Victorian Secrets

Independent press dedicated to publishing books from and about the nineteenth century

  • Home
  • About
  • Catalogue
    • Victorian Secrets
    • Twentieth Century Vox
  • News
  • Contact

A Biographer’s Journey in Pattledom – a guest post by David Waller

February 4, 2016 By Catherine Pope

Photo of Julia Prinsep Jackson by Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron’s portrait of her niece Julia Prinsep Jackson, the mother Virginia Woolf

Casting around for a book to write after I finished The Perfect Man, my life of Victorian strongman Eugen Sandow, I thought that my sainted publisher (aka Catherine Pope of Victorian Secrets and this blog) might be interested in the tale of the seven Pattle sisters who in their day were more celebrated that the Mitford sisters in the twentieth century.

The most enduringly famous of the sisters is Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), whose photographs are on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum until February 21. She took up photography after being introduced to the new invention by her friend the astronomer Sir John Herschel, and her images of her social circle, from famous men to children and servants, are highly evocative.

Julia Margaret was the fourth of ten children born in early nineteenth century Calcutta to James and Adeline Pattle. The other surviving sisters were Adeline (b.1812), Sarah (b.1816), Maria (b.1818), Louisa (b.1821), Virginia (b.1827) and Sophia (b. 1829). Their grandfather was the Chevalier Antoine de L’Etang, a French aristocrat exiled to India after he flirted excessively with Queen Marie Antoinette when serving as her pageboy. He ended up running a riding school in Pondicherry. Their father was James Pattle, a successful Anglo-Indian merchant who when he died was shipped back to London in a barrel of rum for burial in Camberwell. He was a heavy drinker, and family legend suggests he burst out of the barrel on the way home.

With the exception of Julia, the sisters were renowned for their beauty. When Virginia came to London, the fellow Anglo-Indian William Thackeray was besotted to the extent that he wrote a babbling portrait in Punch. “When she comes into the room, it is like a beautiful air of Mozart breaking on you…[nature] has endowed this young lady with every kind of perfection…a charming face…a perfect form, a pure perception and heart…”

But Thackeray had lost his fortune, and didn’t stand a chance with Virginia. She married Lord Eastor, of Eastnor Castle, who became 3rd Earl Somers. The other sisters all made advantageous matches, Adeline marrying a military man who became a General, Sophia marrying a baronet, Louisa, a High Court Judge, Maria, the distinguished Dr Jackson. Sarah married Henry Thoby Prinsep, Member of the Council of India and Oriental scholar, himself one of seven brothers.

On returning from India, the Prinseps lived at Little Holland Park in Kensington, the place where the artist GF Watts came to tea, met and married Ellen Terry. The marriage lasted one year, but Watts stayed on at Little Holland House for more like twenty. Other guests at the salon included Herschel, Gladstone, Tennyson and Browning, creating the milieu captured in Julia Margaret Cameron’s pictures.

The sisters floated about the gardens, “robed in splendid Venetian draperies…talking with foreign emphatic gestures,” wrote Virginia Woolf.  Woolf’s mother Julia nee Jackson was daughter of Maria nee Pattle, one of the six Pattle sisters, and she was named after her great-aunt Virginia. There is a definite whiff of Pattledom in Virginia Woolf’s writing and style.

The sisters would in theory make a fascinating subject for a group biography, along the lines of Judith Flanders’ Circle of Sisters, which chronicles the lives of the four Macdonald sisters. The Pattles must have written thousands of letters to one another over the years, from India to London and Paris, and there must have been diaries galore. But despite rooting round, I only managed to find partial correspondence from two of the sisters. There was simply not enough material to attempt the book, let alone do a joint biography taking in the seven Prinsep brothers as well, as once crossed my mind.

I wrote a book about Victorian engineers instead.1 I leave the Pattle sisters to a more intrepid biographer, or perhaps to a novelist, who could chronicle the journey from Anglo-India to the fashionable bohemian world of Little Holland House and on another generation or two to the Bloomsbury set.

  1. Iron Men, published by Anthem Press. [↩]

Filed Under: News

New edition of The Story of Lilly Dawson by Catherine Crowe

September 27, 2015 By Catherine Pope

The Story of Lilly Dawson by Catherine CroweWe’re very pleased to announce a new critical edition of Catherine Crowe’s ‘The Story of Lilly Dawson’, edited by Ruth Heholt.

Shipwrecked as a young girl, middle-class Lilly Dawson is kidnapped by smugglers and forced to work as their servant. Terrified by the prospect of a forced marriage, this Victorian Cinderella flees captivity and has to navigate an outside world she finds both oppressive and dangerous. ‘The Story of Lilly Dawson’ is a romping tale of pirates, outlaws, murder, mistaken identity, lust and betrayal.

This edition includes a critical introduction, explanatory footnotes,  selection of contemporary reviews, and extracts from Crowe’s other work.

For more information, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/the-story-of-lilly-dawson/

Filed Under: News

New edition of A City Girl by John Law (Margaret Harkness)

September 15, 2015 By Catherine Pope

A City Girl by Margaret HarknessWe’re delighted to announce a new critical edition of A City Girl by John Law (pseudonym of Margaret Harkness), edited by Deborah Mutch, and with additional material by Terry Elkiss.

In her first novel, Harkness presents a vivid and troubling depiction of working-class life in late-Victorian London. Based on her own experience of the slums, she exposes the appalling conditions experienced by women in the casual labour force and their desperate struggle for economic security.

This edition includes a critical introduction, explanatory footnotes, Margaret Harkness biography, and additional contextual material.

For more information, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/a-city-girl/

Filed Under: News

New book: Selected Stories of Morley Roberts

August 2, 2015 By Catherine Pope

Selected Stories of Morley RobertsWe’re very pleased to announce the publication of Selected Stories of Morley Roberts, edited by Markus Neacey.

You might know Roberts as the first biographer and friend of George Gissing, but he was also an accomplished writer of fiction. In a career spanning over 50 years, Roberts wrote hundreds of short stories and was one of the most successful operators in the Victorian-Edwardian literary marketplace.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/selected-stories-of-morley-roberts/

Filed Under: News

The Cockney Who Sold the Alps: Albert Smith and the Ascent of Mont Blanc by Alan McNee

May 14, 2015 By Catherine Pope

The Cockney Who Sold the Alps: Albert Smith and the Ascent of Mont Blanc by Alan McNeeAs someone with an aversion to the outdoors, I prefer to experience nature vicariously. Preferably with a G&T in my hand. Had I been shuffling around in the nineteenth century, I’d have no doubt found my way to Albert Smith’s ‘Ascent of Mont Blanc’ show at London’s Egyptian Hall. Audiences were mesmerised by a diorama that gave the impression they were participating in an Alpine adventure – all from the safety of a plush seat in Piccadilly.

Smith, in full evening dress, would appear on the stage giving a ‘rattling and rapid description of the journey from town to Dover; then the run across the channel and the Continent, till in a few minutes he brought the audience to Switzerland itself’. The proscenium was designed to resemble a two-storey Swiss chalet, complete with shutters and balcony. Behind it lay rocks and a miniature lake, stocked with live fish. Alpine plants adorned the display, along with appropriate accoutrements, such as knapsacks, alpenstocks, and Swiss hats. As Smith described the journey, the Swiss chalet would rise of sight to make way for the painted canvases, depicting scenes along the way. The interval was marked by the arrival of St. Bernard dogs bearing boxes of chocolates for the children. In the second act, the images moved in a continuous descending panorama to give the impression of the ascent in progress.

Audiences loved it. The first performance took place on 15 March 1852, and it ran for seven seasons – a total of 2,000 shows. Alan McNee estimates that around 800,000 people watched ‘The Ascent of Mont Blanc’, placing it in the league of modern West End musicals. By the second season, The Times remarked that ‘the exhibition now seems to be one of the “sights of London” – like St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey and the Monument’. Initially sceptical of the show’s appeal, Thackeray later wrote to his daughters: ‘it was so amusing that you don’t feel a moment’s ennui during the whole performance – a thousand times more amusing than certain lectures and certain novels I know of’.

While many people were content to enjoy the ascent vicariously, others were inspired to pursue a hands-on approach. Smith’s show inspired ‘Mont Blanc mania’, encouraging participation in mountaineering as a popular pursuit. Tour operators such as Thomas Cook were quick to capitalise on the opportunity, conveying eager holidaymakers over to the continent. Smith might have spiced up the leisure time of the more affluent working classes, but not everyone was happy with this transformation. Leslie Stephen (more famous now as the father of Virginia Woolf) was horrified that the Alps were no longer the exclusive preserve of the upper middle class.

Smith’s own ascent of Mont Blanc is the most remarkable episode in this absorbing story. Rather portly in stature and no Bear Grylls, he nonetheless succeeded in scaling the highest peak in the Alps. Although he benefited from local guides, Smith was using equipment that would horrify a twenty-first-century mountaineer. And for much of the ascent, he was three sheets to the wind. He probably wasn’t drunk, as such, but had certainly consumed an inadvisable quantity of alcohol (even a small amount of booze intensifies the unpleasant effects of altitude). Of course, in the mid-nineteenth century, there were no dehydrated meals or sachets of high-energy gel – all the provisions for the ascent had to be carried by the party. And what an impressive list of provisions it was:

60 bottles of vin ordinaire
6 bottles of Bordeaux
10 bottles of St. George
15 bottles of St. Jean
3 bottles of Cognac
1 bottle of syrup of raspberries
6 bottles of lemonade
2 bottles of champagne
20 loaves
10 small cheeses
6 packets of chocolate
6 packets of sugar
4 packets of prunes
4 packets of raisins
2 packets of salt
4 wax candles
6 lemons
4 legs of mutton
4 shoulders of mutton
6 pieces of veal
1 piece of beef
11 large fowls
35 small fowls

Clearly, an audacious attempt on an intimidating mountain was no reason to let culinary standards slip. Smith’s story shows how far you can get with determination, perseverance, and a large dose of chutzpah. John Ruskin, however, was unimpressed, noting with contempt that there had been a “Cockney ascent of Mont Blanc”.

Smith’s successes were legion, but he didn’t get to the top without making a few enemies along the way.  His bumptiousness made him a divisive figure, and his relentless drive to seize every opportunity often gave the impression of a grasping and ruthless nature. He numbered William Makepeace Thackeray, George Augustus Sala, and Charles Dickens among his friends, but fell out with all of them at different times. Most notably, he made an enemy of Dickens after becoming embroiled in the unpleasantness surrounding Dickens’s affair with Ellen Ternan.

Although he died aged only 43, Albert Smith managed to pack much incident into his short life. He was robbed by highwaymen in Italy, narrowly escaped death in a hot air ballooning accident, and dodged arrest in Paris during the June Days Uprising of 1848. Ever the showman, he made good use of these events in his journalism and also on the stage. Even Queen Victoria described him as “inimitable”, an epithet that Dickens famously liked to apply to himself.
I must confess that I’d never heard of Smith before I received the proposal for this entertaining and enlightening book. I was delighted to meet him, albeit at a distance of 150 years. As a man, he’s hard to like, but as a showman he’s impossible to resist.

The Cockney Who Sold the Alps: Albert Smith and the Ascent of Mont Blanc by Alan McNee is available in paperback and Kindle editions.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: biography

New book: The Cockney Who Sold the Alps by Alan McNee

May 14, 2015 By Catherine Pope

The Cockney Who Sold the Alps: Albert Smith and the Ascent of Mont Blanc by Alan McNeeWe’re thrilled to announce the publication of The Cockney Who Sold the Alps: Albert Smith and the Ascent of Mont Blanc by Alan McNee.

Albert Smith is one of the most famous Victorians of whom you’ve probably never heard. During his lifetime, he was a household name, thrilling audiences with his Ascent of Mont Blanc show at London’s Egyptian Hall. An inveterate showman, Smith was also a doctor, journalist, raconteur, novelist, travel writer, and playwright. His many talents were outstripped only by his boundless self-belief and huge personality. Even Queen Victoria described him in her journal as “inimitable”, an epithet Smith’s contemporary Charles Dickens liked to reserve for himself.

For more information, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/the-cockney-who-sold-the-alps-albert-smith-and-the-ascent-of-mont-blanc/

Filed Under: News

Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins

April 6, 2015 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Harriet by Elizabeth JenkinsTrue crime isn’t usually my cup of tea, but I found myself completely transfixed by Elizabeth Jenkins’s Harriet (1934) last year. Based on the infamous Penge murder trial of 1877, the novel recounts the short life and pitiful death of Harriet Staunton, a middle-class woman with what we would now call ‘learning difficulties’. Although she struggled to read and write, Harriet took great pride in her appearance and enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle with a comfortable income. Her loving mother did everything to make Harriet’s life normal, never imagining her daughter would become the victim of a merciless fortune-hunter.

The charming but callous Louis Staunton quickly wooed Harriet, motivated by the knowledge that wives’ assets were assumed by the husband on marriage. Soon tiring of her odd behaviour, he paid his brother Patrick and sister-in-law Elizabeth to care for Harriet and their baby. Louis then promptly moved in with his lover, Alice. Harriet was subjected to intolerable cruelty, the facts of which became chillingly clear in the sensational trial that followed. Fortunately, Jenkins manages to convey the horror of Harriet’s story without relying on explicit descriptions of torments she suffered. This is very much a psychological thriller, and one told with great verve and insight.

Valancourt Books has just published a new edition of Harriet and I was delighted that they asked me to contribute an afterword. While reading the trial proceedings and researching the background to the case was deeply uncomfortable, I felt that Harriet’s treatment says a great deal about the position of women in the nineteenth century and how easy it was to deny them subjectivity. Louis was able to take advantage of women’s legal vulnerability at the time and Harriet’s mother was powerless to prevent him. On marriage, Harriet’s considerable assets became his to do with as he pleased. She endowed him with all her worldly goods; he gave her nothing. In fact, it appears that Harriet’s plight lent impetus to the campaign for the Second Married Women’s Property Act, which finally allowed women to own property in their own name.

In my afterword, I also explain what happened following the trial, and how Queen Victoria became involved in this extraordinary case. The transcription of the trial is full of revelations, contradictions, and outright denials, all of which Jenkins deftly constructs into a taut and compelling story. Such is the veracity and intensity of her novel, Jenkins actually came to regret having written it. She felt uncomfortable with exploring a real-life case as fiction, and Harriet’s sufferings were particularly difficult to read following the horrors of the Second World War. Notwithstanding the author’s reservations, Harriet remains a provocative and important novel. By placing her victim at the centre of the narrative, Jenkins gives Harriet the attention and respect she was denied as a wife.

For rights reasons, this edition of Harriet is currently only available in the US. For more information, please visit the Valancourt Books website.

Filed Under: News

Mrs Grundy’s Enemies: Censorship, Realist Fiction and the Politics of Sexual Representation by Anthony Patterson

March 8, 2015 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Mrs Grundy's EnemiesAlthough originally a character in Thomas Morton’s play Speed the Plough (1798), Mrs Grundy has enjoyed greater fame as the arbiter of nineteenth-century moral standards. In Mrs Grundy’s Enemies, Anthony Patterson selects for his study a range of authors – including Emile Zola, H G Wells, and George Egerton – who courted controversy with their frank portrayal of sexuality. He discusses how the culture of censorship shaped fiction, and examines the ways in which novelists challenged the dominant conservative ideology. Ultimately, Patterson makes a convincing argument that it was the Realists of the late Victorian era who faced resistance to literary innovation, long before the Modernists of the next century. Indeed, Mrs Grundy’s Enemies was also the title of a novel by George Gissing that remained unpublished after his publisher decided it was morally dubious.

In his introduction, Patterson establishes the context of the literary marketplace in which these authors were operating. As he observes, the all-powerful circulating libraries such as Mudie’s “provided one of the most effective means of regulating literature in middle-class Victorian society,” (13) and authors upset them at their peril. The 1857 Obscene Publications Act also posed the threat of legal sanction, as Henry Vizetelly discovered. The publisher was tried twice for his English translations of French novels, and on the second occasion, he was imprisoned for three months.

Zola, as we discover in Chapter 1, was the (low) standard against which British authors were judged. Nana (1880), in particular, offered the terrifying image of a sexually incontinent woman who might serve as a bad example for wholesome English women and imperil the nation’s moral health. La Terre (1887) was even worse, with scenes of rape, incest, and bull bothering. As Patterson argues, Zola’s Naturalism “signifies a watershed for sexual representation in English fiction,” (28) and anything that frightened Mrs Grundy was condemned as Zolaesque.
George Moore was one of the authors heavily influenced by Zola’s Naturalism, and he dominates Chapter 2. Moore fell foul of Mudie’s Circulating Library and eventually persuaded the redoubtable Vizetelly to publish a cheap edition of his novel A Mummer’s Wife (1885). Not content with this coup, Moore also published Literature at Nurse, or Circulating Morals, a pamphlet in which he launches a blistering attack on Mudie, who he accuses of infantilising the reading public by exercising unwarranted censorship. Moore certainly saw himself as a crusader, “posing as a defender of artistic freedom against the forces of prudery and philistinism” (66). However, as Patterson points out, Moore was simply trying to replace one form of chauvinism with another. While he liked to think of himself as progressive, his heroines faced thoroughly conventional fates and his writing “did little to disturb the hegemony of middle-class men” (95).

In Chapter 3, Grant Allen faces similar criticism. While he depicts an emancipated woman in his notorious novel The Woman Who Did (1895), he ensures she meets with an ignominious end. “In Allen’s bright eugenic future,” Patterson observes, “the position of women remains subservient to men and their ultimate function remains to bear children for the benefit of the race.” (141) Allen was trying to shock, rather than make a radical argument. All gong and no dinner, one might say. Both Moore and Allen railed against censorship, specifically claiming that it ‘feminised’ literature by ensuring that readers had access only to rubbishy romantic novels by women authors. In A Mummer’s Wife, Moore attributes his heroine’s downfall to her love of inflammatory fiction by the likes of Florence Marryat and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. For Moore, women’s popular fiction suggests a morally ambiguous universe in which heroines err and are rewarded with the realisation of their unwholesome desires. Only male authors can be trusted to set a good example.

The women fight back in Chapter 4, with George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright) pointing the finger at men and their desire to silence female voices. When her short story collection Keynotes and Discords (1893) provoked critical outrage, Egerton denounced this censorship as literally man-made. Patterson also considers Ella Hepworth Dixon’s The Story of a Modern Woman (1894) and George Paston’s (Emily Morse Symonds) A Writer of Books (1899), with their exposé of hypocrisy in the publishing industry. Unsurprisingly, Mary Cholmondeley’s Red Pottage (1899) and its dramatic censorship scene are central to this chapter. Aspiring author Hester Gresley discovers that her brother has burned her manuscript, refusing to believe that the work of a woman could be of any literary merit. Patterson concludes that the novel “demonstrates how patriarchy limits women’s potential as creative artists through figuring them as immoral, incompetent or reductively dogmatic” (176).

In the final chapter, Patterson advances to the Edwardian period, showing how novels that appear superficially to champion female sexual freedom actually conform to normative models. H G Wells’s Ann Veronica (1909), for example, portrays a sexually liberated woman, but one who is transformed into a dutiful wife by the end of the narrative. There has been no perceptible progress since the publication of Allen’s The Woman Who Did, fourteen years earlier. Wells might have been thematically bold, but he was also keen to uphold the sexual double standard.
Patterson concludes that the censorship debate “should not be simplified into a conflict of progressive writers and conservative critics,” (220) as there were internecine wars, too, especially between male and female writers. While much has been written on gender and the Victorian novel, Patterson’s book presents a new and welcome perspective by focusing on the censorship that was ever-present, yet seldom explicitly acknowledged. Mrs Grundy’s Enemies is lucidly written, compellingly argued, and frequently illuminating.

Anthony Patterson’s Mrs Grundy’s Enemies: Censorship, Realist Fiction and the Politics of Sexual Representation is published by Peter Lang, who kindly sent a review copy.

Filed Under: News

New edition of Sowing the Wind by Eliza Lynn Linton

February 5, 2015 By Catherine Pope

Sowing the Wind by Eliza Lynn LintonWe’re very pleased to announce a new edition of Eliza Lynn Linton’s Sowing the Wind. It’s Linton’s most sensational novel, with a heady mix of miscegenation, inheritance, madness, and croquet.

Our edition includes a critical introduction by Deborah T. Meem and Kate Holterhoff, explanatory footnotes, and additional contextual material.

For more information, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/sowing-the-wind/

Victorian Secrets also publishes Eliza Lynn Linton’s The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland.

Filed Under: News

Seventy Years a Showman by ‘Lord’ George Sanger

November 15, 2014 By Catherine Pope

Seventy Years a Showman by Lord George SangerOne of the many joys of delving into the nineteenth century is meeting the numerous vibrant characters who inhabited it. I first encountered ‘Lord’ George Sanger when researching the Hyde Park celebrations that marked Queen Victoria’s accession. Over nine days in June 1838, Sanger and his circus family thrilled the crowds with learned pigs and clairvoyant ponies. Their remarkable troupe also included ‘Living Curiosities’: the pig-faced woman, the living skeleton, the world’s tallest woman, and cannibal pigmies. Something for everyone, I’m sure you’ll agree.

To my delight, I discovered that Sanger had written an autobiography. Well, it’s likely to have been ghostwritten by the journalist George R Sims: Sanger, like many nineteenth-century circus folk, was unable to write. In Seventy Years a Showman, Sanger comes across as an indulgent father and benevolent employer who managed everything through a calm benevolence, rather than with a rod of iron. My view of him then shifted after reading The Sanger Story, based on the memories of his grandson, George Sanger Coleman. He recalls how his grandfather often spoke movingly of the death of his daughter Lavinia, but omitted to mention his blind fury when she eloped with a clown. Unusually perhaps for the Victorian period, Sanger’s marriage appears to have been a genuinely happy one. No doubt his wife’s former career as a lion-tamer provided her with invaluable skills.

From the humblest of beginnings in an overcrowded caravan, the Sangers built a hugely successful entertainment business, ultimately boasting one of the world’s most distinctive brands. This achievement is set against the backdrop of an England that changed beyond recognition during the nineteenth century, with the arrival of the railways, rapid industrialisation, and unprecedented social reform. Along his journey, Sanger encounters Chartists, body-snatchers, and health and safety inspectors, all of whom are treated with equal disdain.

Sanger’s colossal pride (some might say hubris) is evidenced by the self-designated title ‘Lord’. Dismissed in these memoirs as a bit of harmless fun to trump the ‘Honourable’ Buffalo Bill Cody during a legal battle, Sanger retained it throughout his career. His grandson later wrote that it had more to do with conceit, Sanger repeatedly declining a knighthood, as it meant dropping the ‘Lord’.

There was, however, a softer side to Sanger. Notwithstanding the exploitation of the learned pig and the pig-faced lady (actually a bear), he treated his animals well. Ajax the elephant was a particular favourite, and seems to have been more indulged that Sanger’s own children. The elephant’s particularly dexterous tongue repeatedly got his own into bother. Sanger’s admirer G B Burgin remembers how he once stole the produce from a passing greengrocer’s cart:

By the time the greengrocer discovered his loss the last stick of celery had vanished, and old Ajax looked round with an air of innocent wonderment as to what was the matter.

Ajax also managed to get himself wedged in the doorway of a grocer’s shops. While the circus men broke down the brick work to free him, Ajax “stuffed himself with the contents of every biscuit tin and everything else he fancied within the reach of his trunk;” the grocer watched in impotent rage. Not everyone was pleased when the circus came to town.

Sanger’s memoirs end with his retirement to East Finchley and the admission: “I feel that the latter days of my career … have not the interest for my reader that attaches to the earlier period.” But any ideas he might have had of quietly fading away were thwarted. Although he declared “I shall remain a showman until the end of my days,” what followed was probably not what he had in mind.

On 28 November 1911, Sanger’s employee Herbert Charles Cooper attacked him with a hatchet before hurling himself under a speeding train. Sanger’s family maintained this was an unprovoked attack on a harmless old man. Less subjective accounts suggest that Sanger had tormented Cooper, provoking him beyond endurance. Whatever happened – and we can never be certain – Sanger met with an appropriately spectacular end. He was buried in Margate alongside his beloved wife, after thousands travelled to his funeral. Even in death, he attracted a crowd.
Of course, few autobiographies are truly candid, and Sanger undoubtedly exaggerates his achievements and downplays his mistakes. Nevertheless, if even half of it is true, Sanger’s was surely an exceptional life.

Seventy Years a Showman by ‘Lord’ George Sanger (with an introduction by Catherine Pope) is available as an ebook.

Filed Under: News

New ebook edition of Seventy Years a Showman

September 7, 2014 By Catherine Pope

Seventy Years a Showman by Lord George SangerWe’re pleased to announce a new ebook edition of Lord George Sanger’s extraordinary memoirs, Seventy Years a Showman. Sanger was one of the nineteenth century’s most flamboyant figures, and he recalls the remarkable events of a life populated by learned pigs, clairvoyant ponies, and equestrian baboons.

In her new introduction, Catherine Pope reveals how Sanger’s death was as spectacular and surprising as one of his circus shows.

For more information, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/seventy-years-a-showman/

Filed Under: News

New ebook edition of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men on the Bummel

August 19, 2014 By Catherine Pope

Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. JeromeWe’re pleased to announce a new ebook edition of Jerome K. Jerome’s comic classic, Three Men on the Bummel, complete with an introduction from biographer Carolyn Oulton and all the original illustrations. This time the men are on wheels as we follow them on a bicycle tour through Germany’s Black Forest. Prepare yourself for cultural stereotypes, disobedient beetles, and many mishaps along the way.

To find out more, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/three-men-on-the-bummel/

Victorian Secrets also publishes Three Men in a Boat, Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters, and Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome.

 

Filed Under: News

New critical edition of The Beth Book by Sarah Grand

February 25, 2014 By Catherine Pope

The Beth Book by Sarah GrandWe’re thrilled to have published a new critical edition of Sarah Grand’s The Beth Book, edited by Jenny Bourne Taylor. As far as we’re concerned, this is one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century (and actually Catherine’s favourite).

First published in 1897, The Beth Book – Being a Study from the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius, is a semi-autobiographical novel offering a portrait of the artist as a young woman. Grand’s compelling story recounts in vivid detail the childhood of her young heroine, Beth, a spirited and intelligent girl who challenges the constraints placed upon her.

To find out more, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/the-beth-book/

Filed Under: News

New critical edition of Grania by Emily Lawless

February 25, 2014 By Catherine Pope

Grania by Emily LawlessWe’re very pleased to announce a new edition of Grania by Emily Lawless, edited by Michael O’Flynn.

First published in 1892, Grania is the story of a fisherman’s daughter from the Islands of Aran, off the coast of Galway. Grania O’Malley’s life is circumscribed by family duty and her destiny as wife to her feckless fiancé, Murdough Blake. When she realises he wants her only for her money and property, Grania rejects him in favour of heroism, although with tragic consequences.

With her unique poetic style, Emily Lawless evokes a vivid picture of island life, with its unforgiving landscape and grinding poverty.

To find out more, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/grania/

Filed Under: News

New edition of The Convert by Elizabeth Robins

January 31, 2014 By Catherine Pope

The Convert by Elizabeth RobinsWe’re very happy to announce a new critical edition of Elizabeth Robins’s rousing suffragette novel, The Convert.  First published in 1907 The Convert was based on Elizabeth Robins’ hugely successful play, Votes for Women! which advocated militancy as the only means of achieving female suffrage.

This edition includes a critical introduction by Emelyne Godfrey, explanatory footnotes, bibliography, and further contextual material.

For more information please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/the-convert-by-elizabeth-robins/

Filed Under: News

New critical edition of Not Wisely, but Too Well

November 13, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Not Wisely, but Too Well by Rhoda BroughtonWe’re delighted to have published a new critical edition of Rhoda Broughton’s Not Wisely, but Too Well, edited by Tamar Heller. This is not only a good read, but also a very important novel in terms of literary censorship, as Broughton was obliged to “expunge it of coarseness” before it could be published. Notwithstanding the extensive editorial changes, Broughton’s novel remains a pioneering portrayal of female sexuality, or what Geraldine Jewsbury called “highly coloured & hot blooded passion”.

The original and shocking conclusion is included in the appendices, along with details of other revisions, and also a selection of contemporary reviews.

To find out more, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/not-wisely-but-too-well/

Filed Under: News

New book: The Meanings of Home in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Fiction

October 24, 2013 By Catherine Pope

The Meanings of Home in Elizabeth Gaskell’s FictionWe are very pleased and excited to announce the publication of our first monograph, Carolyn Lambert’s The Meanings of Home in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Fiction. In this beautifully written study, Carolyn Lambert explores the ways in which Elizabeth Gaskell challenges the nineteenth-century cultural construct of the home as a domestic sanctuary offering protection from the external world.

The Meanings of Home has been met with a warm critical reception. The Gaskell Journal described it as “Satisfying, comprehensive and thoroughly enjoyable to read,” while Women: A Cultural Review concluded that “Lambert does justice to her subject, offering a sympathetic and nuanced portrayal of a writer who put the conflicting aspects of her own experience to rich fictional use.”

For more information, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/the-meanings-of-home-in-elizabeth-gaskells-fiction/

 

Filed Under: News

New ebook edition of In the Secret Theatre of Home by Jenny Bourne Taylor

July 27, 2013 By Catherine Pope

In the Secret Theatre of Home by Jenny Bourne TaylorWe’re very happy to announce a new ebook edition of Jenny Bourne Taylor’s classic study of Wilkie Collins, In the Secret Theatre of Home. In his 1852 novel Basil, Wilkie Collins’ narrator concludes that “those ghastly heart-tragedies laid open before me … are not to be written, but … are acted and reacted, scene by scene, year by year, in the secret theatre of home.” Taking this memorable quote as her starting point, Taylor demonstrates how Victorian psychology is central to an understanding of the complexity and vitality of Collins’s fiction, exploring the boundaries of mind/body, sanity/madness, and consciousness/unconsciousness.

For more information, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/in-the-secret-theatre-of-home-wilkie-collins-sensation-narrative-and-nineteenth-century-psychology/

Filed Under: News

New critical edition of Evenings at Home in Spiritual Seance

May 1, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Evenings at Home in Spiritual Seance by Georgiana HoughtonWe are very pleased to announce a new critical edition of Georgiana Houghton’s Evenings at Home in Spiritual Séance, edited by Sara Williams.

Spanning the years 1870–1881, this book documents the everyday, yet astonishing, experiences of spirit activity within the domestic space of the Victorian parlour. Through the intimacy of her diary-like prose, Houghton conjures cosy images of spirits laying the table for tea in what she called the “interblending of the heavenly and the mundane”. She is equally comfortable communicating with her beloved pet dove as she is with the archangel Gabriel, living an unassuming yet spiritually rich life, filled with people of this world and the next.

To find out more, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/evenings-at-home-in-spiritual-seance/

Filed Under: News Tagged With: spiritualism

New ebook of No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War

May 1, 2013 By Catherine Pope

No Place for Ladies: The untold story of women in the Crimean War by Helen RappaportWe’re very pleased to announce a new ebook edition of No Place for Ladies.

The pioneering work of Florence Nightingale has become legendary, but in this book  Helen Rappaport champions the contribution of the women whose stories have gone largely untold – the nurses, cantinières and army wives who played a vital, but often overlooked, role in the theatres of war. Mary Seacole’s establishment of ‘The British Hotel’ near Balaclava supplied fatigued soldiers with much-needed comforts and medical attention, earning her the love and respect of many men, but no official recognition.  This book gives her achievements the attention they deserve.

To find out more, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/no-place-for-ladies-the-untold-story-of-women-in-the-crimean-war/

Filed Under: News

Thyrza by George Gissing

March 5, 2013 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Thyrza by George GissingFirst published in 1887, Gissing intended Thyrza to “contain the very spirit of London working-class life”. He spent long hours researching the novel in south London, watching and listening to the inhabitants as they went about their business.  His story tells of Walter Egremont, an Oxford-trained idealist who gives lectures on literature to workers, some of them from his father’s Lambeth factory. Thyrza Trent, a young hat-trimmer, meets and falls in love with him, forsaking Gilbert Grail, an intelligent working man who Egremont has put in charge of his library.

Thyrza is one of Gissing’s most memorable characters. Although blessed with an artistic sensibility, she is faced with the insuperable difficulty of rising beyond her social class, a trick Gissing himself had achieved. Her determination to succeed makes her vulnerable to the charms of Egremont, who vacillates between her and the middle-class Annabel Newthorpe. As is often the case with Gissing, ambition leads to betrayal and disillusionment and the ending is far from happy.

Thyrza is the embodiment of Gissing’s preoccupation with sex, class, and money, and through her he exposes a society intrinsically opposed to social mobility. The juxtaposition of rich and poor is illustrated in the accompanying maps, specially drawn by the folks in the Geography Department of UCL.

This isn’t a particularly uplifting read, but it’s perhaps Gissing’s greatest artistic achievement, and also his most sympathetic portrait of London’s poor. In a letter, Gissing wrote, “Thyrza herself is one of the most beautiful dreams I ever had or shall have. I value the book really more than anything I have yet done.” Contemporary critics praised Gissing’s “profound…knowledge of the London poor” and his “courageous presentation of truth”.  This “truth” included describing the “meanness and inveterate grime” of the Caledonian Road and a Lambeth “redolent with oleaginous matter”. Perhaps it’s one to save for a sunny day.

Victorian Secrets publishes George Gissing’s Demos, Thyrza, and Workers in the Dawn.

Filed Under: News

New ebook of Victorian Curiosities by Jeremy Nicholas

March 4, 2013 By Catherine Pope

We are pleased to announce a new ebook edition of Victorian Curiosities by Jeremy Nicholas.

Based on Don Lemon’s 1890 Everybody’s Scrapbook of Curious Facts, this collection of stray Victoriana is the perfect book for odd moments. Its charm lies in its total unpredictability and in the sense of disbelief and wonderment it generates in the modern reader.

No sooner have you discovered the advantages of ‘Greasing Soldiers’ Feet’ than you are confronted with ‘Executions Everywhere’ — the methods employed, country by country, of dispatching criminals. Next, you might stumble across ‘Newspaper Names in the Far West’, ‘Language of the Parasol’, ‘The Flapping of a Fly’s Wing’ or advice on ‘When to Pare the Finger Nails’ — subjects which rise to a bewildering height of triviality. Who could fail to be entranced by such life-enhancing serendipity?

Lemon’s original entries are complemented by a selection of contemporary illustrations.

To find out more, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/victorian-curiosities/

Filed Under: News

New edition of Thyrza by George Gissing

March 4, 2013 By Catherine Pope

We’re very pleased to announce our new critical edition of George Gissing’s Thyrza, edited by Pierre Coustillas.

First published in 1887, Gissing intended Thyrza to “contain the very spirit of London working-class life”. His story tells of Walter Egremont, an Oxford-trained idealist who gives lectures on literature to workers, some of them from his father’s Lambeth factory. Thyrza Trent, a young hat-trimmer, meets and falls in love with him, forsaking Gilbert Grail, an intelligent working man who Egremont has put in charge of his library.

In a tale of ambition, betrayal and disillusionment, Gissing’s heroine aspires to purity and self-improvement. Trapped by birth and circumstance, she is unable to escape her destiny. Thyrza Trent is the embodiment of Gissing’s preoccupation with sex, class and money, and through her he exposes a society intrinsically opposed to social mobility.

To find out more, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/thyrza/

 

Filed Under: News

New edition of All Sorts and Conditions of Men by Walter Besant

December 5, 2012 By Catherine Pope

All Sorts and Conditions of Men by Walter BesantWe’re pleased to announce a new edition of Walter Besant’s All Sorts and Conditions of Men.

First published in 1882, the novel chronicles daily life in the East-end district of Whitechapel Road, where people go about their business with an air of quiet resignation. Their lives are transformed by the arrival of Angela Messenger, a young Girton-educated heiress who assumes the identity of a dressmaker so that she might gain an understanding of this “striving, eager, anxious humanity”. Meanwhile, Harry Goslett learns he is not an aristocrat but the son of a lowly army sergeant. Determined to return to his true roots, he moves to the East End, ending up in the same boarding house as Miss Messenger. The two discover a mutual interest in social reform, imagining a Palace of Delight to provide “a little more of the pleasures and graces of delight” for the local community.

Although subtitled ‘An Impossible Story’, the novel inspired the building of the People’s Palace on Mile End Road, opened by Queen Victoria on 14 May 1887. The palace housed a concert hall/ballroom, a gymnasium, a library, a swimming pool, an art school, and a technical college.

Find out more at: http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/all-sorts-and-conditions-of-men/

Filed Under: News

The First Adman: Thomas Bish and the Birth of Modern Advertising

November 19, 2012 By Catherine Pope

The First Adman: Thomas Bish and the Birth of Modern AdvertisingOur final biography of 2012 is The First Adman: Thomas Bish and the Birth of Modern Advertising. Well, it’s not really a biography, as Bish was an elusive figure who became overshadowed by his own creativity.

The First Adman reveals the untold story of how modern advertising was pioneered 200 years ago by the entrepreneur, self-publicist and dodgy Member of Parliament, Thomas Bish. Royalty and politicians courted this early media star and society figure, who was one of the best-known men in the land and allegedly more famous than the prime minister himself.

Bish’s promotional creativity helped the old state lottery raise the equivalent of £2 billion for good causes, also bringing him great wealth. Hiring the essayist Charles Lamb as a copywriter and George Cruikshank to illustrate his advertisements, Bish professionalised ad campaigns. Techniques he pioneered include spin doctoring, graphic design, modern typography, direct marketing, and even early market research. Unfortunately his talents did not prevent him from being expelled from both the Stock Exchange and the House of Commons. Although in many ways a thorough rogue, Bish was one of the few prominent Englishmen to argue that the Irish were being unfairly treated, and his Plea for Ireland made a compelling case for economic stimulus, a position that earned him the friendship of Daniel O’Connell.

The complexity, inventiveness and sheer audacity of Bish are all captured in this rollicking story.

To find out more, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/the-first-adman-thomas-bish-and-the-birth-of-modern-advertising/

 

Filed Under: News

New edition of Weeds by Jerome K. Jerome

October 31, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Weeds by Jerome K. Jerome

We’re very pleased to announce a new critical edition of Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters by Jerome K. Jerome.

First published anonymously in 1892, Weeds marked a significant departure from the humour that made Jerome K. Jerome famous. This disturbing story of sexual corruption shows marital fidelity as a perpetual struggle, with Dick Selwyn falling for the attractions of his wife’s young cousin, Jessie. The link between mental and physical corruption is sustained through a central metaphor of a weed-infested garden, which perishes through neglect.

With its radical ending, this story of the dark side of passion casts an important light on late-nineteenth-century sexual politics and gender ideology. Jerome engages with contemporary debates on degeneration and the emergence of the New Woman, offering a powerful evocation of fin-de-siècle society.

This edition, edited by Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton includes an introduction, explanatory footnotes, author biography, and a wealth of contextual material. Available in print and Kindle editions.

Find out more about Weeds: A Story in Seven Chapters by Jerome K. Jerome

Filed Under: News Tagged With: adultery, degeneration, divorce, fin de siecle, New Woman

Spooky tales for Halloween

October 26, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Wooooooooohooooooo! (or whatever noise a bat makes)Halloween is almost upon us, and what better way to spend it than indulging in some nineteenth-century ghastliness? As we all know, nobody writes a ghost story quite like the Victorians, and the three writers we’re showcasing below were experts in unsettling their readers.

Twilight Stories by Rhoda Broughton

Twilight Stories by Rhoda BroughtonRhoda Broughton’s Twilight Stories was first published as Tales for Christmas Eve in 1873. The tales had also appeared in the literary magazine Temple Bar, and have since been reproduced in ghost story anthologies throughout the decades. Readers have been impressed with Broughton’s ability to make the apparently mundane appear mysterious and, in some cases, terrifying. Herbert Van Thal wrote of them: “Twilight Stories should excite the most blasé follower of the tale that should be read ‘last thing at night’…Miss Broughton was clearly a forerunner of M R James.” Find out more…

Weird Stories by Charlotte Riddell

Weird Stories by Charlotte RiddellCharlotte Riddell’s Weird Stories have been popular with ghost story aficionados ever since they were first published in 1882. The Times reviewer wrote of them: “Weird Stories are sensational enough in all conscience, seeing that the main action is directed by supernatural agencies, and that disagreeably obtrusive ghosts haunt the scenes of their earthly troubles. But these mysteries are adroitly realized, and the stories are so probable as to be pleasantly thrilling; nervous people, indeed, might prefer to read the book on a railway journey by daylight rather than in a lonely apartment towards the small hours.” Find out more…

The Blood of the Vampire by Florence Marryat

The Blood of the Vampire by Florence MarryatThe Blood of the Vampire (1897) was rather overshadowed by a certain Transylvanian Count who made his debut in the same year.  Although there are similarities with Dracula, Marryat’s vampire is female and drains her victims’ life force, rather than their blood. Men find her impossible to resist, and she leaves a trail of destruction throughout Europe. Marryat’s “psychic vampire” represents both the racial “other” and the New Woman of the period, both of whom were perceived as a threat to fin-de-siècle society.  This curious novel engages with key debates, such as race, women’s rights, heredity, syphilophobia and the occult. Find out more…

Filed Under: News Tagged With: ghost stories, halloween, spooky, vampires

New biography of the legendary Dame Clara Butt

October 11, 2012 By Catherine Pope

Continuing our biography-fest, we are pleased to announce a new biography of Dame Clara Butt.

Dame Clara Butt (1872-1936) was one of the most celebrated singers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, a symbol of the glory of a Britain on whose Empire the sun never set. Standing an Amazonian 6’2″ tall, Clara had a glorious contralto voice of such power that when she sang in Dover, Sir Thomas Beecham swore she could be heard in Calais. She was a great favourite of Queen Victoria, who helped pay for her studies. Dame Clara was also one of the few people who managed to remain friends with Marie Corelli.

In the first biography since her death, Maurice Leonard tells Dame Clara Butt’s remarkable story, from humble beginnings in Sussex, to her dazzling apotheosis by an adoring nation. With humour and insight, Leonard reveals the woman behind the cultural icon.

For more information, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/catalogue/hope-and-glory-a-life-of-dame-clara-butt/

Filed Under: News

Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome

September 30, 2012 By Catherine Pope

We are very pleased to announce publication of a major new biography of Jerome K. Jerome by Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton. Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) was the author of Three Men in a Boat, one of the best-loved books in the English language, but much of his prolific career has been left unexplored.  Over a period of forty years, Jerome was variously a humourist,  novelist, journalist, essayist and dramatist, leaving behind him a prodigious quantity of work, belying his famous quote “I like work. It fascinates me. I could sit and look at it for hours.”

Find out more about Below the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome or read the prologue.

Filed Under: News

Eugen Sandow at the Brighton’s CMP Festival

June 22, 2012 By Catherine Pope

14th July 2012, 2pm

St Nicholas’ Church, Brighton

Join Brighton-based publisher Victorian Secrets and author David Waller to discuss his critically-acclaimed book The Perfect Man — a biography of Eugen Sandow, the Victorian strongman who possessed what was deemed to be the most perfect male body and became an international phenomenon.

This event is part of the Clifton Montpelier & Powis Festival, featuring music, literary events, and film.

To book a ticket, please call the box office on 01273 709709 or visit www.brightonticketshop.com. Tickets also available on the door.

Filed Under: News

New collection of short stories by Barbara Hardy

November 22, 2011 By Catherine Pope

We’re delighted to announce a new collection of short stories by distinguished literary critic Barbara Hardy.

Dorothea’s Daughter is based on novels by Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. They are postscripts, rather than sequels, entering into dialogues with the original narratives by developing suggestions in the text. The authors’ conclusions are respected, with no changes made to the plot; instead, Barbara Hardy draws out loose threads in the original fabric to weave new material, imagining moments in the characters’ future lives.

To find out more, please visit the Dorothea’s Daughter webpage.

Filed Under: News

New critical edition of The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland

November 22, 2011 By Catherine Pope

We’re very pleased to announce a new critical edition of Eliza Lynn Linton’s autobiography-in-drag, The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland, edited by Deborah T. Meem and Kate Holterhoff.

In this astonishing work of literary transvestism, Linton adopts a male persona in order to recount her loss of faith at an early age, her sexual relationships with other women, and her disastrous marriage to the engraver William Linton. She told her publisher, George Bentley: “I have put my very Soul, my life into these pages.” In later life, she said it as “an outpour no one hears me make by word of mouth, a confession of sorrow, suffering, trial, and determination not to be beaten, which few suspect is the underlying truth of my life.”

This edition is completely reset and includes: an introduction, explanatory footnotes, contemporary reviews, extracts from George Layard’s biography of Linton, and extracts from Linton’s novel Sowing the Wind.

To find out more, please visit The Autobiography of Christopher Kirkland webpage.

Filed Under: News

New edition of F. Anstey’s Vice Versâ

September 1, 2011 By Catherine Pope

We’re pleased to announce a new critical edition of F. Anstey’s comic novel Vice Versâ – a story so funny, it is famed for causing Trollope’s fatal stroke (to the modern reader, that could be either an endorsement or a terrible warning).

First published in 1882, Vice Versâ shows the disastrous consequences of having one’s wishes granted. After delivering a pompous lecture to his son Dick, stuffy Paul Bultitude declares his wish to be a schoolboy once more so he can enjoy the carefree existence of youth. Unfortunately for him, he happens to be clutching the mysterious and magical Garudâ stone, and suddenly finds himself transformed into the diminutive body of his son. Dick quickly uses the stone to his own advantage, assuming his father’s portly character and swapping roles. While Dick gets the opportunity to run his father’s business in the City and wreak havoc on the household, Paul must endure the privations of the brutal boarding school he forced young Dick to attend. Determined not to lose his dignity, Paul retains his former bombastic demeanour, leading to a series of hilarious episodes with the cane-wielding Dr Grimstone.

This new scholarly edition includes a comprehensive critical introduction by Peter Merchant, author biography, explanatory footnotes, and a wealth of contextual material. To find out more, please visit the Vice Versâ page.

Filed Under: News

New edition of A Mummer’s Wife

June 11, 2011 By Catherine Pope

We are pleased to announce a new critical edition of George Moore’s controversial novel, A Mummer’s Wife. First published in 1885, the novel tells the story of Kate Ede, a bored Midlands housewife unhappily married to an asthmatic draper. When a handsome travelling actor comes to lodge with her family, Kate succumbs to temptation, with disastrous consequences.

The shocking themes of alcoholism and adultery led to the novel being banned by Mudie’s, thus initiating a war of attrition between Moore and the circulating libraries. In his introduction to this edition, Anthony Patterson considers Moore’s work in the context of literary production and censorship, and also examines the novel’s themes.

This completely reset edition also includes:

  • a preface by Moore’s biographer, Professor Adrian Frazier
  • critical introduction, author biography and explanatory footnotes by Anthony Patterson
  • the full text of Literature at Nurse, Moore’s polemic pamphlet in which he attacked the Grundyism of the circulating libraries.
  • extracts from Moore’s A Communication to My Friends, in which he describes his first meeting with publisher Henry Vizetelly and the evolution of “A Mummer’s Wife”
  • Moore’s preface to Zola’s Piping Hot!
  • an excerpt from the autobiography of Jimmy Glover, whose experiences as an actor influenced the novel

For more information, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/books/a-mummers-wife/

Filed Under: News

New edition of Notable Women Authors of the Day

March 31, 2011 By Catherine Pope

We are very pleased to announce the release of Helen C. Black’s Notable Women Authors of the Day.

First published in 1893, Notable Women Authors of the Day began life as a series of interviews published in the popular women’s magazine the Lady’s Pictorial. The 30 featured authors were among the most successful of the late nineteenth century, and many were household names.

The interviews offer a tantalising glimpse into the life the Victorian woman writer, revealing the challenges of balancing their personal and professional lives. Helen C. Black describes the author and her home, sharing with the reader details of domestic arrangements and writing habits.   Told in the second person, the interviews create an immediacy and intimacy between the authors and the reader.

This new edition is based on the 1906 text, including the original portraits, along with a wealth of new material:

  • preface by Troy J. Bassett on Helen C. Black and the Lady’s Pictorial
  • critical introduction
  • explanatory footnotes
  • updated profiles on the Notable Women
  • suggestions for further reading

For more information, and for details on how to order copies, please visit:

http://victoriansecrets.co.uk/books/notable-women-authors-of-the-day/

 

Filed Under: News

Demos by George Gissing

March 22, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Demos by George GissingBigamy, bisexuality, and betrayal form the sensational plot of Demos (1886), the third published novel from super-grump George Gissing. Although the novel’s sub-title – ‘A Story of English Socialism’ – doesn’t make it sound terribly exciting, politics and social unrest form the backdrop, and the foreground narrative is both tight and compelling.

George Orwell, perhaps anticipating Twitter, pithily described Demos as “a story of the moral and intellectual corruption of a working-class Socialist who inherits a fortune.” The Socialist in question is Dick Mutimer, a serious-minded mechanic who leaves behind his old life and in a slum district of London without the least compunction. Meanwhile, the presumed heir to the fortune, aesthete Hubert Eldon, returns from the Continent with a mysterious bullet wound and discovers that his comfortable position has been usurped by a rough young parvenu. Mutimer uses his new-found wealth to establish an ironworks and model village in the fictional Midlands town of Wanley, and is able to realise his long-held dream of improving the lot of Demos – the working man.

Mutimer’s project turns the “land of meadows and orchard” into an “igneous realm” with its “hundred and fifty fire-vomiting blast furnaces.” Everything, including the landscape, must be subordinate to the needs of Demos.
Not content with assuming Eldon’s wealth, Mutimer also covets his intended wife, the ingenue Adela Waltham. Adela is a “martyr to her mother’s miserable calculations”: once Mrs Waltham realises Eldon has no prospects, she coerces her daughter into accepting Mutimer’s proposal, even though they are ill-suited. Adela endures an unhappy marriage to a brutal and solipsistic man, and is thoroughly miserable until she is awoken, both sexually and spiritually, by the bewitching Stella Westlake.

Stella is one of the novel’s most intriguing characters: a pre-Raphaelite beauty, exuding charm, pheromones and quiet intelligence. She is based on William Morris’s wife, Jane, although I haven’t as yet established whether it’s an authentic portrait. The rest of the cast are all largely unlikeable, but also gruesomely compelling. Although he denies the reader a central hero, Gissing does at least have the decency to ensure that the good ultimately triumph and the wicked meet with a sticky end. It’s a shame the good have to suffer so much along the way, but it wouldn’t be Gissing without a liberal dose of misery. His description of the “chill desolation” of Manor Park Cemetery has been described as one of the most beautiful passages in English literature; it is also one of the most poignant.

Demos is Gissing’s fictional response to rapid social change. Hubert Eldon fears the 20th century, believing it to be the era of Demos, a ravening beast that will devour everything in its path. He is partly a mouthpiece for the author. Gissing was an inveterate snob who was fiercely critical of anyone getting ideas above their station. However, he also ardently believed that the workers should be treated much better, fiercely denouncing those who exploited the poor and the vulnerable.

Demos is exquisite, dramatic, and at times painful. Those familiar with Gissing’s first novel, Workers in the Dawn, will see in it his development as an author, as he gradually hones his craft. The success of the plot is perhaps demonstrated by the fact that Demos is the only Gissing novel to have been adapted into a Hollywood film. I’m quietly hopeful that the BBC will spot the dramatic potential of New Grub Street and The Nether World as an antidote to the tweeness of some recent adaptations. No doubt Cranford could be livened up considerably by an outbreak of biting and Miss Matty succumbing to drug addiction.

Gissing’s own verdict on Demos was: “In my private opinion, Demos is distinctly ahead of anything since George Eliot ceased to write.” There’s a tiny nugget of humility, if you really look for it. The author’s trumpet-blowing aside, Demos is certainly one of the finest literary achievements of the early Fin de Siècle.

Victorian Secrets publishes George Gissing’s Demos, Thyrza, and Workers in the Dawn.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: fin de siecle, George Gissing, Victorian Secrets

New edition of Demos by George Gissing

March 16, 2011 By Catherine Pope

We are pleased to announce a new critical edition of George Gissing’s Demos, edited by Debbie Harrison.

Demos tells the story of London mechanic and ardent socialist Richard Mutimer, who unexpectedly inherits a fortune at the expense of the presumed heir, aristocratic Hubert Eldon. Mutimer leaves behind his old life to establish a model village for ironworkers in the idyllic Midland town of Wanley. He also deserts the girl who loves him, as he seeks to assume the social status of the middle-class capitalists he once despised.

This edition includes:

A preface by Pierre Coustillas; a critical introduction and notes by Debbie Harrison; suggestions for further reading; George Gissing biography & chronology; an appendix on the politics of Demos.

For more information, please see the Demos webpage.

Filed Under: News

New edition of The Light that Failed by Rudyard Kipling

February 3, 2011 By Catherine Pope

We are pleased to announce a new critical edition of Rudyard Kipling’s semi-autobiographical first novel, The Light that Failed.

The Light that Failed tells the story of war artist Dick Heldar, his doomed love for childhood sweetheart Maisie, and his descent into blindness. Through Dick, Kipling considers the relationship between art and life, espousing his belief that the artist has a duty to paint only what he knows to be true.

This edition, edited by Paul Fox, includes: introduction, biography of Kipling, suggestions for further reading, explanatory footnotes, the alternative “happy ending” from the serialised version.

For more information, please see the our web page for The Light that Failed.

Filed Under: News

New edition of East of Suez

January 28, 2011 By Catherine Pope

Victorian Secrets is pleased to annouce a new critical edition of Alice Perrin’s East of Suez.

Originally published in 1901, East of Suez was Perrin’s first collection of short stories.  Her fascinating and thought-provoking tales of Anglo-Indian life rival the best work of Kipling, and were hugely successful in their day.  Perrin tells stories of illicit love and betrayal set against a beautifully-drawn backdrop of the mystical east, interweaving the supernatural with exquisite details of her characters’ lives.  As the Times wrote in her obituary: “She wrote a simple, unforced style, and the reader feels keenly the heat, the dust, the moonrise, the night calls, and all the sights and sounds and smells of the unchanging East.”

This edition includes a scholarly introduction by Melissa Makala, author biography, suggestions for further reading, explanatory notes, contextual material on the British Raj, and original illustrations from the serialisation of the stories.

For more information, please visit the East of Suez webpage.

Filed Under: News

Florence Marryat’s ‘The Blood of the Vampire’ now published

July 5, 2010 By Catherine Pope

We are very pleased to announce that our new edition of Florence Marryat’s fin-de-siècle sensation The Blood of the Vampire is now published.  This edition features a critical introduction by Greta Depledge, suggestions for further reading, explanatory notes, and additional contextual material on the novel’s themes.

To find out more, please visit the The Blood of the Vampire webpage.

Filed Under: News

Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s ‘Henry Dunbar’ now published

June 18, 2010 By Catherine Pope

We are very pleased to announce that our new edition of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s sensation classic Henry Dunbar is now published.  This edition features a critical introduction by Anne-Marie Beller, suggestions for further reading, explanatory notes, and additional contextual material.

To find out more, please visit the Henry Dunbar webpage.

Filed Under: News

Workers in the Dawn by George Gissing

January 7, 2010 By Catherine Pope

Cover of Workers in the Dawn by George GissingWorkers in the Dawn (1880) was the first published novel from the pen of George Gissing, one of the nineteenth century’s most original writers.  It tells the story of Arthur Golding, a young boy who finds himself orphaned after his dissolute father dies in the squalor of a London slum.  Through a series of fortunate encounters, he gains a good education and embarks upon a career as an artist, meeting the woman of his dreams, Helen Norman, along the way.  As this is Gissing, however, it all goes horribly wrong when he rescues an alcoholic prostitute from the streets and tries to reform her, an episode that is largely autobiographical.

All of Gissing’s novels reflect his obsession with class, sex, and money, and Workers in the Dawn is no exception.  Here he examines the place of women in society, and also presents a realistic picture of working-class life at the time.  At this point in his career, Gissing was going through a Socialist and Positivist phase, and the debates surrounding both are interwoven throughout the narrative.  Explaining his socialist agenda, Gissing wrote:

First and foremost, I attack the criminal negligence of governments which spend their time over matters of relatively no importance, to the neglect of the terrible social evils which should have been long since strongly grappled with.  Here I am a mouthpiece of the advanced Radical party.

He came to regret his early adherence to left-wing principles, however, later leaning towards to Malthusian view that the poor were irredeemably vicious and ought not to be supported.  Indeed, he later heavily revised the text of Workers in the Dawn and eventually expunged it from his list of publications.

Although the initial critical response to the novel was mostly unfavourable, the Manchester Examiner and Times wrote: “He has written one of the most painful stories we have read for a long time, but assuredly one which emphatically offers a promise of something great.”  In 1880, the press were still wary of the literary school of realism, and inclined to castigate its exponents.  Gissing’s authorial voice is mindful of this situation, adding in chapter five: “A conversation ensued which I shall not endeavour to repeat, under fear of being stigmatised by the critical world.”

In Workers in the Dawn, Gissing went much further than his contemporaries in exposing poverty and attacking the causes of it, aligning himself more closely with Zola and Flaubert than Dickens and Trollope.  The narrator is an urban flaneur, who guides the reader through the squalid streets of some of the poorest areas of late-Victorian London.  There is a sense of Mayhew when we are introduced to the baked-potato seller and the umbrella-mender.  Geography is fundamental to the novel, and this edition includes a detailed map prepared by Richard Dennis, Professor of Human Geography at UCL.

Professor Dennis’ work shows that the East End of Arthur Golding’s London was much close to the city than the districts associated with fin-de-siècle ‘Darkest London’.  Adam and Eve Court, the centre of the novel’s degradation, is close to the Barbican and was actually cleared by the Metropolitan Board of Works just a few years after Workers in the Dawn was published.  Now, of course, the area is associated with wealth and prosperity.  As Debbie Harrison writes in her introduction:

The novel reflects the anxieties of a metropolis troubled by the growing contagion of pauperism in the east, threatened by an increasingly radical working class, and weakened by an effete generation of middle-class apostates, cynics, hypocrites, and rakes.

Workers in the Dawn is rich with allusions to art and the Classics, and also the philosophical debates of the day.  As a debut novel, it is inevitably stuffed with every idea Gissing ever had, but is nevertheless an intriguing evocation of the preoccupations of a mid-Victorian intellectual.  The wealth of detail is covered both in the scholarly introduction and extensive endnotes, so there is plenty here for the seasoned Gissing scholar and the general reader.  Perhaps in an attempt to achieve wide appeal, Gissing also includes a sensational subplot involving adultery, divorce and (excitingly) firearms.  Although John Sutherland laments the “melodramatic excesses” of the novel, Pierre Coustillas in his preface quite rightly says that it “cannot leave a thinking man or woman indifferent.”

Victorian Secrets publishes George Gissing’s Demos, Thyrza, and Workers in the Dawn.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Gissing

Workers in the Dawn now published

January 4, 2010 By Catherine Pope

We are very pleased to announce that our new critical edition of George Gissing’s Workers in the Dawn has now been published.  It features a preface by leading Gissing expert Pierre Coustillas, a critical introduction by Debbie Harrison, a unique map of Arthur Golding’s London by Richard Dennis, suggestions for further reading, a George Gissing chronology, and explanatory notes.

Filed Under: News

Rhoda Broughton’s Twilight Stories now published

December 9, 2009 By Catherine Pope

We’re pleased to announce that our new edition of Rhoda Broughton’s Twilight Stories has just been published.  This edition features a critical introduction from Emma Liggins and suggestions for further reading.  More details on the Twilight Stories page.

Filed Under: News

Charlotte Riddell’s Weird Stories now published

November 9, 2009 By Catherine Pope

We’re pleased to announce that our new edition of Charlotte Riddell’s Weird Stories has just been published.  This edition features a critical introduction from Emma Liggins and suggestions for further reading.  More details on the Weird Stories page.

Filed Under: News

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Copyright © 2022 · Victorian Secrets Limited