Issn 0017-0615 the Gissing Newsletter
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George Gissing: London's Restless Analyst
The Gissing Journal Volume XL, Number 3, July 2004 “More than most men am I dependent on sympathy to bring out the best that is in me.” Commonplace Book George Gissing (1857-1903): London’s Restless Analyst1 RICHARD DENNIS University College London “Walk with me, reader, into Whitecross Street. It is Saturday night, the market- night of the poor; also the one evening in the week which the weary toilers of our great city can devote to ease and recreation in the sweet assurance of a morrow unenslaved. Let us see how they spend this ‘Truce of God’; our opportunities will be of the best in the district we are entering.” The first words of Workers in the Dawn, the first published novel of the twenty-two-year-old George Gissing. I don’t think its most enthusiastic ad- vocate could claim that Workers in the Dawn is a masterpiece of English literature. But for all its faults it exemplifies a recurring characteristic of Gissing’s work, and the reason why I, as a historical geographer, have be- come a convert and, today, an enthusiastic proselytizer on his behalf. Gissing encouraged his readers to explore and, more than that, to engage with city life. Sometimes, like many earlier writers, he dealt in generic city- scapes—the “East End,” London beyond City Road, is described in the most general of terms—but more often, and especially in his later novels, Gissing’s London is very precisely defined: his characters live in real streets that the author has explored for himself, even in particular buildings. -
Issn 0017-0615 the Gissing Journal
ISSN 0017-0615 THE GISSING JOURNAL “More than most men am I dependent on sympathy to bring out the best that is in me.” – George Gissing’s Commonplace Book. ***************************** Volume XXXII, Number 2 April, 1996 ****************************** Contents A Distinguished Acquaintance of Gissing’s at Ciboure: Arthur Brownlow Fforde, by Pierre Coustillas 1 Between Emancipation and Restraint – Reading the Body in The Odd Women, by Mihoko Takeda 10 Shan F. Bullock: Gissing’s Admirer and an Ingenious Short Story Writer, by Masahiko Yahata 14 A Forgotten Assessment of Veranilda, by Randolph Faries, 2d 19 Gissing in the Boston Evening Transcript: His Interview by Joseph Anderson, by Pierre Coustillas 23 Book Review, by John Sloan 29 Notes and News 32 Recent Publications 34 Springtime in Northumberland, by Algernon Gissing 36 -- 1 -- A Distinguished Acquaintance of Gissing’s at Ciboure Arthur Brownlow Fforde Pierre Coustillas Until recently little enough was known of Gissing’s stay at Ciboure, the small fishing harbour adjoining Saint-Jean-de-Luz, from July 1902 to June 1903. He now kept his diary very irregularly and wrote down but few details about his social life. Correspondence with his relatives and friends was becoming infrequent; having to make a living by his pen, he concentrated on work as much as his health allowed. More numerous than those to any other correspondent at this time, his letters to his literary agent, James B. Pinker, are a faithful mirror of his professional activities, but of his non-literary occupations he said little to anyone. Rarely did he suggest that the trio he formed with Gabrielle Fleury and “Maman” enjoyed a pleasant and varied social life, that of the English colony. -
Henry Ryecroft Meets Henry Maitland: George Gissing in and on Bloomsbury
Henry Ryecroft meets Henry Maitland: George Gissing in and on Bloomsbury Richard Dennis Dept of Geography, UCL [email protected] Introduction George Gissing is not normally associated with Bloomsbury. He is a man of the slums, or on the margins, or maybe a cynical observer of the nouveau riche, but never a Bloomsbury academic or intellectual. And yet Bloomsbury featured prominently in both his own life and his work. In this paper I want to focus on (1) Gissing’s relationship with the British Museum; (2) his use of the streets and squares of Bloomsbury; (3) his own residence in various lodgings in Bloomsbury and how this translated into his novels; and (4) to reflect on his overall personification of Bloomsbury, including scenes from his novels that were apparently NOT based on his own particular experiences. The British Museum Gissing obtained his reader’s ticket for the British Museum Reading Room in November 1877, the day after his 20th birthday.1 In New Grub Street Edwin Reardon applies for his reader’s ticket on his 21st birthday, for which he needed “the signature of some respectable householder”.2 Gissing himself seems not to have had any difficulty getting his ticket, notwithstanding both his youth (he must have misrepresented his age and claimed to be 21) and his recently obtained criminal record.3 The British Museum was central to Gissing’s life in London, both as an impoverished writer, as a source of heat, light and running water as well as a site for research, and as a classical scholar. -
Late-Victorian Folklore: Constructing the Science of Fairies
Late-Victorian Folklore: Constructing the Science of Fairies Francesca Bihet Introduction In Andrew Lang’s and May Kendall’s satire That Very Mab (1885) the fairy Queen is captured by a scientist, treated like a butterfly and categorised. When his son starts worshiping the fairy, the scientist proclaims to have discovered the origin of religion. ‘It is worshipping butterflies, with a service of fetich stones. The boy has returned to it by an act of unconscious inherited memory, derived from Palaeolithic Man’ (40). This ‘amusing moment of self-satire’ (Silver 1999: 202), parodies anthropologists searching for the origins of ancient beliefs, especially in fairies. The origin of fairy belief was also one of the first questions addressed by Thomas Keightley in The Fairy Mythology (1828: 3-8). This question of origins also became centrally important to the late Victorian fairy science of the Folklore Society (FLS). Driven by a cultural Darwinian obsession with origins and spurred on by new anthropological theories, folklorists attempted to use cultural survivals to fill the vastly expanded boundaries of human time. Gillian Bennett notes, alongside the field of geology, Darwinism ‘opened up a vast chasm of uncharted ages which, like a vacuum, demanded to be filled with-something’ (1994: 27), therefore anthropologists employed evolutionary theories to provide new explanations. She explains that cultural evolution enabled the ‘fragmentary and diverse materials of anthropology’ to be systemised, promising a ‘scientific basis’ upon which to establish ‘the construction of a prehistory of mankind’ (27). The scientific methodologies of anthropology, to which most FLS members were committed adherents, could now explain the popular Victorian theme of fairies as survivals of ancient religions, primitive animistic beliefs, or half memories of ancient peoples distorted through time. -
Observation and Evidence in the Supernatural Fiction of Grant Allen, Bram Stoker and Arthur Conan Doyle
GHOST, VAMPIRE, AND SCIENTIFIC NATURALISM: OBSERVATION AND EVIDENCE IN THE SUPERNATURAL FICTION OF GRANT ALLEN, BRAM STOKER AND ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE Shang-jen Li Still, it must be borne in mind that unless an apparition had been sci- entifically observed as we two independent witnesses observed this one, the grounds for believing in its existence would have been next to none. And even after the clear evidence which we obtained of its immaterial nature, we yet remain entirely in the dark as to its objective reality, and we have not the faintest reason for believing it to have been a genuine unadulterated ghost. At the best we can only say that we saw and heard Something, and that this Something differed very widely from almost any other object we had ever seen and heard before. To leap at the con- clusion that the Something was therefore a ghost, would be, I venture humbly to submit, without offence to the Psychical Research Society, a most unscientific and illogical specimen of that peculiar fallacy known as Begging the Question. —“Our Scientific Observations on a Ghost,” Grant Allen1 Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men’s eyes, because they know—or think they know—some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explains not, then it says there is nothing to explain. -
Alas, Poor Ghost!
Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All USU Press Publications USU Press 1999 Alas, Poor Ghost! Gillian Bennett Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs Part of the Cultural History Commons Recommended Citation Bennett, G. (1999). Alas, poor ghost!: Traditions of belief in story and discourse. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the USU Press at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All USU Press Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “Alas, Poor Ghost!” Traditions of Belief in Story and Discourse “Alas, Poor Ghost!” Traditions of Belief in Story and Discourse by Gillian Bennett New, Expanded, and Extensively Revised Edition of Traditions of Belief: Women and the Supernatural Utah State University Press Logan, Utah Copyright © 1999 Utah State University Press All rights reserved Utah State University Press Logan, Utah 84322-7800 Typography by WolfPack Text design by Chantze Kin Cover Design by Barbara Yale-Read Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bennett, Gillian. Alas, poor ghost! : traditions of belief in story and discourse / by Gillian Bennett. p. cm. New, expanded, and extensively rev. ed. of Traditions of belief, 1987. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-87421-277-4 (pbk.) ISBN 0-87421-278-2 (cloth) 1. Folklore—Great Britain. 2. Occultism—Great Britain. 3. Ghosts—Great Britain. 4. Women—Great Britain—Folklore. I. Traditions of belief. II. Title. GR141 .B55 1999 398’.0941—dc21 99-6558 CIP In Memoriam Frederick George Lawley, 5 September 1916–26 March 1991 Contents Introduction 1 Background 1 The Structure of This Book 6 Chapter 1. -
Glossary of Spiritualist Terms and Techniques
A PPENDIX A Glossary of Spiritualist Terms and Techniques automatic writing. A Spirit uses the medium’s hand to write replies to any number of questions posed; also practiced by amateurs as a way of strengthening their spiritual powers. As an added feature, a magic pencil sometimes floats. In such instances, the Spirits are asking the medium to begin writing. How it is done: The pencil hangs on thin metal or glass wires. clairgustance or clairlience. A taste or smell associated with the Spirit. For example, if you are trying to contact your mother, who was fond of gardening, a waft of rose water might be introduced. How it is done: aromatherapy. dermography, also known as skin writing. The Spirits literally write words or pictures on the medium’s flesh. How it is done: Invisible ink, likely lemon juice, is used. When held up to a candle, the ink grows increasingly visible. ectoplasm. A pale, filmy materialization of the soul, produced by the medium when in a trance state. Likely invented by Leah Fox (circa 1860). The last manifestation of ectoplasm seems to have taken place in 1939. Cambridge University has a sample; it looks and feels like cheesecloth or chiffon. Female mediums sometimes stuffed ectoplasm in their vaginas, necessitating strip- searches. See also soul and Spirit’s progress. lampadomancy. Flame reading. The messages might be conveyed by changes in flame intensity, color, or direction. How it is done: Chemicals can be added to a segment of the candle to make the flame flicker or change color. On the direction of the flame: a small hole in the table may allow 164 Glossary of Spiritualist Terms and Techniques for a flue to affect air- current. -
Language Under the Microscope: Science and Philology in English Fiction 1850-1914
- 1 - Language under the Microscope: Science and Philology in English Fiction 1850-1914 Submitted by William Harrison Abberley to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English In September 2012 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. - 2 - Abstract This study explores how Anglophone fiction from the mid-Victorian period to the outbreak of the First World War acted as an imaginative testing-ground for theories of the evolution of language. Debates about the past development and the future of language ranged beyond the scope of empirical data and into speculative narrative. Fiction offered to realize such narratives in detail, building imaginative worlds out of different theories of language evolution. In the process, it also often tested these theories, exposing their contradictions. The lack of clear boundaries between nature and culture in language studies of the period enabled fictions of language evolution to explore questions to which contemporary researchers have returned. To what extent is communication instinctive or conventional? How do social and biological factors interact in the production of meaning? The study traces two opposing tendencies of thought on language evolution, naming them language ‗progressivism‘ and ‗vitalism‘. Progressivism imagined speakers evolving away from involuntary, instinctive vocalizations to extert rational control over their discourse with mechanical precision. -
Read PDF ^ Will Warburton (Dodo Press) (Paperback
IOOOFIEUEAGD > eBook » Will Warburton (Dodo Press) (Paperback) W ill W arburton (Dodo Press) (Paperback) Filesize: 8.5 MB Reviews This publication is indeed gripping and intriguing. It is actually writter in basic terms and not difficult to understand. I am just pleased to explain how here is the greatest publication we have read through during my own lifestyle and could be he best pdf for at any time. (Ervin Crona) DISCLAIMER | DMCA WYE3NB0LBWAH < Doc » Will Warburton (Dodo Press) (Paperback) WILL WARBURTON (DODO PRESS) (PAPERBACK) To save Will Warburton (Dodo Press) (Paperback) PDF, remember to refer to the hyperlink beneath and save the document or have access to additional information which might be relevant to WILL WARBURTON (DODO PRESS) (PAPERBACK) book. Dodo Press, United Kingdom, 2007. Paperback. Condition: New. Language: English . Brand New Book ***** Print on Demand *****.George Gissing was an English novelist, who wrote twenty-three novels between 1880 and 1903. Although his early works are naturalistic, he developed into one of the the most accomplished realists of the late-Victorian era. Born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, to lower-middle class parents, Gissing went on to win a scholarship to Owens College, the present day University of Manchester. A brilliant student, he excelled at university, winning many coveted prizes, including the Shakespeare prize in 1875. Between 1891 and 1897 (his so-called middle period) he produced his best works, which include New Grub Street, Born in Exile, The Odd Women, In the Year of Jubilee, and The Whirlpool. The middle years of the decade saw his reputation reach new heights: by some critics he is counted alongside George Meredith and Thomas Hardy as one of the best three novelists of his day. -
Document Resume Ed 128 802 Cs 202 916 Tttle
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 128 802 CS 202 916 TTTLE Associated Writing Programs. 1975 Catalogue of Programs. INSTITUTION Associated Writing Programs. SPONS AGENCY National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, D.C. PUB DATE 75 NOTE 46p. EDRS PRICE MF-$0.83 HC-$2.06 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Bachelors Degrees; Catalogs; *College Programs; *Creative Writing; Directories; *Graduate Study; Higher Education; Masters Degrees; Program Descriptions; *Undergraduate Study IDENTIFIERS *Associated Writing Programs ABSTRACT This catalogue provides full information on most graduate degree programs in writing in the United States,with additional information on a number of undergraduate programs. In addition, the various functions and services of the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) are described. Two short sections, "Creative Writing at an Urban Campus," and "The M.F.A. and the University," examine, respectively, the innovation of an undergraduate writing program at the Virginia Commonwealth University andthe origins and implications of the Master of Fine Arts degree. (KS) *********************************************************************** Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * materials not available from other sources. ERICmakes every effort * * to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless,items of marginal * r :lucibility are often encountered and this affects the quality * c microfiche and hardcopy reproductions EPIC makes available * vicl the EPIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS) .EDRS is not * responsible for the quality -
The Brooklyn College Foundation Annual Report 2010 - 2011 2010 – 2011 Annual Report | 1
THE BROOKLYN COLLEGE FOUNDATION Annual Report 2010 - 2011 DEAR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS, The fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, was one of solid growth for the Brooklyn College Foundation. The number of contributions from alumni and friends continued to rise and the total value of gifts and pledges nearly doubled over the previous year. I am pleased to report that we are making considerable progress toward the $200 million goal of our Foundation for Success Campaign. Although the amount raised is impressive, the impact of these donations is what counts. Through the generosity of friends, alumni and private foundations, we were able to grant over 1,200 scholarships and awards. We have provided funding for students to take advantage of unique learning opportunities from New Orleans to Peru, from Paris to South Africa and, of course, right here in Brooklyn. And we have supported new facilities and equipment necessary to provide students with a 21st century education of the highest quality. As chair of the foundation, I am grateful to my fellow trustees for their engagement and leadership. The continuing impact of the foundation is due in large part to their strategic counsel and dedication. I am also grateful for the privilege to work alongside President Karen L. Gould. Under her leadership, Brooklyn College has charted an ambitious and exciting vision for the future with student success at its core. On behalf of the trustees and staff of the Brooklyn College Foundation, I want to thank everyone who has contributed to our mission to provide access to excellence for the students of this great institution. -
Science and Spiritualism 1750 – 1930
Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies The Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies two-day conference Science and Spiritualism 1750 – 1930 Thursday 30 and Friday 31 May 2019 Day 1 30 May 2019 TIME SESSIONS 9:00am - 9.30am Registration and refreshments – Conference Suite 9.30am - 10.45am Session 1A Session 1B Chair: Shane McCorristine Room: LC1 29/A Chair: Elsa Richardson Room: Conference Suite Anaïs Aledo – Liminality and the Unconscious in Arthur Bill Jenkins – The Physiology of the Haunted Mind: Machen’s Use of the Transcendent Doctor Figure Naturalistic Theories of Apparitions in Early Nineteenth-Century Scotland Andreas Sommer – Scientific Naturalism and the Study of Spiritualist Phenomena by Positivist and Materialist Clare Button – ‘The Higher Fundamental Rhythms’: Representatives of Science and Medicine Margaret Morris, a Spiritualist Physiotherapist? Béatrice Laurent – Spiritualism vs. ‘Exact Science’ in the Marie Holm and Gazi Islam – Mind over Matter: Work of James John Garth Wilkinson Exploring Spiritualism in Society through History 10.50am - 12.05pm Session 2A Session 2B Chair: Anne Reus Room: LC1 29/A Chair: Andreas Sommer Room: Conference Suite Eleanor Dobson – ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’: Julia Falk - The Terra Incognita of the Soul: Spiritualism Oscar Wilde, Spirit Photography and Occulture in Sweden 1891-1922 Anthony Enns – Gothic Media Julia Gyimesi – Scientific Spiritualism and its Opponents Stephen Whiting - ‘Science is a match that man has just got in Hungary alight’: The Fourth Dimension, the ‘Man of Science’ and the Tetsuya