New Romantic Canons in the Same Old Classroom

Update #1--A Newsletter

July 1, 1995

Edited by Laura Mandell , Dept. of English, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056

MANDELLC@muohio.edu

This Newsletter is not copyrighted. Feel free to download and photocopy any portion or all of it for interested colleagues.

The goal of this newsletter is to provide support for teaching difficult texts--"difficult" because the texts are not easily accessible and because teaching such texts makes new, unforeseen demands on us. Readers are encouraged to help provide such support by making contributions to subsequent Updates; any and all views are welcome.<1>

I. REQUESTS

for information to share among those receiving this newsletter (and please pass it along):

A. Send any information you have, for instance on texts that are difficult to find or exceptionally rewarding to teach, for inclusion in the next Update to Laura Mandell (lmandell@miamiu.muohio.edu; snail-mail address above).

B. Meeting the new Pedagogical Challenge:

Dan Albergotti has suggested that the NASSR Listserv "might be a good forum for discussion on meeting [the] pedagogical challenge" of incorporating "forgotten" women Romantic poets into our courses.

If you have any ideas about this, please post them on the NASSR Listserv or send them to Laura Mandell for inclusion in the next packet update.

C. Send any teaching assignments on noncanonical texts that have worked well in your classes.

D. A Call for Syllabi:

The section entitled "Web Resources" lists network addresses through which you can obtain syllabi used by Romanticists. Alan Liu is entering onto his Web page (address below) syllabi that appeared in the original "New Romantic Canons" packet. He also requests that you send to him for inclusion in his Web Page any syllabi you have devised for teaching Romantics classes.

Instructions: send electronic versions (by e-mail or diskette) as well as a paper copy.

David Stewart is constructing a Web page for NASSR-L and would also like to have syllabi for Romantics classes. Please send them to David Stewart: dcstewa@wvnvm.wvnet.edu

II. TEXTS for Teaching and Research:

A. Chadwyck-Healey's English Poetry Data Base

Although costly ($30,000 according to a review in the New Yorker), it can be used if your library has acquired it to make impressive course readers:

  1. All materials except those designated "Third Party Material"<2> on the database can be included "in materials for class/course work" without copyright infringement (F-1 of the instruction booklet). You can either print out directly or download poems onto disks, modifying the texts you use (adding notes, etc.) for inclusion in a course reader; a tag will appear at the top of the page of each poem that says "Copyright (c) 1994 Chadwyck-Healey Ltd."
  2. Limitations as a research tool: only those authors listed in The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Writers (1969) have poems entered into the database, meaning that there are some big omissions. For instance, poems by Mary Leapor, whose work is being edited by Ann Messenger for a scholarly edition to be published by Oxford in 1995, does not have any poems in the database, even though there are poems by other women whose works appeared in Poems by Eminent Ladies (Colman and Thornton, 1755).<3>
  3. Bonuses:
    --Jerome McGann reports that the English Poetry Database has L. E. Landon's complete poetry in it.
    --Any play written in verse by Joanna Baillie is in the database!

B. Printed Texts:

Non-canonical novels available or soon-to-be-published, by press:

1) Broadview Press

Ordering address: 3576 California Rd., Orchard Park, NY 14127

Ordering phone: call collect (705) 743-8990
Ordering FAX: (705) 743-8353

Texts already available--

Eliza Fenwick, Secresy, or Ruin on the Rock, ed. Isobel Grundy (1994, paper) US $12.95/CDN $15.95 #1-55111-014-8

Mary Hays, The Victim of Prejudice, ed. Eleanor Ty (1994) (cloth) US $27.95/CDN $29.95

Eliza Haywood, Love in Excess, or the Fatal Enquiry, ed. David Oakleaf (1994) (paper) U.S. $12.95/CDN $14.95

Texts available late in 1995--

Anne Plumptre, Something New

Sarah Scott, Millenium Hall (prev. advertised for Summer and then Nov. 1994; ed. Gary Kelly, paper, U.S. $12.95/CDN $14.95, ISBN 1-55111-015-6

Texts planned--

Maria Edgeworth's Belinda

Elizabeth Hamilton, Memoirs of Modern Philosophers, tentative editor Claire Grogan of Bishop's University

Mary Shelley's Lodore, editor Lisa Vargo of the University of Saskatchewan

Mary Shelley's The Last Man, editor L. McWhir of the University of Calgary

**Texts being considered--

Byron's Childe Harolde, an edition of the 1800 Lyrical Ballads, most of Austen and the Brontes, Peacock's Nightmare Alley, and an edition of Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Men.

** We can have an effect upon what gets published. I have sent to Don LePan, President of Broadview Press, the results of the poll, mailed to you by NASSR, on what unpublished Romantic-period novels you would like to teach. If you did not participate in that poll, or you would like to edit a volume, you may want to write to Broadview Press to tell them your teaching needs or to offer to edit a volume. Head Office: 71 Princess St., P.O. Box 1243, Peterborough, ON Canada K9J 7H5; Phone (705) 743-8990; FAX (705) 743-8353

2) University of Kentucky Press

Ordering Address: 663 South Limeston Street, Lexington, KY 40508-4008

Ordering Phone: 1-800-839-6855
Ordering FAX: 1-800-870-4981

Series: Eighteenth-Century Novels by Women

Series Editor: Prof. Isobel Grundy, Dept. of English, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E5.

Available--

Sarah Scott, The History of Sir George Ellison, ed. Betty Rizzo (November 1995) Paper $15.95 0-8131-0849-7

Texts Under Contract--

Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier, The Cry, ed. Carolyn Woodward (Fall 1996)

Frances Brooke, The Excursion, ed. Paula Backscheider (Fall 1996 or Spring 1997)

Sophia Lee, The Recess, ed. April Alliston (Fall 1996 or Spring 1997)

Elizabeth Griffith, The Delicate Distress, ed. Susan Staves and Cyntha Ricciardi (Spring 1997)

Eliza Haywood, The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy, ed. John Richetti (Fall 1997)

Sarah Fielding, The Adventures of David Simple, ed Peter Sabor (Fall 1997 or Spring 1998)

Charlotte Smith, The Young Philosopher, ed. Elizabeth Kraft (Spring 1988)

Eliza Haywood, The British Recluse and The Injur'd Husband, ed. Jerry Beasley (Spring 1998)

Mary Davys, The Reform'd Coquet, Familiar Letters Betwixt a Gentleman and a Lady, and The Accomplish'd Rake, ed. by Martha Bowden (Fall 1998).

Amelia Opie, Adeline Mowbray, ed. Ruth Perry (Fall 1998).

3) Garland Publishing

Order Address: 1000A Sherman Ave., Hamden, CT 06514

Order Phone: 1-800-627-6273
Order FAX (203) 230-1186

Garland does not provide books affordable to students, but some of the Garland Series may be things you would like your library to have.

a) Garland Series:

b) Individual texts:

Jane Austen, Lady Susan: A Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Pierpont Morgan Library and the 1925 Printed Edition. ISBN 0-8240-3435-X (Currently on sale for $50.00)

4) The Wordsworth Circle's "Book news and notes" (Vol. 25.4 [Autumn 1994]: 195-6) reports that "[b]y the end of 1993, Revolution and Romanticism, the series of facsimiles selected and introduced by Jonathan Wordsworth and published by

Woodstock Books,

included one hundred volumes of . . . . poetry, fiction, journalism, drama, travel, biography, political and religious commentary, and translations reproduc[ing] the cultural milieu of th age . . . . The new series, appearing from 1994--1996, will be devoted to thiry-four more volumes of writing specifically by women" (195). I will try to list those volumes in a subsequent Update.

5) University of Michigan Press:

Order Address: 839 Greene St., Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1104

Order Phone: (313) 764-4392
Order FAX: (800) 876-1922

Catalogue On-Line: http://www.press.umich.edu

--Jane (Webb) Loudon, The Mummy! Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, abridged by Alan Rauch (1994) (paper) on sale for $14.36 ISBN 0-472-06574-2

6) Oxford Univ. Press:

Order Address: 2001 Evans Rd., Cary, NC 27513

Order Phone: (800) 451-7556
Order FAX: (919) 677-1303

New in the World's Classics series:

William Godwin, St. Leon (1994). ISBN 019-282833-9

Maria Edgeworth, Belinda (1995), ed. Kathryn Kirkpatrick. ISBN 019-283123-2

Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals: apparently Moorman's edition is out of print, but Oxford has published The Grasmere Journals, ed. Pamela Woof (1993) (paper) $12.95 ISBN 0-19-283130-5; there are no available Alfoxden journals, but Eric Birdsall says that Woof's editing of Grasmere is "splendid."

I will try to include more info. from Oxford in the next Update; in the meantime, please notice texts to be published by Oxford in the "Hearsay" section (II.C.1) just below.

C. Other Information on Texts:

1. Noncanonical--forthcoming on Hearsay:

Mary Shelley, Valperga: Stuart Curran reports that in January he was in the proof-stage of editing this text for Oxford Univ. Press.

Mary Hays, Memoirs of Emma Courtney will be edited by Eleanor Ty for Oxford Univ. P.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Poetical Works of L.E.L.: Deborah Kennedy reports that the 1873 edition of this text has been reprinted in facsimile: Ed. F. J. Sypher, Delmar: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1990.

2. Special Topic: Revolution Controversy:

In addition to Marilyn Butler's The Revolution Controversy which collects shortened versions of essays by figures prominent in the controversy, look also at:

D. Anthologies

There has been much discussion of new anthologies on NASSR-L. Here is a partial list of those out or coming out:

E. Texts on Microfilm

1) Chadwyck-Healey's Women Studies Collection

Order Address: 1101 King Street, Suite 380, Alexandria, VA 22314-9455

Order phone: 1-800-752-0515; FAX 703-683-4890; E-mail: mktg@chadwyck.com

--"The Nineteenth Century: Women Writers" (contains 17,000 works)

2) Adam Matthew Publications:

Order Address: 8 Oxford Street, Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 1AP, UK

Order Phone: (01672) 511921; FAX (01672) 511663

Patrick Leary (pleary@ucs.indiana.edu) reports that these microfilm sets range in cost from $1000 to $3000, depending upon the number of reels per set. The sets listed here, and this is just a sampling, are scheduled for publication this year or next:

F. Video Resources:

Celeste Van Vloten (celeste@uoguelph.ca) reports that VideoLit, "a very small production and distribution service, . . . . publishes, in the form of videotape, studies of literary works in which aspects of cultural environments are important to interpretation." Studies available include:

Each VideoLit lecture costs U.S. $45.00/CDN $60.00 and comes with a free instructor's study guide. There are shipping charges and discounts on larger orders.

Order Address: VideoLit, Department of English, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1

Order Phone: (519) 787-2985; Order FAX (519) 766-0844

G. Texts on-line:

1. To find out about freely available electronic texts, ask to receive the Internet-on-a-Disk Newsletter by sending requests to:

samizdat@world.std.com

If you do not have an e-mail address, the Newsletter can be requested on IBM or McIntosh diskettes (for a charge) from:

B & R Samizdat Express
P.O. Box 161
West Roxbury, MA 02132

Scanning Newsletters 1 through 9, I can see "ftp" addresses for works by William Morris, John Gay, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, William Godwin, George Eliot, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Paine, William Law, Oscar Wilde, etc.

Internet-On-A-Disk Newsletters provide ftp and web addresses for several projects that make texts available on-line:

The Gutenberg Project, the Oxford Archive, and Wiretap

Back issues of Internet-on-a-Disk Newsletters are available: Internet-On-a-Disk #5, September 1994 provides the address for Alex: A Catalogue of Texts on the Internet and for an e-mail accessible Directory of E-Text Centers.

2. The Internet Resources listed in section III below will also provide you with information on how to get texts electronically.

III. INTERNET RESOURCES:

NB: If your library computer system accesses the network, you may be able (as I was) to have your library put some or all of these Web resources onto their Internet menu. That makes accessing them easy and makes the resources available to students.

A. Jack Lynch (jlynch@english.upenn.edu)

has posted a list of electronic texts of eighteenth-century works available over the Internet, covering the very long eighteenth century from Milton to Byron, with direct links to the appropriate collections. The URL<5> is

for eighteenth-century texts,

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/18th

This Web page supplements Jack Lynch's larger page of literary internet resources,

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jlynch/Lit

B. Alan Liu's "Voice of the Shuttle: Web Page for Humanities Research":

http://humanitas.ucsb.edu

General Table of Contents:

New (recently collected links)
General Humanities Web Pages
Anthropology
Area and Regional Studies (American Studies, Latin American Studies, etc.)
Art and Art History (including Architecture)
Classics
Cultural Studies
History
Law
Literature (English)
Literature (Other) (including French, German, Italian, Phillipine)
Media (Journalism, TV, Film, Video, Comics)
Minority Studies (including Afro-American, Chicano/Latino, Asian-American, Jewish, Native-American)
Philosophy
Politics and Government
Religious Studies
Science, Medicine, Gender Theory, and Queer Theory
Journals (scholarly, general, computer-related, 'zines)
Reference (online dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauruses, university phone books, exchange rates, etc.)
Teaching Sites
Publishers and Booksellers
Academe (including many university home pages, grant info, etc.)
Commercial Sites (a short list of major corporations with a Web presence)
Cool, Bizarre, and Risque Sites
Geography (Cities, Places, Parks, Travel, Weather)
For Your Children (Sesame St., Lego Page, Children's fiction page, etc.)
Internet Info and Resources (general Internet Info adn guides, Internet search engines, Web authoring and browser resources, etc.)

If you select "Literature (English)" and then "Romantics," you will get to a Web page that contains information such as the table of contents for British Literature 1780-1830, eds. Richard Matlak and Anne Mellor (forthcoming), jacket descriptions of books relevant to British or Continental Romanticism, syllabi,<6> etc.; he will soon have the original "New Romantics Canon Packet" in its entirety on that page, plus any syllabi or other information you can send him.

To get to the Romantic Bibliography directly,

http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/liu/rombib95.html

To see, for example, William Jewett's syllabus,

http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/liu/jewett.html

* If you have important information or suggestions, or if you could possibly volunteer to help Alan Liu put information related to Romanticism onto "Voice of the Shuttle," please contact Alan Liu by e-mail: ayliu@humanitas.ucsb.edu

** The MIT library has developed a "Language and Literature" subject area which our library adopted wholesale; it includes "Voice of the Shuttle."

C. Steve Jones (sjones1@luc.edu) has created the "Keats-Shelley Journal Home Page" at:

http://www.luc.edu/publications/keats-shelley/ksjweb.htm

D. David Stewart,

host of the Seminar conducted by Jerome McGann called "Radiant Textuality: Humane Studies in Virtual Spaces" at West Virginia University in early June, is setting up a Web page for NASSR-L. This page will provide:

1) Syllabi

2) Monthly listing of books published on Romanticism

3) Conference announcements

4) Table of Contents from certain journals

5) Links to other relevant locations (i.e., Rossetti archive)

I do not yet have the address for this Web page. You may wait until the next Update, or please contact David Stewart (dcstewa@wvnvm.wvnet.edu).

E. Tom Goldpaugh of Marist College (JZK5@MaristB.Marist.edu)

is working on an annotated list of sources on the net with 200 links up so far. Although he is still working on Romanticism links, Tom Goldpaugh's "References on the Net" page leads into search machines, meta-indexes, literature indexes--from general (ERIS/ALEX, etc.) to academic (Aldus, Early Modern Europe, etc.)--humanities gateways, and departments on line. The URL for References on the Net is:

http://www.academic.marist.edu/1/refer.htm

Two areas he has completed are Writing on the Web:

http://www.academic.marist.edu/1/writers.htm

and Postmodern/Hypertext/Culture Theory:

http://www.academic.marist.edu/1/culture.htm

F. Information about NASSR's listserv, NASSR-L:

You can control what you receive from NASSR-L by sending the following messages to the Listserv program itself: listserv@wvnvm.wvnet.edu

To subscribe: send the message SUBSCRIBE NASSR-L [your name]

To suspend mail for the summer: send the message SET NASSR-L NOMAIL

To resume mail for the fall: send the message SET NASSR-L MAIL

To receive NASSR-L in digest form: send the message SET NASSR-L DIGEST

G. The National Endowment for the Humanities

provides general information via email at: INFO@neh.fed.us

There is also an NEH Home Page containing deadlines, guidelines, and application forms for grants at

http://www.neh.fed.us

H. Miscellaneous Internet Information:

1. Onno Oerlemans of the University of Ottawa reports that the UPenn Gopher, also known as the Penn English Archive and Library has good selections of works by Barbauld, Smith, and Hemans. The UPenn address is given in the original packet and again here:

gopher:// dept.english.upenn.edu/11/E-Text/PEAL

2. Karen Krebser (krebser@erg.sri.com) reports that there is a listserv on Early Women Writers called WWP-L. Send the message SUB WWP-1 [your name] to the Listserv program: LISTSERV@brownvm.brown.edu.

3. Michael Gamer of the University of Pennsylvania (mgamer@dept.english.upenn.edu) and Stuart Curran have made their syllabi available electronically through the Penn gopher (gopher://dept.english.upenn.edu:70/11/Courses). See also Michael Gamer's Home Page:

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/home.html

and Stuart Curran's Home Page:

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~curran/home.html

4. Michael Hancher of the University of Minnesota has prepared a handlist reporting many early nineteenth-century periodicals that began publication in Great Britain between 1801 and 1850, as well as some beginning earlier that continued to publish after 1800. The list is organized chronologically by year of first publication and includes 350 titles. This list can be accessed at:

http://umn.edu/home/mh/britper.html

Michael Hancher's source catalogue, the University of Minnesota Libraries' electronic catalogue MNCAT, can be reached at the telnet address:

lumina.lib.umn.edu (vt100 emulation)

5. Gerard Lowe of University Library at Cambridge (abell@ula.cam.ac.uk; phone 44 (0) 1223 333058), editor of MHRA's Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, reports that ABELL was until April 30 available for searching online via telnet:

vaxf.lib.cam.ac.uk

You can always reach ABELL's Home Page at:

http://www.cam.ac.uk/Libraries/MHRA/ABELL/index.html

(I give you this address in case it is still available).

IV. TEACHING ROMANTIC NOVELS POLL:

We provided professors of Romanticism (including 4 graduate students) with a list of non-canonical novels from which they were to select those that they would like to teach if these texts were available.

A. We encouraged professors not to mention in this poll texts that are already available. However, we inadvertently listed two non-canonical texts that are already available, and almost every professor polled said that they would teach them at least once in three years:

Maria Edgeworth, Belinda
William Godwin, St. Leon

Both of these are available from Oxford (see II.B.6 above).

B. The number of professors who said that they would teach, at a frequency of every 2 to 3 years, each of the following novels which are not currently available is as follows:

  1. Mary Brunton, Discipline--chosen by 8 professors
  2. William Godwin, Deloraine--chosen by 2 professors
  3. Godwin, Fleetwood--5
  4. Godwin, Mandeville--5.5<7>
  5. Elizabeth Hamilton, Memoirs of Modern Philosophers--5
  6. Mary Hays, The Memoirs of Emma Courtney--18
  7. Eliza Haywood, The British Recluse--1
  8. Haywood, The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless--7
  9. Sophia Lee, The Recess--9
  10. Charles Maturin, The Milesian Chief--4
  11. Amelia Opie, Adeline Mowbray--18
  12. Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan) The Missionary--6
  13. Owenson, The O'Briens and the O'Flahertys--6.5
  14. Owenson, Florence Macarthy--3.5
  15. Owenson, The Wild Irish Girl--13.5
  16. Mary Shelley, Falkner--11
  17. Shelley, Lodore--10
  18. Shelley, Perkin Warbeck--6.5
  19. Shelley, Valperga (Castruccio)--14
  20. Percy Shelley, Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne--7
  21. Charlotte Smith, Desmond--10.5
  22. Smith, The Old Manor House--19.5
  23. Smith, The Romance of Real Life--7
  24. Smith, The Wanderings of Warwick--0

C. Names of non-canonical novels written in (under the section, "What else would you teach?") by more than one of the professors polled:

  1. Elizabeth Inchbald, Nature and Art--mentioned by 2 professors
  2. John Galt, The Entail and The Provost--mentioned by 3 professors
  3. Sarah Green, Scotch Novel Reading--2
  4. Thomas Day, The History of Sanford and Merton--2
  5. Sarah Scott, Millenium Hall--2
  6. Maria Edgeworth, Helen--2
  7. Frances Sheridan, Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulp--3
  8. Thomas Holcroft, Anna St. Ives--2
  9. Charlotte Smith, Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle--2
  10. Eliza Hamilton, Translation of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah (not, of course, really a translation)--2
  11. Two people mentioned that they would like to see Elizabeth Inchbald's A Simple Story back in print (it just went out of print at Oxford).

D. Names of non-canonical novels mentioned by only one person as something he or she would teach:

  1. Charlotte Dacre, Zofloya, or the Moor
  2. Caroline Lamb, Glenarvon
  3. Mary Russell Mitford, Our Village
  4. Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill, or the Two Brides
  5. Sara Coleridge, Phantasmion
  6. Mary Robinson, Vancenza, or, the Dangers of Credulity
  7. John Galt, Bogle Corbet, or the Emigrants
  8. John Galt, Ringhan Gilhaize, or the Covenanters
  9. John Galt, Annals of the Parish, or, The Chronicle of Dalmailing
  10. Eliza Hamilton, The Cottagers of Glenburnie
  11. Maria Edgeworth, Ormond
  12. Barbara Hofland, Matilda, or The Barbadoes Girl
  13. Charlotte Smith, Ethelinde, or the Recluse of the Lake
  14. Jane Taylor, Display
  15. Clara Reeve, The Progress of Romance
  16. Charlotte Smith, The Young Philosopher (coming from Kentucky)
  17. Anne Plumptre, Something New (coming from Broadview)
  18. John Thelwall, The Daughter of Adoption
  19. Mary Brunton, Self-Control
  20. Mary Robinson, Walsingham, or the Pupil of Nature
  21. Hannah More, Coelebs in Search of a Wife
  22. Helen Maria Williams, Julia
  23. Robert Bage, Hermsprong; or, Man as He Is Not
  24. Jane West, A Tale of the Times
  25. Several people mentioned that they would like to see foreign novels published, Sophie Cottin's Mathilde and Mme. de Stael's Delphine.

Copies of the poll results were sent to: Broadview Press, Kentucky UP, Oxford UP, Scolar Press, AMS Press, U of Michigan P, U of Nebraska P, Pickering & Chatto, and Basil Blackwell.

End of Update #1.

If your name is not on the mailing list and you would like to receive future Updates in paper form, send your name, title, and address to:

Laura Mandell
Dept. of English
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056

or send your snail-mail address to Laura Mandell at:

LMANDELL@miamiu.acs.muohio.edu