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December 2024
ecember's come round again so fast! All of us at the Victorian Web wish you a very happy month, as you prepare, and perhaps travel, for your year-end and New Year celebrations.
By the way, if you're looking ahead to some academic globe-trotting, check out our list of up-coming conferences, regularly updated by our editorial assistant, Nigel Finch. You might be tempted by one at the end of next July, hosted by the University of York: the deadline for submissions for the 14th Biennial International Music in Nineteenth Century Britain Conference is the end of next month. Don't forget we have several relevant sections, from hymns to parlour songs, and Elgar to music hall. Note that provision will be made for lecture recitals.
When you can spare another moment, do see what else is new online. Since the last up-date, we have a much-enlarged section on the war-artist, Elizabeth Thompson (later Lady Butler). She saw the "truth of war" even before she married an army officer, and long before the war poets of the next century, stunning the art world with paintings like The Roll Call and The Defence of Rorke's Drift. Her work finally (and none too soon) overcame John Ruskin's prejudice against women painters.
Another artist to come in for improvement this month was the portrait-painter John Partridge, with a new biography telling the sad story of how alienation from the Royal Academy, and the arrival from abroad of another portraitist, stopped his promising career in mid-track.
While looking at military scenes, JB came across our small section on the poet Felicia Hemans, who wrote the famous poem, "Casabianca," about the boy who bravely kept to his post "on the burning deck/ Whence all but he had fled" in the Napoleonic wars. Hemans died just before the Victorian period, but remained terrifically popular for most of it, so the twenty-year-old section on her seemed worth rejuvenating, with a new chronology, and a review of the recent biography of her by Edward Chitham — a critic best known for his books on the Brontës.
Not to be confused with Chitham is the Birmingham architect, Julius Alfred Chatwin, who has a proper entry now for the first time, after featuring only under the city itself. Chatwin trained under Charles Barry but returned, very successfully, to his roots, and was responsible for such landmark buildings as St Martin's in Birmingham's Bullring. His work on a vast exhibition hall in Birmingham helped to inspire the Great Exhibition of 1851, and his extension of Birmingham Cathedral made possible Edward Burne-Jones's remarkable stained glass windows there. Work on Chatwin continues, with photos kindly provided by the Vicar and parish office of St Augustine's, Edgbaston.
Our Managing Editor, Diane Josefowicz, has been busy managing, and we expect some useful changes to the website before too long. Meanwhile she has been continuing to handle recent book reviews, and doing valuable housekeeping on the site — restoring links, lost images and even a whole section on the illustrations of Dickens's The Child's History of England, that had somehow got left behind and needed new attention. Essential work, indeed.
Meanwhile, our Senior Editor, Simon Cooke, has written in his usual thoughtful, incisive and enjoyable way on Roman Polanski's Tess, the much-praised film version of Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Simon's analysis brings out so well the ways in which Polanski's cinematography translates Hardy's word-painting into chromatic effects, and mirrors Tess's fateful journey in the geography of the Wessex roads — as well as foreshadowing its inevitable end in the circularity of certain key scenes.
Like JB, Philip Allingham, our Contributing Editor from Canada, has mainly been engaged in revisions and additions to older work, including the Dickens illustrations of F. A. Fraser, such as this one of the death of Magwitch; and Charles Reinhart's illustrations for Hard Times. His most ambitious projects so far this month have been to bring together and create an impressive gallery of all the title-pages of the landmark Household Edition of Dickens's works, and (even more challenging) to discuss in depth Stephen Jarvis's ambitious novel of 2015, Death and Mr Pickwick, which explores the origins of Dickens's first major work.
A completely different contribution comes from our contributing Editor from Poland, Andrzej Diniejko, who has given a usefully comprehensive account of the educational resources available to girls and women in the Victorian period, and how they changed during the reign. Did you know, for example, that by 1880, there were as a many as 550,000 teachers and five million pupils (both girls and boys) in Sunday Schools in Britain? But, of course, it was the opening up of higher education to women that finally allowed them to enter the professions.
By far the biggest project this month has been Dennis T. Lanigan's complete revision of, and many new entries for, our section on William Dyce, amounting to a scholarly monograph on the artist. We are unlikely to finish checking it all by the end of the year, especially as Scott Buckle, another art historian who takes a friendly interest in these pages (and has contributed to them too), will be reading it through for us before it is finalised. So no link yet, but definitely something to look forward to in 2025!
Correspondence: we've had the usual requests for information about the value of Victorian artworks (our standard advice is to approach an auction house instead) and about using images, including a request from an editor of Wikipedia (like most of our images, those in question carry a permissions line, but we appreciate being asked). We ourselves were grateful to get permission to reproduce some images from Uno Langmann Limited, Fine Art & Antique Dealers in Canada. In another area, we were happy to renew contact with Linley Sambourne House in Kensington: anyone interested in supporting this unique Victorian/Edwardian house and its fabulous collections might like to contact Tracey Lazarus, Documentation Officer/Volunteer & Business Support Coordinator (E-mail tracey.lazarus@rbkc.gov.uk) who is promoting a friendly Sambourne Supporters Club. You too can immerse yourself in the life of a late Victorian household!
We also had a three-cornered correspondence via X with Christopher Howse of the Daily Telegraph, about the nature of the Welsh wig featured in A Christmas Carol. In case that makes you curious, you can find out more about it in Philip's vocabulary notes for the Carol (last item).
November 2024
ovember, and all kinds of serious stuff is happening in the larger world. Still, work on our website continues quietly and productively. Well over 1,250 documents and images have been added in the last six months, bringing our total to 132,225 items. All this, despite the time spent by our editors on updating older work and replacing older scans with improved versions — especially where this really matters, in the visual arts sections. Such activities are hugely important in a site like ours with a long history (check it out!) — a history as long as that of the World Wide Web itself. News of our social media is less happy. The writing seems to be on the wall for X, with a precipitous decline in follower numbers since the American election. So far, Bluesky is benefiting, but Mastodon, where we have a small account, is not picking up the slack. Let's see what happens on these platforms when the dust settles.
Meanwhile.... additions to the recently opened section on the artist Margaret Carpenter include examples of her Eton portraits (at Pamela Gerrrish Nunn's suggestion), and her portrait of Henry Hoare (at Shirley Nicholson's suggestion). JB also did some work on the garden designer, Gertrude Jeykll — for example, adding a list of selected gardens designed or inflenced by her. She (JB) then added a review of Chris Bryant's James and John: A True Story of Prejudice and Murder, which reminds us of the grim old days when even consensual homosexual activity was not simply an offence but a hanging offence. Elsewhere, JB introduced the architect Charles Parker, whose travels in Italy resulted in a pattern book which left its mark on many a Victorian country home or residential development. She also opened a new section on Joseph Clark, an artist whose work was immensely popular at the time, reaching a huge audience through engravings in periodicals, chromolithographs in annuals etc, but is apt to be dismissed now as genre painting. Yet his quintessentially Victorian depictions of family life, like The Sick Boy [The Doctor's Visit] still tug at the heartstrings and fetch good prices at auctions.
Our Managing (and Science and Technology) Editor, Diane Josefowicz, continues her very useful updating of the huge Ruskin section.
On quite a different note, our Senior Editor, Simon Cooke, has started sharing with us some of the treasures inherited from Paul Goldman's Collection, such as this handsome binding by William Harry Rogers for Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. Of special interest here is Frederick Sandys's vibrant, frenetic Bhanavar among the Serpents, the frontispiece to the 1865 edition of George Meredith's The Shaving of Shagpat, since we already had the earlier watercolour version of it. Simon has also been augmenting the new section on Alfred Garth Jones, for example with another wonderful illustration, "Hands so often clasp’d in mine," for Tennyson's In Memoriam.
Philip Allingham's revisions continue, with particular reference to the early Dickens illustrator Robert Buss, the artist responsible for the iconic memorial painting, Dickens's Dream. The main image on this page shows how greatly image reproduction has improved over the years. New scans of Marcus Stone's illustrations have also replaced several images first posted on this site twenty years ago! Phiz's work on Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewitt has now gone through a similar process: here's the odiously sanctimonious Pecksniff trying to make a good impression on his wealthy relative. Not even the coal-scuttle is taken in by his posturing! In progress now: illustrations for the same novel by Fred Barnard, with some new commentaries as well. Here's old Pecksniff again, from Barnard's hand (about thirty years on from Phiz, he hasn't changed much!).
Still in the visual arts pages, an autumn trip to London resulted in Dennis T. Lanigan's exciting discovery that a painting by Charles Allston Collins, thought to have been lost, is, in fact, in a private collection. Christie's auction house, as on other occasions, very kindly allowed us to reproduce their photograph of it alongside Collins's study for it, with their usual proviso that it should not be reproduced further: Beati Mundo Cordi [Blessed are the Pure in Heart]. This was followed by a biography of William Henry Millais, whose evocative landscapes, like Steps in a Garden, have been quite overshadowed by the work of his much better-known brother.
Michael Statham's visit to the Church of St Peter, Dinas Powys, also allowed us to fill a gap, this time in our coverage of the fine Welsh Arts-and-Crafts architect, John Coates Carter. This was soon followed by an account of the delightfully quirky All Saints Parish Hall, Penarth and an addition (plans showing the internal arrangements) to his Red House, Penarth.
Finalised only this month is another of the star essays from Professor Béatrice Laurent's seminar at the Université Bordeaux-Montaigne in France, "Myths and Icons in Victorian Britain." Rim Kanso has written "Andromeda, the Hero," challenging us to look at this key figure in a new and positive way. Thanks to Diane, for her work in preparing this for our website and putting it online.
Correspondence: We learn from Lynchpin Productions Theatre Company of their new play, The Vegan Tigress, making its London debut at the Bread & Roses Theatre, Clapham, 18 February-1 March 2025. This is based on the life and work of Mary De Morgan, sister of the ceramicist William De Morgan, and close family friend of William Morris, some of whose fairytales (often with a satirical element, and minus the traditional happy ending) were illustrated by no less than William Crane. These were fairytales with a difference, then, and the play promises to be just as original and entertaining. For more details, see https://app.lineupnow.com/event/the-vegan-tigress
Dr. Rosalind White's announcement of her new catalogue of Lady Waldgrave and the Stern family's work at Strawberry Hill, for the Decorative Arts Society, is also very good news. See https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/stern-waldegrave-collections-project/
October 2024
ctober's world news makes scholarship seem such a luxury. But sharing our research, seeing how it fits into the wider picture, and attending to others' views, is part of the larger project of the humanities — which (ideally, at least) serves to foster understanding, and combat prejudice and conflict. Participating in conferences and collaborations can make a valuable contribution here, so don't forget to look at the calls for papers. Top of the list right now is one that really shows the reach of our subject: "Victorians and Victorian Literature Abroad," a Special Issue call for papers put out by the National Syn Yat-Sen University, Taiwan, with a deadline at the end of February. Then there's "How to Navigate the Academic Job Market. The deadline for offering to speak at it has now passed, but you can still join the (online/remote) session, coming up soon on 12 November.
Before that, however, how about listening to the second of our very own Victorian Web podcasts, Dickens's Ghosts, just out in time for Halloween? Yes, thanks to our history editor, Dory Agazarian, the series is going live at last, and you can sneak a timely preview of this and the earlier one before our technical wizards share them online with a wider audience. Stay tuned for news of syndication!
Early this month JB filled a gap in our coverage of Victorian authors, particularly the enormous number of periodical-writers, by introducing the prolific, brilliant but unfortunate William Maginn, often mentioned in passing on the website, but not previously given his own space. An example of his work, an essay entitled "The Irish Genius," reminds us of the extraordinary contribution of the Emerald Isle to our national life. She also added a number of important paintings by Frederic Leighton, Frank Dicksee and others, to illustrate new work elsewhere. Notable among these are Leighton's Corinna of Tanagra and Dicksee's The Magic Crystal. She then opened what is still a very small section on Dickens's son-in-law, Charles Perugini, added a few new works to the section on the late Victorian/early twentieth-century Scottish artist, William Brown Macdougall, and introduced a larger selection of works by the once highly regarded portraitist, Margaret Sarah Carpenter. Her study and portrait of the young artist Richard Parkes Bonington will no doubt inspire another new entry in the painting section next month!!
Taking time off from her other duties and her own creative work, our Managing Editor has continued her updating of the large Ruskin section, and written a most enjoyable review of Renée Bergland's Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science. Sometimes a book comes along that makes connections no one has thought of before, and it can be so revealing and enriching. Dickinson's poetry, says Bergland, “sings with the strange green magic of Darwinian science.” This strikes home immediately. Clearly, the book, like the review, is engagingly written as well as wide-ranging and informative.
Simon Cooke, our Senior Editor, wrote about the illustrations and book cover designs of two new, inadequately recognised, late-Victorian artists: William Brown Macdougall, and Alfred Garth Jones. To see how much they deserve this attention, take a look at Macdougall's design for Isabella, or the Pot of Basil, or Jones's frontispiece to Tennyson's In Memoriam.
Philip Allingham and JB then overhauled our material on the illustrations of Dickens's last unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood — especially everything concerning the wrapper, with its teasing clues of Dickens's intentions for the plot. This was sparked by Dennis T. Lanigan's contribution of a new and improved scan of it. Collaboration continued in Philip's study of a much earlier work by Dickens, "Sunday Under Three Heads," which attacks proposed legislation outlawing recreational activities on the Sabbath. Here M.D. Allen joined with Philip in discussing the last "Head" — Sunday as Dickens would like to see it, with the option of participating in healthy, envigorating, sport. Phiz's illustration here is supposed to relate to cricket, but does so only vaguely!
Scandal next: Tim Willasey-Wilsey sent in photographs of a particularly fine monument by John Bacon Snr, in Bristol Cathedral, which recalls the relationship between Eliza Draper and the novelist Laurence Sterne — note that we do have a small eighteenth-century section, for purposes of wider reference, and in this case there is a colonial (Indian) relevance too.
We're delighted to have two more book reviews, both of them very thorough and informative. One is Tony Schwab's, "Defending the Beautiful: A Review of The Question of the Aesthetic, edited by George Levine; the other is Martin Hewitt's review of The Periodical Press Revolution. E.S. Dallas and the Nineteenth Century British Media System, by Graham Law. These are both ambitious, wide-ranging books on huge subjects, and we greatly such welcome knowledgeable discussions of them.
Back in the visual arts section, Michael Statham matched some of the sculptor Henry Hugh Armstead's designs for the façade of Llandaff Cathedral with the finished sculptures, which were sometimes difficult to spot: Bishop Ollivant, the four Evangelists, and (last but not least!) a gargoyle. All can now be accessed from our updated entry for the Cathedral itself (see "Links to Related Material").
New from Shirley Nicholson and Carrie Starren is an introduction to the Koberwein family of painters, Georg Koberwein and his daughters Rosa and Georgina, all patronised by the Queen. Georg himself was a fine portraitist, but perhaps the favourite work is here is Georgina's portrait of Mrs Spencer Herapath, née Ada Oakes. These artists are just a few of the many waiting to be recovered for new appreciation in our times. As usual, Shirley has been doing some proofreading for us. We're very grateful. All such assistance welcome!
Perhaps most exciting so far, however, is the appearance of a new section on artists' models, with a major five-part contribution by art historian Angela Bolger on Mary Lloyd, who modelled for Frederic Leighton, John Everett Millais, Thomas Brock, William Blake Richmond and other leading artists and sculptors. In the end, it is a sad story, and one that deserves to be told. Opening the section helped to bring together some of the other models whose stories are scattered elsewhere, but there is much more to come here as well. For instance, we have our sights set on the Italian model, Antonio Corsi, who posed for two of the works modelled by Mary, and for other noted artists besides. Angela writes that he went on to become a silent film star in America, and that a documentary, Corsi: The World's First Supermodel, will be coming next year. So we very much look forward to expanding this new area of the website.
Turning to more traditional lit. crit., it was a pleasure to add another poem, "The Voice" with a commentary by Amitav Banerjee, to our Thomas Hardy web-pages, just in time for National Poetry Day 2024 (3 October). Also in the literature section now is "George Meredith and the 'Whole Man'" by Sylvia Hornsby (see last month's "Correspondence"): Meredith's was a "dyspeptic" like Richard's uncle Hippias in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, and his outlook was coloured by his experience of it — another fascinating example of how scientific ideas permeated Victorian thinking.
Correspondence: Thanks to the Rev. Canon Jeff Hopewell for his useful comments on one of Henry Stacy Marks's stained glass window designs, which, as he points out, clearly shows the influence of the Nazarene artist Philipp Veit's Christ Knocking on the Door of the Soul.
September 2024
eptember brings another slew of calls for papers, both for collections of essays and scheduled conference. One conference with a submissions deadline in December is on "Convalescence in 19th and 20th Century Anglophone Literature," and another call for papers is for a special issue of Victorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature, on the timely subject of race, colour and the Victorians (deadline, 1 February 2025). You can come to both of these from a variety of disciplines, so here are opportunities for a presentation and/or publication, whatever your particular field. In connection with the latter, don't forget that we have a useful general section on Victorianism.
So far this month, much of the new work on our website has been in the visual arts. JB has introduced three new sections there, one on Louis Desanges, one on Inglis Sheldon-Williams, and another on Herbert Gustave Schmalz. Desanges and Schmalz were British painters, despite their names. Both were very much part of the artistic scene of their time, but both worked in genres that have since lost much of their appeal: Desanges made his name by painting the deeds of derring-do for which Victorian servicemen like Cecil William Buckley won their Victoria Crosses; and Schmalz's religious canvases, notably The Return from Calvary, could make a whole art gallery burst into fervent hymn-singing. Sheldon-Williams, who lived in Canada as well as England, is also remembered partly as a military artist, though our first example of his work shows cavalrymen engaged in a sport called tent pegging rather than fighting.
JB's next, and very enjoyable, task was to review Stuart Eagles' new book on Ruskin's Faithful Stewards: Henry and Emily Swan, a labour of love for Stuart who had to bring together many scattered sources, and also provide the ideological context for Ruskin's St George's Museum near Sheffield, where the Swans' efforts were concentrated.
A new (and very lucrative) publishing venture is the subject of an essay by our Senior Editor and Editor for Book Illustration and Design, Simon Cooke. In "Caldecott, Evans, and the Production of the ‘Toy Books’: a Significant Collaboration," Simon explains how Randolph Caldecott's sixteen colour books for nursery-age children with their highly influential visual style, became a big hit — and not only with children!
Visual style is Philip Allingham's concern too. Our contributing editor from Canada has now completed his commentaries on F. A. Fraser's illustrations for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, in the 1861 Sampson Low edition. Here is a particularly dramatic and atmospheric one, but [spoiler alert] don't read the commentary if you don't know the plot....
Jo Devereux, our Editor for Gender Matters, has written a review of another book in the recent wave of "rescue missions": the ground-breaking 2020 collection of essays on Marie Duval: Maverick Victorian Cartoonist (out in paperback this year), by Simon Grennan, Roger Sabin, and Julian Waite. This shines a spotlight on a hugely unconventional cartoonist and performer: Marie was the face behind working-class slouch Ally Sloper in Judy magazine, and took roles like that of Piccadilly Peter on stage. She may have been neglected later, but her popularity at that time tested gender boundaries, and now gives us an entirely new angle on the age.
Another new angle on the age is applauded by our editorial assistant, Nigel Finch, in an incisive review of Judith Flanders's recent book, Rites of Passage: Death and Mourning in Victorian Britain, in which Flanders shows how commercialised the Victorian "process and culture of mourning" became. To continue the economic reference, not everyone could afford to be absorbed in prolonged grief, and it is salutary to be reminded (by Nigel as well) that the familiar figure of widowed monarch is only part of a considerably larger picture, in this as in much else.
The impetus for the new sections on Desanges and Sheldon-Williams came from Tim Willasey-Wilsey, who is fortunately still helping us with military and colonial matters. Tim sent in the photo of Cecil Buckley's grave (mentioned above) and some information about him. On his travels, Tim also photographed the grave of Sarah Forbes Bonetta in Funchal's English Cemetery in Madeira. Sarah was the Yoruba princess who became, like her daughter after her, a goddaughter of Queen Victoria. JB took the opportunity of expanding our section on Camille Silvy, photographer of royalty, whose studio provided her now rather controversial portraits. Tim's next photograph was of the grave, in the same cemetery, of George Pepple, King of Bonny in the Niger Delta. This is another intriguing story: educated in Bexley while his father was in exile, Pepple was a Christian convert who got caught up in the warring factions of his kingdom. Tim then wrote at some length about the venerable Victorian clipper Copenhagan, which, with the help of British Newspaper Archives, he traces through many of her voyages right into the age of steam. This gives fascinating and sometimes disconcerting glimpses into the transport of passengers (including troops and indentured labourers) and cargo (from gold-dust to hides) across the globe. A curiously well-preserved poster, advertising for recruits for the "Queen's Own" Frontier Rangers based at Peshawar, then caught Tim's attention. The regiment it mentioned didn't seem to be on record anywhere.... find out why!
Later came two more pieces from Tim: the print of Sheldon-William's painting of tent-pegging in India, already mentioned, and an article on the old Irrawaddy Flotilla in Burma, its ships built on the Clyde in Glasgow in the boom years for its shipyards. Tim's article ends on a poignant note: the luxury cruisers now plying the river recall the connection by still sporting the flotilla's trademark black and red funnels.
More for the photography section (and more for postcolonial studies, too) came in the form of Pamela Gerrish Nunn's searching review of Jeff Rosen's Julia Margaret Cameron. The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography. Both book and review will interest specialists in postcolonial studies, because Rosen explores the way in which Cameron's photographs "intersected with historical and cultural conflicts, especially the colliding global forces of colonialism, political history, and nationalism that transfixed Britain in the mid nineteenth century." Pamela does feel, though, that "ideas about art" tend to get submerged here — an issue well worth raising.
There are no shortage of "ideas about art" in Dennis T. Lanigan's latest, very thorough consideration of an artist's whole oeuvre. This is the Pre-Raphaelite Charles Allston Collins, brother of the novelist Wilkie Collins, and the painter best-known for Convent Thoughts, which Dennis has discussed (along with pencil studies before and after, the model, the exquisute frame, the contemporry response to it, etc.) in his most substantial essay. Huge thanks to Scott Buckle for proof-reading this whole section, and also Collins's work as an illustrator, for us.
Hannah Lund, curator of exhibitions at Leighton House, very kindly provided the biography of the artist Herbert Schmalz for the new section on him, while Shirley Nicholson, also very kindly, went out and photographed his impressive Kensington mansion for us, and afterwards wrote about it. This adds to Shirley's increasingly comprehensive work on the artistic community established on the old Holland Park estate. Leighton House, very much the focus of this community, also gave us permission to reproduce Albert Moore's rather special A Vase of Dahlias, only recently restored to its original place in Leighton's Silk Room through the support of the Art Fund.
Thanks to Laurent Bury's photographs of art on display at Wightwick Manor this summer, we were able to add some more works by Evelyn De Morgan, including her powerful vision of autumn in Boreas and the Fallen Leaves, with its troubling hints of feminine vulnerability.
Correspondence: Keith Wood notified us that his VR project to recreate the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Place will be released as a free Creative Commons educational tool on 27 September. See the advance notice off-site here. It certainly makes you realise how much sculpture the exhibition showcased. Note that one or two of our images are used in it. Another labour of love that uses one of our images has already come to fruition: this is Jim Foley's book, also to be found off-site, having been generously shared via the Internet Archive: The Clog and the Knocker: The Story of the Stafford and Uttoxeter Railway. As well as railway history (the contractors, construction, route etc) it contains a wealth of insights into all the human stories involved, including wage disputes, accidents and so on, and is lavishly illustrated. For those who prefer good old-fashioned print, a paperback publication is also planned. In other news — Sylvia Hornby writes to tell us of the completion and availability online of her PhD thesis: "Moving through Uncertainty with George Meredith," which explores this challenging writer's particular kind of optimism, his heartening belief that "uncertainty allows opportunities for experimentation," and that "progress may be achieved by non-linear movement - moving ‘toward’ if not always ‘forward.’" Meredith's few but fervent admirers will be delighted to hear of this new study. Finally, we were delighted to hear from the NGC (National Gallery of Canada): one of Simon's images will be included, for comparative purposes, in their new catalogue of historical drawings, funded by the Getty Foundation. They also offered us some helpful information about Sheldon-Williams, which could hardly have come at a better time.
August 2024
ugust proved to be a busy month on the Victorian Web. For one thing, it saw our first live event! On 15 August our Managing Editor, Diane Josefowicz, donned her cap as Science and Technology Editor to talk with technology expert (and one of our website's Foundation Board members) Noah Landow, on "Embracing Complexity: Lessons from the Victorians." The event has passed now, but we hope it will be the first of many.
Do check out our recommended podcasts, too, a list assembled and maintained by our History Editor, Dory Agazarian. Then there are the latest conference announcements. One of the new calls for papers truly underlines the scope of our project: the National Syn Yat-Sen University, Taiwan, plans a collection of essays on Victorians and Victorian Literature Abroad. The suggested topics sound so appealing ("Readers are lured to travel to the 'Victorian' world and to consider the numerous encounters with 'abroad'"): as usual, we would welcome abstracts when available.
JB's own work illustrates the range of the subject. She spent some time on Franz Xaver Winterhalter, whose iconic paintings of Queen Victoria and her family were previously included here without comment, simply for illustrative purposes. She also transcribed a magazine article on how this artist coped with one of the most bizarre fashion crazes of the time: the crinoline. Revising the two galleries of portraits (paintings and sculptures) of Victoria, showing the sad change from winsome young princess to elderly monarch, reminded JB of how Kathryn Hughes dealt with this change in Victorians Undone: she added her review of this well-received book to the dedicated Victorianism section. Another task was to update Patrick Leary's extremely useful list of links to Open Access periodicals published during the Victorian period. Many thanks to Patrick for sharing this with us in the first place. JB also added some new examples of the work of artist George Price Boyce, like At Binsey, near Oxford and A Girl by a Beech Tree in a Landscape.
Luckily, while preparing for her talk DJ has still found time for some housekeeping work on the website, and has also added a very informative contemporary account of a visit to William Morris's Merton Abbey works by the American poet, Emma Lazarus. The original illustrations are included, as is Morris's letter to Lazarus expressing his views as an employer — fascinating stuff!
New from our Senior Editor, Simon Cooke, a review of Anne Woolley's recently reissued The Poems of Elizabeth Siddal in Context, a must-read for anyone interested in the Pre-Raphaelite "sisters." Simon also added some wonderful book-bindings, including this astonishing design by Charles Brock for Gulliver's Travels, which manages to be bold, dramatic, and exquisitely detailed all at once. At the end of the month, Simon wrote a new essay on Charles Edmund Brock as a illustrator, stressing the variety in his work, which went beyond depictions of Elizabeth Gaskell's genteel Cranford to (for example) this dynamic scene in Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho!
Philip Allingham has now completed his sequence of illustrations for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: did you realise that following his commentaries is a brilliant way of navigating the twists and turns of the plot? Here, for example, is Marian Halcombe braving the elements to eavesdrop on the machinations of Sir Percival Glyde and Count Fosco.... and making herself ill in the process.
The most substantial contribution this month has been a whole new section on the artist Daniel Alexander Williamson, who, like so many others, was much influenced by Pre-Raphaelitism in earlier works like Winter Evening — Cows Going Home), but developed a looser, more impressionistic style later on, as illustrated by his watercolour Study of Trees. Perhaps even more special, Dennis has contributed his commentary on a newly re-discovered painting by Michael Frederick Halliday, Roma Vivente é Roma Morta (Living Rome and Dead Rome). Can we boast about being at the cutting edge of art history here?
Thanks to Shirley Nicholson, we also have new sections on the artistic Montalba sisters: Clara, Ellen and Hilda, three of the most admired women artists of their time, and their younger sister Henrietta, who made a great name for herself as a sculptor, before her early death in Venice. Some of the sisters' work features in the current Now You See Us exhibition at the Tate, where, for example, Henrietta's Venetian Boy Catching a Crab can be "seen" right now. Shirley also contributed a short piece on the studio houses on Holland Park Road, built round a courtyard on the old Holland House estate, where artists like Henrietta Rae and (after her) Phil May once lived.
Still in the visual arts section, we were delighted to learn of Laurent Bury's visit to Wightwick Manor. Laurent's photographs, together with some by Philip Pankhurst, helped to make an entry (at last) for Edward Ould's wonderful Arts and Crafts house, fitted out by Morris & Co, C.E. Kempe, William De Morgan and others, and housing an amazing collection of Pre-Raphaelite and later work.
Holidays can bring special benefits to our website, as contributors visit new places. Tim Willasey-Wilsey sent in a fine assortment of photographs from his travels: Robert Stevenson's Girdle Ness Lighthouse at Aberdeen Harbour, Charles Bell Birch's statue of Queen Victoria in the middle of Aberdeen, and a plaque to a Crimean War hero, Trooper Pearson in Penrith, Cumbria — all have their stories; all help to bring the past to life again. More to follow here!
Something quite different: we were so pleased to be able to reproduce here Suzanne Keen's essay, "'Altruism' Makes a Space for Empathy, 1852". This perceptive and wide-ranging discussion has a bearing on the work of so many authors as well as scientists and thinkers of the time, and, of course, the subject is of major interest today.
What drove Thomas Hardy's own personal "return of the native" — that is, his return to writing poetry, the genre that was his first and real love? This is the subject of an essay by Amitav Banerjee. Ezra Pound's words, quoted here, seem so prophetic now: "When we ... come to estimate the 'poetry of the period,' against Hardy's '600 pages' we will put what?"
The novelist Alan Halliday has again been kind enough to write a review for us, this time of Cynthia Gamble's new book, Marie Nordlinger, la muse anglaise de Marcel Proust. The story of how Marie helped the non-English speaking Proust to translate Ruskin into French is a truly fascinating one, and Alan's enthusiasm about it is both understandable (we've just heard that the book has been short-listed for a prize, Le prix du Cercle littéraire proustien) and infectious!
Another of the very welcome contributions this month comes from the multi-talented African American, Beverly Andrews. Entitled "Black Voices from the Past," her piece brings together the poet Phillis Wheatley, the artist's model Fanny Eaton, and the sculptor Edmonia Lewis — an example of whose work is currently on show at the Tate's highly successful Now You See Us exhibition. These figures not only made a stronger impact on their contemporaries than we might have realised, but, as Beverly suggests, can still inspire us (no matter our individual heritage) today.
Correspondence: We were so pleased to get permission from Auktionshaus "Rotherbaum" OHG to reproduce their image of one of Henry Alexander Bowler's most evocative paintings, Evening at Stirling. This joins the long list of auction houses allowing us to use such images. Halls Fine Art in Shrewsbury has also been generous in this respect. This is a wonderful help when discussing works that have since disappeared into private collections.
July 2024
uly begins with the usual reminder about upcoming conferences and calls for papers, the scope of which never ceases to amaze. The topics they suggest range from the founding of mechanics institutes to maritime globalization. There is truly something for everyone in these scholarly co-operations. Be inspired!
At the end of last month, JB wrote a review of Amy Milne-Smith's Out of His Mind: Masculinity and Mental Illness in Victorian Britain, and transcribed an account of the criminal asylum at Broadmoor from the Illustrated London News of August 1867. She also opened a new section on Burmantofts ceramics, introducing it and giving some examples of the firm's work. Shirley Nicholson sent in a photograph of one of their productions, a particularly elegant pair of candlesticks at Sambourne House. A big thank you to both Shirley and the museum for their contributions here. Another review followed, again in the visual arts section, of Victorian Artists and Their World, 1844-1861, as Reflected in the Papers of Joanna and George Boyce and Henry Wells, edited by Katie J.T. Herrington. Since it has an important essay by Pamela Gerrish Nunn, who often writes for us, we had been eagerly awaiting this one: our expectations of it were happily fulfilled!
Diane Josefowicz, our Managing Editor, is continuing her updating of our large Ruskin section, and currently going through Elizabeh Helsinger's Ruskin and the Art of the Beholder. Chapter 6 starts with Charlotte Brontë's well-known comment on Modern Painters, "This book seems to give me eyes." It is still true today, and Diane's work in this section is invaluable for new generations of readers.
After a trip to America, our Senior Editor Simon Cooke sent in some photographs, taken by his son Laurence, of St Patrick's Cathedral in New York, a grand Gothic Revival edifice in the very heart of the Big Apple. The architect, James Renwick, had been influenced in his choice of style by A.W.N. Pugin, among others: it is amazing how far one man's influence can spread. Simon followed this up with two new essays on A Christmas Carol: "Bad or Mad? A Speculative Interpretation of Scrooge’s Mental Illness", and the intriguingly entitled, "Scrooge's Significant Hands". Summer has finally arrived here, but Dickens's Christmas Books are never out of season.
July also sees the start of Philip Allingham's latest project in the illustration section: our Contributing Editor for Canada has chose to explore his fellow-countryman John McLenan's illustrations of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White. Here is the title character herself in the frontispiece to the 1902 edition. Walter Hartright instinctively grips his stick on their first encounter....
Do you like to have a flutter now and then? Many Victorians liked nothing better. In fact, they were apt to like it far too much. Our Contributing Editor for Poland, Andrzej Diniejko has completed a comprehensive introduction to gambling in the Regency onwards, looking at the ways in which the different classes indulged in it, the various attempts to curb it, and its role in a surprising number of the period's major novels, from Thackeray's Vanity Fair to George Eliot's Daniel Deronda.
Victorian novelists explored the variety of other unsavoury ways in which the greed for money operated. Our editor for Gender matters, Jo Devereux, discusses Jennifer MacLure's thought-provoking The Feeling of Letting Die: Necroeconomics and Victorian Fiction, in a review that shows these novelists examining the dark side of capitalism, from Malthusian disregard for life to colonial exploitation. Unfortunately, the issues here remain all too relevant.
Dennis Lanigan lifts the spirits by continuing his crusade to enrich our section on Pre-Raphaelite painting. This month he discusses the work of William Maw Egley: this artist's Omnibus Life in London is well-known, but less familiar is his version of the ubiquitous Lady of Shalott, and other works that strike us now as quintessentially Victorian, and worth the same sort of recognition. Henry Alexander Bowler is another artist whose association with the Pre-Raphaelites produced at least one work that was admired at the time: The Doubt: "Can These Dry Bones Live?", but others too, like Luccombe Chine, Isle of Wight that merit attention.
We're also happy to announce another new addition in the architecture section: Kenneth Lynn's thorough review of James Stevens Curl's English Victorian Churches: Architecture, Faith, & Revival Victorian Churches, probably the single most helpful guidebook for any would-be church-crawler. With his usual vigour, Curl encompasses the whole background and variety of church-building in a period when some of the finest architects of the day helped change the landscape of our towns and villages alike.
We're pleased, too, to have the inveterate gallery-goer Laurent Bury's latest reviews. First came a review of Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920 at Tate Britain, and its accompanying book: the exhibition lasts till 13 October, so don't miss it! Then, Laurent reviewed the catalogue of the current Victorian Radicals exhibition, running in Birmingham until 31 October this year. Laurent finds that the book addresses some of issues that Simon raised when he visited the show in February. Whether or not you can get to Birmingham, the catalogue would seem to be well worth acquiring.
Correspondence: Ron Neatby has sent in some scans of photographs, paintings and other artwork by his great-grandfather, W.J. Neatby, as well as a contemporary tribute to this wonderfully versatile and modest late-Victorian designer — a wonderful addition to our section on him. The little wooden box he made for his son is one of the most touching items. These are all available online now, and can be accessed from this opening page.
Many thanks to our good friend Patrick Leary, for pointing out a wrong date in the source of an article on the cartoonist, Phil May. Apart from anything else, it was a pleasure to reread this illustrated discussion of a favourite cartoonist.
Thanks also to Thomas Flemming for spotting an unfortunate typo in an index. All typos are unfortunate, but some are more unfortunate than others! Please do report them when you see them!!
June 2024
une — and just in case you're still planning your holidays, or haven't quite decided yet where to go, here is a tempting possibility. Take a look at Dennis T. Lanigan's review of Preraffaelliti Rinascimento Moderno [Pre-Raphaelites Modern Renaissance] at the San Domenico Museum in Italy from February 24-June 30, 2024. It sounds fabulous. The review has plenty of installation shots so if you can't manage a trip by the end of the month, you can fit in a virtual visit. Highly recommended! More new virtual experiences are on offer in our podcast list: our History Editor, Dory Agazarian, has added three which all sound fascinating.
There are new conferences and calls for papers, too. Click on this link for the latest news about them. Too late now for our last-minute alert: the keynotes of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals' annual conference (June 13-15), in Stirling, Scotland, were free to join via Microsoft Teams. Don't miss anything else: check here!
Looking east this time, Jackie Banerjee added a review article of two recent books, which both demonstrate and cater for the widening horizons of the Victorian period: Asian Classics on the Victorian Bookshelf: Flights of Translation, by Alexander Bubb, and Words in Collision: Multilingualism in English-Language Fiction, by Michael L. Ross. She also added a revealing "Parliamentary Portrait" of the young Disraeli from the Illustrated London News of 1844, and some extra material on St James's Palace, London, where a young Victoria danced the night away at her birthday ball in 1833, and was not just amused but (as she wrote in her journal) "very much amused."
At Shirley Nicholson's urging, JB also did some research on the very first teacher-training college, St Mark's in Chelsea, and found a report on the original buildings for it, including the chapel (an essential part of the foundation). This led to a new entry for the architect Henry Clutton. Looking through old journals, JB came across another informative account, this time of Jessie Marion King's Glasgow-style work, and put this online as well, together with its illustrations. George Landow had already downloaded a few of these: it was a special pleasure to complete what was evidently one of his last pieces of work-in-progress.
Similarly, JB extended a brief list of Victorian autobiographies that George had once assembled, adding more titles, including some by artists, architects etc, and providing short annotations. The inspiration for this came from a query on the Victoria list of scholarly exchanges run by Patrick Leary. It's a great pleasure to participate in this friendly and collaborative project.
Philip Allingham, our Contribtuing Editor from Canada, continues to revise some of his very earliest work on the website, and fill in some gaps, mainly on the illustrations for Dickens's Christmas stories (and their stage adaptations), but for some other pieces too. For example, he updated John Leech's illustrations for Douglas Jerrold's Mrs Caudle's Curtain Lectures. Here are the Caudles on a pleasure boat, with Mr Caudle annoyng the missus by smoking and having a brandy on deck, while she gets blown about in the wind.... Philip also added to our section on the Leeds-born architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury, with an account and photos of the much-admired Court House, in Nelson, British Columbia.
After his visit to Italy, Dennis T. Lanigan came up with another artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, the memorably named William Shakespeare Burton. Burton's best-known painting was The Wounded Cavalier, and Dennis has written at length about this striking and in some ways very intriguing work, but Burton's other paintings and illustrations are also memorable. This artist's second wife was the novelist, M. E. Burton — something we definitely plan to follow up.
Now here's a question: did you know that in Dracula, Bram Stoker switches narrators over ninety times? Many thanks to Review 19 for sharing with us Tobias Wilson-Bates's informative review of Alexandra Valint's Narrative Bonds: Multiple Narrators in the Victorian Novel.
Thanks also to Shirley Nicholson, who not only points to gaps in our coverage, but has been continuing to proofread for us, focusing currently on the illustrations of Gustave Doré. Another question: how have we managed (sometimes, not always!) to get the accent on his name the wrong way round??! Scott Buckle, who proofreads in the painting section, has also very kindly sent in corrections, noting typos, discrepancies and broken links. If you notice such slips, please do write in.
Correspondence: Thank you to Kim Embrey, an ex-student of our founder and late and original Editor-in-Chief, George Landow, for correcting a reference to the Illustrated London News on a page about the opium trade. It's been a whole year now since George passed away (on 31 May 2023), but we feel his presence here on the website every single day, and hope he's smiling down on us as we continue his good work.
We were also pleased to hear from Tom Andrews of Toronto, with some extra information about the architects of Holy Trinity, Northwood, Hillingdon; and Hristo Boev, who wrote to say that a version of one of his articles on the website ("De-territorialisation and Re-territorialisation in Little Nell’s Death-bed Scene — Deconstructing Little Nell") will soon be published in print.
May 2024
ay starts with some announcements: the first to come in is about the Pre-Raphaelite Society's visit to Madresfield Court, Malvern, in June. Availability is rather limited, so if you'd like to take advantage of this rare opportunity (and to find out more about it), do click now on the link above. Big news for our own project now: allow us to introduce Matthew Pontefract. A brilliant technological adviser, Matthew has kindly accepted the invitation to join our Foundation Board. Matthew is just the person we need to guide our long-established website into the future without sacrificing any of its distinctive features.
JB was very pleased to find new images of Thomas Woolner's Puck available on Art UK, and a self-portrait of the young Rossetti on the National Portrait Gallery's site (both helpful for illustrating new contributions). She also introduced a new section on Henry Clutton, associated with some of the biggest names in Victorian architecture. This prompted her to include two items about his spectacular Minley Manor (the second, to be fair, on the later Victorian work on it). She also added accounts of two other great country estates he worked on, Cliveden in Buckinghamshire and Shuttleworth House in Bedfordshire.
Diane Josefowicz, our Managing Editor, has continued her widespread updating of older documents, especially in the Ruskin section. Brief mentions like this do no justice to the time-consuming work involved.
Inspired by something much more recent, last month's spectacular solar eclipse, our history editor Dory Agazarian has added a new podcast to our list of recommended episodes, and discusses one in the Lost Women of Science series, in which Katie Hafner and Samia Bouzid remind us of how (in 1898!) the Irish-born astronomer Annie Maunder (1868-1947) captured an unprecedented photographic image — the longest coronal streamer that had ever been documented in the sky.
Meanwhile, back on earth, Philip Allingham, our Contributing Editor for Canada, has completed the updating his own much earlier work on Phiz's illustrations for Pickwick Papers, adding more recent insights, in (for example) this piece entitled From Caricatural Comedy to Antiquarian Realism in the Interpolated Tales," and an interesting note about the illustrator "Phiz" and his assistant, Robert Young. Philip's illustrations for the serialisation of Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, done by different hands, have now undergone the same treatment. Hubert von Herkomer's unflinching portrayal of Alec D'Urberville on his deathbed is all too memorable. The Hardy section has links to the revised list and three galleries (starting here) of these illustrations.
Also for Hardy enthusiasts, A. Banerjee spotted that the text of Hardy's short poem, "Neutral Tones," had been included here with questions for discussion, but no accompanying commentary. He duly provided one, which might also spark discussion — can we really take something positive away from it?
Once again, Dennis T. Lanigan has made an important contribution to the Pre-Raphaelite section, this time writing about the sculptors associated with the movement. He has extended his essay on the intriguing question, "What Is Pre-Raphaelite Sculpture?" (and answering it, too), providing new biographies of two of the sculptors associated with the movement — John Lucas Tupper and John Hancock. He has also revised and earlier entries on their work, and added new examples, such as Hancock's Penserosa in Mansion House. Wonderful additions.
Back in the architecture section, Shirley Nicholson worked with photos from our contributing photographer, John Salmon, to write about the Roman Catholic church of St Francis of Assisi in Notting Hill. It was one of the many churches that Henry Clutton designed, but its internal decoration was by J.F. Bentley, and this gave a taste of what was to come from this young architect, who was just setting out on the path that would lead to his major commission — the designing of Westminster Cathedral. Shirley went on to review Gordon Vowles's recent and very useful biography of Henry Clutton.
Most welcome too is Kenneth Lynn's appreciative review of George Edmund Street, the definitive work on this other important Victorian architect. The well-known and much-missed architectural historian Geoff Brandwood completed this book before his untimely death, and it was edited for publication Peter Howell and Peter C. W. Taylor.
A new contributor, Michael Gold, has also made a wonderful (and spooky!) addition to the website, this time to our genre section. Entitled "The Fiend Breaks Loose: 'Shadows,' Doubles and Demons in London-based Fiction of the Late Nineteenth-century," this is one of our full-length peer-reviewed articles, and it will be of great interest to scholars interested in Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde and Arthur Machen, and the later Victorian period generally. We hope for more contributions from this quarter.
Sarah Malton has kindly shared with us her perceptive review of Aviva Briefel's The Deceivers: Art Forgery and Identity in the Nineteenth Century, a brilliant addition to our new and growing crime and fraud section (did you not know that this was forgery's "golden age"?!). Such were the tentacles of this kind of fraud that Diane Josefowicz, who formatted this piece, found herself having to make links to several other sections.
We're delighted, as well, to see the French section on Tissot growing, with the addition of Lucy Paquette's "En vacances avec James Tissot et Kathleen Newton," translated by Sabrina Laurent. Sabrina's translations of commentaries on the paintings are now coming in too.
Thank you to Scott Buckle and Shirley Nicholson, who have both proofread much of this new work.
Correspondence: Many thanks to Chris Dawes who wrote in to correct and enlarge upon the image captions for 50 Glebe Place in London, with its associations with Charles Rennie Macintosh and Derwent Wood. Our correspondence led to a very interesting new commentary on the building. With his curiosity and perseverance, Chris may be our ideal reader! We also engaged in a very interesting correspondence about the provenance of this as yet uncatalogued bust of Angela Burdett-Coutts, to which Joanna Barnes of the PSSA (Public Statues and Sculpture Association) has contributed very helpfully. We have not reached a conclusion yet, so please do write in if you have any knowledge of it!
April 2024
pril brought the very sad news, conveyed by our Senior Editor, Simon Cooke, that one of our contributors has passed away after a long illness. Professor Paul Goldman was the leading expert in the field of mid-Victorian illustration. For many years he was an Assistant Keeper of Prints at the British Museum and was widely published. His books on "The Sixties" re-established interest in the subject, and he also wrote some hundreds of articles and reviews, along with his contributions to our website (indeed, he had only just sent in a new review, of Betty Elzea's long-awaited biography of the artist Frederick Sandys), as well as catalogues for exhibitions and entries for reference books. In the latter part of his career he became an honorary professor at Cardiff University and taught courses in the history of the book at the University of London. Much admired, he will be much missed. It was kind of Simon to let us know, and to send in this brief obituary.
Turning, as we must, to the month's other contributions: the first of these were by Dennis T. Lanigan, who made some valuable additions to our coverage of the Pre-Raphaelite and Orientalist painter, Thomas Seddon, with discussions of such memorable works as The Great Sphinx at the Pyramids of Gizeh and A Halted Caravan on the Borders of the Egyptian Desert, as well as more details about Seddon's tragically short life. This led to the considerable expansion of our list of Orientalists — those artists who took on the challenge of travelling to the East, and presenting their interpretations of it to the public at home. Seddon, sadly, died in Cairo on his second visit there.
Working with Sarah Colegrave of Sarah Colegrave Fine Art, Dennis also added information and another Orientalist painting by John Fulleylove: Jerusalem – South Wall of the Temple Area, from the Valley of Hinnom, at Sunset. JB did a little to help the project by including two fine Orientalist portraits by Sir David Wilkie, one of Abd-ul-Mejid (1823-1861), Sultan of Turkey. Wilkie was as unlucky as Seddon: his burial at sea, on the return voyage, was movingly evoked by Turner (not a new contribution to our site, but it comes to mind here). Special thanks to Scott Buckle for proof-reading and making helpful comments on the whole section on Thomas Seddon, including the older work on the artist. We greatly welcome this kind of help.
Next, JB completed work on something entirely different: Birkenhead Park on the Wirral, the very first publicly-funded public park, and a splendid reminder of the genius of Joseph Paxton — also of the importance of Edward Kemp, the park superintendent and author of highly influential books about garden and park planning.
JB's later work this month included two projects inspired by Shirley Nicholson. The first was on the late-Victorian designer, W. J. Neatby. Shirley sent in photographs of a set of three watercolours by him. One, a vignette of a young woman with flowers in her hair, framed as if in a hand-held looking-glass, is particularly attractive, but all are intriguing and so much of their time. Another photograph followed, this time of a watercolour by the Devonshire artist, Frederick Widgery, and this led to a whole trail of work on this artist (quite new to us), his prolific father William (also new to us) and indeed our whole section on Devon. It's been the next best thing to taking a trip there!
Our Managing Editor, Diane Josefowicz, has been pitching in with improvements to our large Ruskin section, and has also brought in (reformatting it from James Heffernan's Review 19) Richard Sylvia's very substantial review of Trish Ferguson's Thomas Hardy's Legal Fictions. This makes a valuable addition to our new section on fraud, to which Sara Malton has now contributed, again via Diane, a useful and comprehensive bibliography. Diane also spent a good deal of time updating older work in the Hardy section.
Over in the illustrations section, Simon provided a fine introduction to the work of Georgina Bowers, to which he then added a shorter essay on her book-cover designs. This artist had a remarkable talent for depicting horses, as well as a great sense of humour, and a keen British eye for the weather — all these help to make both her illustrations and cover-designs very distinctive.
Our design section also benefitted when Simon forwarded some photographs of William Burges's furniture, kindly contributed by the Higgins Art Gallery and Museum, Bedford. JB enjoyed introducing these, especially the typically quirky Narcissus Wash Stand. More of these unique Burges items at the Higgins followed.
Revisions, new sharper scans and updates continue to come in from our Contributing Editor for Canada, Philip Allingham, who has turned back to an old favourite — Phiz, and his illustrations for the Pickwick Papers. Under individual illustrations are a number of notes of more general interest (duly cross-referenced so that they can be reached by readers from other parts of the website) such as this account of gasolier lighting. Philip, like Diane, has been working on the section on Thomas Hardy, especially on his short stories. Here, for example, he introduces "The Three Strangers".
Now for something much more up-to-date: our new series of recommended podcasts. Dory Agazarian, our history editor, has added a discussion of one of English Heritage's weekly podcasts, "How the Victorians Invented the Great British Beach Holiday." If you have time (it's only 31 minutes), you might be tempted to listen to it. This will tide you over until our own series starts!
Meanwhile, Shirley Nicholson (already mentioned above), visited and reviewed the new exhibition, Out Shopping: The dresses of Marion and Maud Sambourne (1880-1910), at Leighton House and Sambourne House. What wonderful reminders of a past era! This runs until 20 October 2024, and provides an extra incentive to visit both of these amazingly well-preserved and inviting houses. Later Shirley added an example of embroidery at the exhibition, a peacock-design cushion, so typical of its turn-of-the-century era. Shirley continues to proofread for us, her suggestions leading to a big improvement of our entry on Knightshayes and the nearby Lace Factory in Tiverton.
Another new item this month came from Margi Tucker DeTemple, Historic Preservation Officer of Harcum College, PA, and wife of the College's President, who wrote in about a stained glass window in her church by Henry Holiday: Christ Instructing the Disciples. What a pleasure to see this, especially at a time when Holiday's work in America is coming to prominence at last.
As usual, don't forget to check out the conference notifications and calls for papers: you might be inspired by the one just added by our editorial assistant, Nigel Finch, inviting submissions for a Special issue of Global Nineteenth-Century Studies.
Just out of interest, our site now has 131,048 documents and images, as against 127,464 documents and images this time last year. Many older images have been replaced with sharper scans (in the illustration section, thanks to Philip) or colour versions (in the paintings section, often thanks to Dennis Lanigan, as copyright restrictions have eased). Some tiny images which dated from the very earliest years of the website have simply been deleted.
Correspondence: In connection with last month's work by Philip, Dickens scholar Sean Grass has commented on Thomas Onwhyn's rendering of the Chancery Prisoner in Pickwick Papers, seeing it as a foreshadowing of a scene in Bleak House (see Sean's note on the commentary in question). Many thanks for that, and thanks too to Michael Riley from the Isle of Wight, for sending in an update on Ryde Pier, brilliantly restored and improved by the firm of Knights Brown. Andy Scott wrote in to point out that we credited a stained glass window to a different designer from the one cited in Wikipedia. Fortunately, the designer himself had written about the window in a periodical, so it was easy to show that our attribution was the correct one.
March 2024
arch has blown in again, more like a mouse than a lion, but carrying with it the first hints of spring, more calls for papers and conference announcements (added by our editorial assistant, Nigel Finch), and a whole range of new work.
One phenomenon of Victorian life was the growth of the suburbs. JB takes a look at this in a short piece, "Dickens on the Margins: Exploring the New Suburbia." In that connection she also added some of Weedon Grossmith's brilliant illustrations to our existing introduction to The Diary of a Nobody. One illustration shows the suburban Pooters dancing with glee after receiving an invitation to the Lord Mayor's Ball — such an honour, but their pride will be dented when they find out who else has been asked! In the painting section, she added William Michael Rossetti's account of the Pre-Raphaelite artist James Collinson, and opened a new section for his contemporary, Robert Collinson, to accommodate an item originally found by George Landow: Ordered on Foreign Service. This could now be shown with its later, larger version. Robert Collinson's carte-de-visite, from the photographic studio of Cecil William Wood, provided more material for our now quite large photography section.
Something that would also have pleased George: JB came across and formatted a contemporary account of the opening of the branch railway line from Brighton to Lewes, complete with illustrations of the mighty Brighton (or London Road) Viaduct, a skew bridge over the turnpike to Lewes, etc. All done in 10 months! JB also added accounts of the line's engineer, John Urpeth Rastrick, and some of his other work, including the early, graceful Chepstow Bridge — as well as his huge granite monument, in the style of a railway turntable.
As usual, our Managing Editor Diane Josefowicz has been busy on site-wide matters, and Diane and our History Editor, Dory Agazarian, have worked together to compile their list of recommended Podcasts of Interest to Victorianists. Do have a look: we will be making our own soon, but this is a great start. Diane also added a review by Sara Malton, of Karin Koehler's Thomas Hardy and Victorian Communication: Letters, Telegrams and Postal Systems, which ties in so well with our other material in this area.
Via our Senior Editor, Simon Cooke, Ed Smith kindly sent in an obituary of William Philip Nimmo, to add to our knowledge of Scottish publishers — we already had a splendid example of the kind of books he published, but without any information about him. Simon himself is completing his work on the illustrator Georgina Bowers: we're looking forward to that!
Philip Allingham, our Contributing Editor from Canada, has finished his series of illustrations of Pickwick Papers by the less well-known illustrator Thomas Onwhyn, providing a biography (helped by the archival research of Graham D.C. Titley, who had, in turn, drawn on Philip's work — a pleasant example of scholarly collaboration). Philip then found a cache of new illustrations of the novel by Harry Furniss, supplementing those we already have. Some are very lively indeed — for example, here's Bob Sawyer having a high old time on a carriage roof! Philip is rescanning and adding new insights to his earlier material, some of it dating from almost the beginning of the website in the early twentieth century. Yes, we are ancient, and technology has improved by leaps and bounds during the last twenty or so years. Just look at the wonderful detail in this gathering, depicted by the illustrator Robert Barnes, in The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Further to last month's work on Frank Cadogan Cowper's early drawings, Scott Buckle sent in a brief biography of the artist, and this was followed by Dennis Lanigan's whole new series of essays on another unjustly neglected Pre-Raphaelite artist, James Collinson (yes, this is what drew JB to this part of the website). Much of James Collinson's work perfectly captures the social history of the period, including the great boom in the housing market: one of his most popular paintings was (and is) To Let. But this Collinson's paintings have a greater range than perhaps realised. Here for example is a soldier returning, blinded, from the Crimean War (Home Again); and here is a timeless etching, The Child Jesus.
One challenging task this month has been to improve the list of Pre-Raphaelite artists, acknowledging not only the main "Pre-Raphaelite sisters," but the many artists who went through important Pre-Raphaelite phases. Please take a look and see who might still be missing!
The latest article from the government-funded University of Victoria's Pregnancy Project is in too: Hilary Marland's Puerperal Insanity, a diagnosis still being made in the 1930s — having by then played its part in social change by dramatically challenging the Victorian ideal of "The Angel on the Hearth." This is the last of the fifteen articles in this funded project, but our general maternity section is, of course, always open to well-informed contributions, whether academic papers as such, or selected and annotated material from contemporary sources. All will be assessed (we have a robust peer-reviewing system).
Also enlightening, but in quite a different way, is Laurent Bury's latest review, this time of Patricia Smyth's Paul Delaroche: Painting and Popular Spectacle. The French artist's best known work is probably The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, which hangs in the National Gallery. This and other works, like The Christian Martyr (a forerunner of Millais's Ophelia), greatly influenced British art in the mid- to late-Victorian period.
Elsewhere, we now have Catriona Blaker's informative review of Gillian Grute's Heavenly Embroidery, with its spectacular illustrations of the work of the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus, a wonderful addition to our embroidery section.
Meanwhile, over in the French section.... We were delighted to receive Sabrina Laurent's translation of the artist James Tissot's detailed chronology. What an interesting life-story it reveals (thank you again, Lucy Paquette for the original!).
February 2024
ebruary arrived with a rush of new notifications and submissions. Do check conferences and calls for papers, because the deadlines pass so quickly. Here's one on a topic most of us feel strongly about, one way or another: "The Museum will not be Decolonised" — and the deadline is at the end of this month. So don't miss the chance to have your say. Our Senior Editor, Simon Cooke, selected and reformatted for us two new contributions from the Pre-Raphaelite Society's journal: Rober Wilkes's "F. G. Stephens’s The Proposal: A Neglected Pre-Raphaelite Painting"; and "Three Early Drawings by Frank Cadogan Cowper," by Scott Thomas Buckle. Don't forget to check out the Society's page for upcoming talks (though this month's is already over!).
At the end of last month JB opened a new section on the architectural practice of Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards. We already had some of their landmark buildings, like the imposing Cardiff City Hall. This was to introduce and give space to a new contribution: Kenneth Lynn's very informative and enjoyable review of Timothy Brittain-Catlin's book, Edwin Rickards. JB also added a variety of new items needed to help illustrate all the new work added this month (see below). One example (with help from Scott Buckle) is Edward Burne-Jones's interesting early watercolour, Sidonia von Bork 1560. Later, she put online her own review of Clare Carlisle's enjoyable, widely praised book on The Marriage Question: George Eliot's Double Life. This led in turn to the creation of a small gallery of photos, paintings and illustrations of Eliot and her work.
Along with her contributions to the managing of the website, Diane Josefowicz has found time for a searching review of Gretchen Braun's Narrating Trauma: Victorian Novels and Modern Stress Disorders — a review which includes a spirited discussion of Gwendolen Harleth in George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. Diane also put online the latest contribution to the University of Victoria's Pregnancy and Childbirth project, Kristen Kalsem's article on the tragedy of Infanticide, considered from both legal and cultural perspectives. Next up, from Diane and our history editor Dory Agazarian working together, some news about podcasts... Coming shortly!
As a change from book design and illustration, our Senior Editor Simon Cooke contributed a really original and chilling essay on Sheridan Le Fanu's use of spooky sound effects — quite a challenge to write about and spooky to read, too! With the help of a budding photographer in the family, Timothy Cooke, he also sent in three very delightful Parian ware busts, of a rather grim Thackeray, Tennyson and an unusually sage-like Dickens. These were followed by a (generally!) enthusiastic review of the new show at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, "Radical Victorians: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement"(on now until 31 October 2024).
Hard at work as ever, our contributing editor in Canada, Philip Allingham, has very much enjoyed Robert L. Patten's Dickens, Death and Christmas, supplementing his review with a more detailed look at Patten's discussion of A Christmas Carol itself. Could there possibly be anything new to say about this seasonal staple? Apparently, there could! Philip followed this up with a few brief but very illuminating excerpts from Dickens, Death and Christmas, such as this one on the role of pantomime in The Cricket on the Hearth. Philip has also nearly finished a series on a new Dickens illustrator: Thomas Onwhyn. Dickens himself was not a fan, but that doesn't mean Onwhyn should be overlooked. Take a peek at this dramatic Pickwick frontispiece.
Meanwhile, lots happening in the painting section. Moving straight on from his authoritative study of the St John's Wood Clique, Dennis T. Lanigan has teamed up with fellow art historian, Scott Thomas Buckle: together they bring Ford Madox Brown's good friend, the artist William Cave Thomas, into the Pre-Raphaelite fold. Paintings like Eliezer offering the earring and bracelets to Rebekah show how much Thomas contributed to the movement, and how richly he deserves a place of his own in art history.
We are really lucky to have well-known art historians writing for us, introducing new artists, and reviewing books and exhibitions: Pamela Gerrish Nunn's latest is a review of another trail-blazing book, Discovering Women Sculptors, edited by Marjorie Trusted and Joanna Barnes.
Equally welcome are Shirley Nicholson's contributions. The first is a long overdue addition to our "Victorian master builders" section, on the well-known building magnate Sir Charles James Freake. Freake was the subject of a Vanity Fair caricature and a marvellous cartoon by Linley Sambourne in Punch. His was surely the ultimate story of the self-made man, elevated to a baronetcy without having lost his cockney accent (which, it is said, his higher class wife lovingly adopted). Shirley's next contribution was an account of the Punch cartoonist, Bernard Partridge, who exercised his talents on the stage as well as on the drawing board. It's such a pleasure to see the website growing with the inclusion of such characters. And more recently Shirley has written an entertaining piece about Punch's convivial "Mahogany Tree" (great wooden table), as drawn by Linley Sambourne, complete with dinner guests past and present, on the occasion of the magazine's Jubilee in 1891. The past attendees are represented by portraits and busts, by the way, not ghosts!
Also very welcome indeed are a series of new excerpts from the writings of Eneas Dallas. These were selected and largely (expertly) formatted by a new contributor, Graham Law, and range from a discussion of Florence Nightingale's ideas about nursing, to insights into George Eliot's Silas Marner. The variety of topics is simply amazing, as is the variety of publications to which Dallas contributed — indicating the flood of periodicals that appeared at this time (we hope to run a review of Graham's major scholarly study soon, on The Periodical Press Revolution: E. S. Dallas and the Nineteenth-Century British Media System).
We're delighted to say, too, that Sabrina Laurent has started translating a new section into French — on James Tissot. There are two essays so far, on his life and the collectors and dealers who bought his work (fascinating topic!). At present his work appears to be more popular in England than in France, and we hope this will help to inspire more interest in him among French readers.
Thanks as usual to Shirley Nicholson and Ray Dyer for their excellent proofreading services.
January 2024
anuary brings a fresh start, and we wish everyone reading this a very happy and productive New Year.
Now the holiday is over, and the new tax season looms, you might like to check out our new donation and bequest information. All contributions gratefully received! They're tax deductible, and there are some great ways of helping us that you might not have thought of. We do want to update and improve the site, a project we're already exploring.
Even if you missed Margaret D. Stetz's Zoom presentation, “What’s New in the Goblin Marketplace?” on 9 January, do take a look at Dennis T. Lanigan's review of The Rossettis, the exhibition it accompanied. Thanks to our editorial assistant Nigel Finch, you can also check out some new conference notices. Don't delay: some of the calls for papers have deadlines coming up later this month.
An Illustrated London News account of the highly successful Royal Navy Exhibition of 1891 sent JB off to our small "British Navy" section. In fact we have far more material on the navy than was previously listed there — it just comes up under different headings: ships, armaments, wars and empire, for example, not to mention in the art and literature sections. So now we have a more extensive opening page, as well as a brief introduction to the Royal Navy's very important role in national life; a look at its various flags and the meanings behind them; and a discussion of Nelson and the Victorians — a big topic, and in some ways a tricky one. Tim Willasey-Wilsey kindly stepped in again here, with some useful comments and suggestions. In this connection, John Flaxman's monument to Nelson at St Paul's puts in an appearance at last. More contributions to this section would be very welcome.
Our Managing Editor, Diane Josefowicz, has continued to track down broken links and older work that needs updating, with some welcome help in the history section from the editor of that section, Dory Agazarian, who is also researching podcast possibilities for us. Exciting developments on the way!
Philip Allingham has now completed his project on Phiz's illustrations for Charles Lever's The O'Donoghue. As always with Phiz, they feature some memorable horses, though this one (the local doctor's shaggy Irish pony) is far from a gallant steed. Philip has joined in the big drive to refresh old links, root out old work with out-of-date formatting, etc.
Congratulations to our Contributing Editor from Poland, Andrzej Diniejko, who has now successfully completed his life of Lord Byron, the first to be published in Poland for sixty years. For those of us who don't speak Polish, and so can't enjoy the open-access edition, Andrzej has kindly written a splendidly wide-ranging piece in English on Byron's literary afterlife in the Victorian period.
Also from Poland comes news of a ambitious new book, Literary Appropriations of Myth and Legend in the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Morris, Algernon Charles Swinburne and William Butler Yeats, by Ewa Młynarczyk (1982-2022). This was written as a doctoral thesis for the Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw, but, very sadly, Ewa died before she was able to defend it. The Institute has now published it, and we give a few extracts from the Preface and Introduction here: "Myth and Legend in Victorian Poetry"; [George Eliot's] "Casaubon, the Scholar-Mythologist"; and "William Morris and the Old Norse Legends." You can get details of the book (also available as a free e-book) at the end of each extract. This material inspired us to open a new section on Myth and Legends, where it was soon joined by an excellent piece of collaborative research by Thibault André-Terramorsi, Léo Grattarola and Mary-Anne Stanek of the Université Bordeaux-Montaigne: "The Arthurian Revival as an Answer to a Changing World, written for Professor Béatrice Laurent's seminar, "Myths and Icons in Victorian Britain."
Meanwhile, Dennis Lanigan has brought his project on the St John's Wood Clique of painters to a triumphant conclusion with a thorough consideration of the last important figure, John Evan Hodgson. Prominent enough in his own time (he became a professor of painting at the Royal Academy), Hodgson should be much better remembered than he is. In one amusing example of his orientalist painting, for instance, he depicts Chinese Ladies Looking at European Curiosities.
More seriously, Michael Statham sent in some new archival material on the statue of Florence Nightingale atop a wing of the Cardiff Royal Infirmary — this is an exciting find, as the statue has been recorded as "untraced" in other sources, and Mike hopes to publicise it. Also rather a rare find, this time from a new contributor, Brian Butterly, is John Sliegh's illustration for Eliza Cook's melancholy poem, "Dead Leaves."
Thanks as ever to Shirley Nicholson, who has just proofread the whole section on the sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey. It is cheering to find how much can now be added to some of the early entries. Shirley herself contributed more material on his background and also the Chantrey Bequest, through which he continues to influence the art world today: Sir Francis Chantrey: From Norton to the Nation. Ray Dyer also kindly continues to proofread. Please send in your corrections, too, if you spot mistakes!
Last modified 13 August 2024