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Editor's Notes

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Middlemarch has been in the public eye since our last issue: Erica Wagner's column in the Times for Saturday 13 October 2007 bore the heading 'How good is Middlemarch if you reread it? Better'; and on 24 May 2008 the Review section of the Saturday Guardian devoted two and- a half broadsheet pages to Zadie Smith's tribute to George Eliot, 'On Middlemarch'. We have recently received Josie Billington's new Reader's Guide to the novel, Eliot's 'Middlemarch' (Continuum, 2008). This will be reviewed in our next issue.

Another work just received - Elizabeth Sabiston's Private Sphere to World Stage from Austen …

Address At Wreath-Laying In The George Eliot Memorial Garden, Nuneaton 17 June 2007, Don Jones

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

As I reflected on 'famous sons and daughters of Nuneaton', I came up with a short list. George EliotlMary Anne Evans, Larry Grayson, Ken Loach.

George Eliot must have cut quite an unconventional figure in her day. Larry Grayson, that rather gentle comedian, was also quite an unconventional character. Then Ken Loach, perhaps not so controversial in his personal life, none the less often espousing unconventional causes through his films. Is it something about Nuneaton that those it throws up into the arms of fame should have something of the unconventional about them? - or at least an eye for …

Review Of Telegraphic Realism: Victorian Fiction And Other Information Systems, Richard Menke

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Richard Menke's study draws illuminating connections between the development of literary realism and the revolutionary changes which the nineteenth century saw in methods of communication and information management. Innovations such as the Penny Post, the telegraph, photography and wireless communication all raise fundamental questions about the representation in media both of the material world and of human subjectivity and social interconnection. Menke's discussion of these provides the context in which he examines how novelists grapple with similar issues, and he thus offers fresh new ways of thinking about realism as a self-conscious representational practice and about how the novel form …

George Eliot's Poetry Of The Soul, Gregory Tate

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The poetic epigraph to Daniel Deranda, written by George Eliot herself, anticipates and encapsulates the novel's interest in the complex processes that make up human psychology:

Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, 'mid the throngs of hurrying desires That trample on the dead to seize their spoil, Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible As exhalations laden with slow death, And o’r the fairest troop of captured joys Breathes pallid pestilence.

The epigraph describes psychological phenomena that will feature prominently throughout Daniel Deranda: the multiple and contradictory elements of individual character; the often self-defeating nature of human thought and …

Address At Celebration For Kathleen And Bill Adams, Jonathan Ouvry

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know of the existence of the George Eliot Fellowship until 1980, which was of course the great year of the stone-laying in Westminster Abbey. I can't remember how it came to be known that one of George Henry Lewes's great-great-grandsons just happened, conveniently, to have an office next door to the Abbey, but then I suppose that that is one of the many secrets of Kathleen's success in her role as Secretary of the Fellowship - she was very good at finding out useful connections and unlikely information in the highways and byways …

George Eliot Birthday Luncheon, 25 November 2007- The Toast To The Immortal Memory, Roger Simmonds

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am extremely grateful to you for inviting me here today to give this speech on George Eliot's Birthday. It is a real pleasure and very flattering: I hope I can live up to expectations.

If you had told me a year ago that I would be standing before you all now as Project Officer for the 150th anniversary celebrations of George Eliot's first work of fiction, I would have been surprised to say the least! For somebody who values literature as much as I do, who greatly admires the work of George Eliot, and who loves …

Review Of The Spanish Gypsy By George Eliot, Antonie Gerard Van Den Broek

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This edition complements the two volume edition of The Complete Shorter Poetry of George Eliot, also edited by Antonie Gerard van den Broek and published by Pickering and Chatto in 2005. Like those volumes it presents an edited text and a mass of information, editorial, critical and contextual (the list of textual variants alone occupies about 120 pages). These volumes make an essential reference point for future discussion of the poem. William Baker's Preface describes its conception, progress and reception, and van den Broek's Introduction takes up in more detail the critical and conceptual contexts. There are four appendices. The …

Review Of The Cambridge Introduction To George Eliot, Nancy Henry

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This lively book is part of a new Cambridge University Press series already more than thirty titles strong, for 'readers who want to broaden their understanding of the books and authors they enjoy' - a mission statement which is quickly decoded: 'Ideal for students, teachers and lecturers'. The range of authors and topics included is canonical yet catholic, and not exclusively Anglophone: American authors are well represented along with English and Irish ones, there is a clutch of drama and theatre titles, Francophone literature and Derrida, postcolonial literatures and Modernism. The books are relatively short at about 60,000 words, and …

'Acting Out' In Daniel Deronda, Toni Griffiths

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This short paper illustrates the way in which psychoanalytic perspectives can help us to understand the effect which a complex literary text like Daniel Deronda has on the reader. The two psychoanalytic perspectives used are Freud's insights into the way dreams work, and Melanie Klein's exploration of the nature and importance of the unconscious phantasies of very early childhood and her discovery of the early developmental 'positions'. 1 These insights help to explain how what may appear puzzling and difficult in a novel nevertheless holds and moves its readers.

Freud's insights into the meaning and form of dreams2 suggest that …

Review Of Jeanie, An 'Army Of One': Mrs Nassau Senior, 1828-1877, The First Woman In Whitehall, Sybil Oldfield

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Sybil Oldfield is well-known for her work on humanitarian women, creative philanthropists and pacifists, and her new book is an important contribution to Victorian studies, a life-story told with admiration, sympathy and style, as cram-full of character and emotion as a novel, and of great interest to George Eliot scholars.

The neglect of Jeanie Senior, called Jeanie, pronounced Janie - her enthusiastic biographer puts 'sic' after deviations, eccentrically rather than pedantically since Jeanie was christened Jane Elizabeth and named Jane on her tomb and even in this book's index - is at first sight puzzling, because her ideals and zeal …

Review Of George Eliot, Jan Jedrzejewski

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The physical format of this important overview is unattractive, the print small, with some forty-eight lines to the page giving the impression of over packing to keep the cost down. This companion to George Eliot studies - it is in fact more than a guide - has a number of blemishes. Jedrzejewski has not been well served by his editor(s): he has been allowed some loosely inappropriate phrasing on occasions, as with Mary Ann's reaction to her father's death which 'made his departure obviously painful for her in emotional terms' (9). This hardly conveys the anguished outcry or poignant self-searchings …

Reflections On Scence Revisited: A Festival Celebrating The 150th Anniversary Of Scenes Of Clerical Life, John Burton

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Members might be interested to read some reflections, several months on, of the Fellowship's involvement in the Nuneaton-based Scenes Revisited Festival which took place mostly during September 2007. One reason for this overview is that the Fellowship spent some £10,000 of its funds on the events throughout the year; another reason is that our involvement in a partnership helped to secure £50,000 from Heritage Lottery Fund to pay for a Project Officer and the many free events he was to coordinate.

There had been talk for two years among the group of history/museum/arts enthusiasts in Nuneaton and Bedworth, both local …

The Thirty-Sixth George Eliot Memorial Lecture, 2007: Scenes And After, Graham Handley

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

The Folio Society's cosmetic edition of George Eliot's fiction, which was published in 1999, has no place on any spine of its seven-volume set for Scenes of Clerical Life. A search of the actual texts, however, reveals George Eliot's first published fiction bedded together with Silas Marner, the pair sharing a neat introduction by Jill Paton-Walsh. I pondered at the time if spine exclusion meant that Scenes was just too minor for remark, or whether, as is the way with publishers, getting things wrong can be ignored once the books are on the shelves or, as with the Folio edition, …

Daniel Deronda: The Cultural Imperative Of Religion, Annemarie Frank

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

George Eliot's last novel Daniel Deronda differs strikingly from her earlier works in the presentation of its protagonists and her innovative use of the literary genres of realism and romanticism. In her earlier novels Eliot had espoused an idea of humanism that transcended social class by fictionalizing the small but significant contributions ordinary men and women make towards England's social and cultural progress. Eliot had created realistic heroes with human frailties on the principle that 'human deeds are made up of the most subtly intermixed good and evil'.1 Furthermore, she had attacked the ideal hero type, who was the favourite …

Review Of The Marriage Of Minds: Reading Sympathy In The Victorian Marriage Plot & Victorian Fiction And The Insights Of Sympathy: An Alternative To The Hermeneutics Of Suspicion, Rachel Ablow, Brigid Lowe

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

These two studies show that the ideological tug-of-war over the Victorian novel is far from over, and that George Eliot stands in the middle of it. Brigid Lowe's Victorian Fiction and the Insights of Sympathy is a bold and provocative attack on critics who have trawled nineteenth century novels for evidence that these works were concerned above all with exercizing ideological control. D. A. Miller, Terry Eagleton, Stephen Greenblatt, Catherine Gallagher, Deirdre David and Mary Poovey are all amongst Lowe's targets, and she draws on a wide range of sources to dismantle their conjectures. Rachel Ablow's The Marriage of Minds …

Annual Report 2007, Kathleen Adams

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

This has not been the easiest report to write, possibly being my last one. My first report forty years ago was so short - a mere half page - but, in those days the tiny Fellowship was doing very little so it was not difficult to write it. Little did I know I would still be doing it forty years later and with an extremely busy Fellowship involved.

Our year began, as always, with the Annual General Meeting. Susan Healey succeeded Bill Adams as Vice Chairman and Bill took her place on the Council for one year. After the business …

Recent Editions, Linnéa Caproni

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

This semiannual bibliography of documentary editions recently published in the fields of American and British history, literature, and culture is generally restricted to scholarly first editions of English language works. In addition to the bibliographical references, Internet addresses are provided for the editorial project or the publisher.

A Place In The Sun: Review Of The Selected Papers Of Margaret Sanger, Volume 2: Birth Control Comes Of Age, 1928–1939. Edited By Esther Katz; Peter C. Engelman And Cathy Moran Hajo, Associate Editors; Amy Flanders, Assistant Editor., Jimmy Wilkinson Meyer

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Birth control advocate Margaret Sanger (MS) was, and still is, both revered and reviled for her efforts to move contraception out from the shadows of illegality and obscenity into the light of widespread acceptance. During her radical activist days (1910s–1920s), MS honed her leadership, networking, and speechmaking skills and often depended on direct action to further her cause.1 By 1930 she had departed from her radical cohorts but continued to employ her broadening network of contacts. The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 2: Birth Control Comes of Age, 1928–1939 covers the efforts and life of MS during this era. …

Association For Documentary Editing Business Meeting, November 16, 2007, Richmond Marriot Hotel, Richmond, Virginia, Christine S. Patrick

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

President's Report--Treasurer’s Report--Secretary’s Report--Publications Committee Report--Travel Funds Committee Report--President-Elect’s Report--Federal Policy Committee Report--Meetings Committee Report--New Business

President’S Letter: Looking Backward, Looking Forward, Michael E. Stevens

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Association for Documentary Editing, and it is a time to both celebrate our past and look forward to new directions. I recently took a look at the first volumes of The ADE Newsletter (predecessor of Documentary Editing) to refresh my memory of the ADE’s first annual meeting. I was struck by how much has changed over the past three decades, as well as by how much has stayed the same.

Humor And Its Hazards: Editing The Papers Of Will Rogers, Steven K. Gragert

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Almost from the opening day of the Memorial, discussion began about publishing Rogers’s collected works. An early one-volume effort appeared in 1949. Author and magazine editor Donald Day literally cut and pasted several of Will’s newspaper and other writings—retyped versions, fortunately—to produce the chronologically sequenced The Autobiography of Will Rogers, published by Houghton Mifflin. Other trade books and assorted academic studies came into print over the next several years, but no serious attempt was made to collect and edit his published works.That is, until 1967. In March of that year, Paula Love, the curator of the Memorial since its opening, …

Documentary Editing: Journal Of The Association For Documentary Editing--Front Matter

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Front matter: Table of Contents--Contributors

Balancing Public And Private Lives In The Letters Of Lucretia Coffin Mott And Florence Kelley, Beverly Wilson Palmer

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

Despite their obvious differences, Lucretia Coffin Mott and Florence Kelley share some striking similarities. As prominent women reformers, they embraced three passionate concerns. First, they battled injustice to women. Lucretia Mott (1793–1880) helped organize the historic Woman’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848 and constantly spoke out for women’s rights, not only at the ballot box but in marriage, courts of law, and the workplace. Florence Kelley (1859–1932) likewise fought for both political and economic equality for women. She worked for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote, and throughout her career as director …

The Risks Of A Mammoth Edition: The Example Of The Complete Letters Of Henry James - Review Of The Complete Letters Of Henry James, 1855–1872. 2 Vols. Edited By Pierre A. Walker And Greg W. Zacharias., Kevin J. Hayes

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

With The Complete Letters of Henry James, general editors Pierre A. Walker and Greg W. Zacharias have undertaken such a mammoth task. In their editorial introduction to the first volume, which has been released simultaneously with the second, they explain that by the time it is finished the entire edition will fill at least 140 volumes. If the editors can maintain their two-volume-a-year pace—in itself quite ambitious—simple division tells us that it will take seventy years to finish the project. The Complete Letters of Henry James is one of those cathedral-like works whose editors will not live long enough to …

Long Before The Nhprc: Documentary Editing In Nineteenth-Century Virginia, Brent Tarter

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

In 1791 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to congratulate Ebenezer Hazard, of Pennsylvania, on the publication of the first two volumes of his Historical Collections, the first documentary edition of the public records of a state or colony. Jefferson’s letter is often quoted for its rationale for documentary editing. “Time and accident,” he wrote, “are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The lost cannot be recovered; but let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public …

The Pitfalls Of Digital History: Review Of Digital History: A Guide To Gathering, Preserving, And Presenting The Past On The Web. Daniel Cohen And Roy Rosenzweig., David Spiech

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

With Digital History, Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig have attempted to boost scholarly authors and editors into the wild world of web publishing, even those who have tried to maintain a conservative academic distrust of electronic media. They write engagingly and frankly, addressing the reader as a colleague who knows historical material well but needs comprehensive background about every facet of digital access and presentation.

Founding Fathers Face The Senate, Charlene Bickford

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979–2011)

On December 15, 2007, The Washington Post published an article by staff writer Jeffrey H. Birnbaum titled “In the Course of Human Events, Still Unpublished: Congress Pressed on Founders’ Papers.” This article focused on complaints that the editions publishing the papers of Founders John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington, collectively known at the Founding Fathers Papers (FFP), which noted historian David McCullough called “as worthy as any publishing effort that I know of,” take too long to finish and are not accessible enough in the electronic age of free online resources. Comments from Rebecca W. …

Notes On Contributors 2008

The George Eliot Review Online, ISSN: 2831-5375

Kathleen Adams was Secretary of the Fellowship from 1968 until her retirement in the spring of this year. She initiated the Review in 1970, was editor until 1981 and co-editor 1982-91. She published Those of Us Who Loved Her in 1980 and A Community of Interest: The Story of the George Eliot Fellowship 1930-2000 in 2000.

Juliette Atkinson is a teaching assistant at University College London, where she recently completed her PhD thesis on Victorian Biography and the Representation of 'Obscure' Lives, which is partly concerned with the manner in which Thomas Carlyle and George Eliot influenced nineteenth-century life-writing.

Michael …

Woodcuts As Wallpaper: Sebald Beham And Large Prints From Nuremberg, Alison G. Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

Large works on paper, in particular ones that covered walls, were new in the realm of printed works of art during the early decades of the sixteenth century. Following in the footsteps of wall hangings and tapestries of the late medieval period, wallpaper became a new concept in the Renaissance. Although wallpaper has generally fallen in and out of favor in the past several decades, it recently has been experiencing its own renaissance with visual artists. At the Rhode Island School of Design, a 2003 exhibition entitled On the Wall: Wallpaper by Contemporary Artists featured wallpaper with a variety of …

Perceptual Trace, Sherry Black

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

My work stems from the activity of perception through the drawing process, and a mental analysis of what I imagine but cannot see. The contemplative state of drawing is a careful outward projection, an internal dialog with an extemal object. Each work is a heightened state of perception as I seek clarity to distill the moment while meditating on my own physical existence. Apprehending by means of the senses is universal. In the most basic terms, the activities of perception amount to small, seemingly inconsequential moments. Yet, perception is a personal, even intimate occurrence, which is individualized. I am interested …