeology, the authors note that considerable public interest in the site in Sheffield at the time of excavation inspired the creation of a creative form of interpretation alongside the standard professional reports that were also produced.
This graphic novel will be encouraging to other archaeologists and scholars of the past who wish to apply their creative imaginations to the material they unearth in archives, in the ground, and in the landscape. Students or interested readers who wish to refer to an imaginative and yet accurate representation of how archaeologists work may refer to the parts of this volume which illustrate that work. Finally, scholars of the industrial period may find the volume useful in imagining the past streetscape of Sheffield, as illustrated from archival and archaeological evidence.
