Citation, Collaboration, and Appropriation in the Works of Andrew and Nora Lang

Citation, Collaboration, and Appropriation in the Works of Andrew and Nora Lang by Andrea Lynne Day A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Andrea Lynne Day 2018 Citation, Collaboration, and Appropriation in the Works of Andrew and Nora Lang Andrea Lynne Day Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto 2018 Abstract This dissertation argues that the representations and practices of authorship in the works of An- drew Lang (1844-1912) and Nora Lang (1851-1933) emblematize this literary couple’s struggles to define the nature of literary creativity and, by extension, to determine whose creative efforts are worthy of acknowledgment. Chapter One reveals the importance of adaptation to Andrew’s def-inition of creativity by considering the relationship between his first book, Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: With Other Poems (1872), and three texts that shaped his conception of authorship: Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802-03), E.B. Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871), and Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873). Chapter Two focuses on the three-year period (1887-90) during which Andrew, now a well-established man of letters, deployed his own authority to defend his friend H. Rider Haggard against charges of plagiarism. I focus on three of his creative works that claim adaptation is a necessary precondition of origi-nality: He (1887), a parody of Haggard’s She (1887); “From Mr. Allan Quatermain to Sir Henry Curtis” (1890), an epistolary yarn wherein Haggard’s hero rescues the Stranger from Olive Schreiner’s The Story of An African Farm (1883); and The World’s Desire ii (1890), Lang and Haggard’s co-authored sequel to the Odyssey. In Chapter Three, I illustrate the ways in which this same insistence on the communalization of literary materials, and folk- literature in particular, paradoxically obscures Nora’s responsibility for the popular Fairy Book series (1889-1913). Nora’s work is, I demonstrate, consistently represented as domestic labour rather than authorship by Andrew’s prefaces, advertisements for the series, and contemporary reviews. Chapter Four examines her resistance to this misrepresentation. I focus on The Strange Story Book (1913), ar-guing that the volume’s seemingly eclectic contents — a short biography of the recently-deceased Andrew, appropriated Tlingit legends, and stories of gender- nonconforming and adven-turous women — indicate both Nora’s participation in and challenging of the model of author-ship promoted by her husband. Both Langs’ works, I conclude, have much to tell us about the literary, political, and ethical valences of citation. iii Acknowledgments This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, the University of Toronto’s School of Graduate Studies and Department of English, and Carroll Atwater Bishop and her family. I am grateful to my supervisor, Christine Bolus-Reichert, and my committee members, Deirdre Baker and Danny Wright, for their insightful feedback, their mentorship, and their patience, as well as to Carol Percy for her support. I also thank my external examiner, David Latham, for his generous comments on my work, and my previous committee members, Heather Jackson and Mark Knight, for their guidance. The Department of English’s administrative staff, especially Sangeeta Panjwani, Marguerite Perry, and Tanuja Persaud, were unfailingly patient and supportive as I progressed through the program. I am indebted to a great number library and archive professionals for their guidance and expertise. Thank you, Leslie McGrath (Osborne Collection of Early English Children’s Literature); Briony Aitchison, Catriona Foote, Moira Mackenzie, and Maia Sheridan (Special Collections at the University of St. Andrews); Andrew Whitesell (Smithsonian Institution Archives); Ceri Lumley (University of Reading); and the Norfolk Records Office. The pursuit of a PhD is expensive. It is for this reason and many others that I am forever thankful to everyone who contributed to my beloved cat Mortimer’s much-needed dental surgery: Zelda Beard; Elizabeth Bernath-Walker; Sam Brickey-Hughes; Lindsay Chick; Laura Cok; Michael Collins; Amy Coté; Christina D’Amico; Cathy and David Day; Lyndsay Day; Scott Day; Noelle Gadon; Seyward Goodhand; Kaitlin Heller; Alex Howard; Jordan Howie; Carol Hroncek; Kaelyn Kaoma; Heather Ladd; Victoria Loucks; Beth Martin; Tara McDonald; Frank McDowell-Ivry; Alison Murdock; Ellen Murdock; Kerry and Erroll Murdock; Kyle Murdock; Angelo Muredda; Linda Novick; Miriam Novick; Christine Penhale; Masquie and Palmie Percy; Brittany Pladek; Matt Rice, Maria Ljungmark, and Buddy; Tim Riggins; Matt Schneider; Patti Schneider; Dana Schwab; Murphy Selak; Chaucer and Swift Service-Gray; Elliot Storm; Elisa Tersigni; and Morgan Vanek. Like Sara Ahmed, I feel “Solidarity with my fellow killjoys, with those marching for a different life.” I include in this group my union, CUPE 3902, especially those members who participated in the Unit 1 strike of 2015. I cherish the feminist killjoys whom I am lucky to call my colleagues and friends: Stephanie Cavanaugh, Adleen Crapo, Dara Greaves, iv Alex “Sam Johnson” Howard, and Miriam Novick. Thanks are due also to my family: my feline siblings, Chester and Wilcox, for modelling exuberance and refinement, respectively; my parents, Cathy and David, for nurturing my love of reading and research; and my brother, Scott, for providing levity. My sister, pal, and favourite Victorianist, Lyndsay, has helped me refine my ideas through thoughtful conversation and lifted my spirits with excessive hilarity. My partner, Kyle Murdock, has been unfailingly supportive in matters intellectual, practical, and emotional as I wrote this dissertation in a manner stately rather than rapid. And, of course: thank you, Mortimer Homer Day. You are my best friend, my favourite teacher, and a very good boy, even if you did try to eat the remarks I’d prepared for my defence. v Table of Contents Acknowledgments iv Table of Contents v List of Figures vi Introduction 1i Methodology: The Author Function, Citation, Appropriation, and Narrative Historicism 4 Intellectual Property and the Authorial Brand 10 Chapter Descriptions 132 Narrative Citation 166 1. ReReading Ballads and Lyrics of Old France as an Anthropological Anthology 17 Tylor, Pater, and Authorship 24 Lang, Scott, and the Ballad 31 Ballads and Lyrics of Old France … and of Modern Greece 38 “Look on us six that are hanging thus”: Villon’s Literary GallowsBallad 42 “Fairy Land” and “The Death of Mirandola, 1494” 47 Conclusion 51 2. Andrew Lang’s Literary Defences of H. Rider Haggard 53 Lang’s Rise and the Role of the Critic 58 He and the “Ethics of Reviewing” 65 Allan Quatermain and the “celebrated allegorical walking stick” 78 Citational Authority in The World’s Desire 85 Conclusion 96 3. Nora Lang, Literary Labour, and Marketing the Fairy Books 98 Commercializing the Declarative Editor 103 The Fairy Books and the Langs’ Critical Afterlives 107 (Mis)Representing Literary Authority 112 Literary Plagiarism versus Literary Labour 119 Advertisements and Anxieties 123 Contemporary Reviews 127 Conclusion: “Trials of the Wife of a Literary Man” 129 4. Metalepsis and Editorial Authority in The Strange Story Book 132 Metalepsis in Wuthering Heights : A Fictional Case Study 135 Metalepsis and the Storytelling Scholar 141 Nostalgia and Editorial Authority 149 Paratextual and Textual Imperialism 155 Reframing History: Queering the Storytelling Scholar 163 Conclusion 172 Conclusion 174 Appendix: Figures 176 Works Consulted 185 vi List of Figures Fig. 1. Title page of The All Sorts of Stories Book. Fig. 2. Advertisement in The Strange Story Book. Fig. 3. Advertisement in The Blue Fairy Book (standard edition). Fig. 4. Advertisement in The Arabian Nights Entertainments. Fig. 5. Advertisement in The Pink Fairy Book. Fig. 6. Detail of advertisement in The Bookman. Fig. 7. Title page of Men, Women, and Minxes. Fig. 8. Frontispiece and title page of The Strange Story Book. Fig. 9. Frontispiece and title page of The Book of Saints and Heroes. vii Introduction In 1899, Books of To-day and Books of To-morrow, the Christmas catalogue produced by Hatchards Bookshop of London, ran an advertisement that gently mocks the reading public’s perceptions of Andrew Lang, a prolific and popular man of letters.1 Called “The Child’s Guide to Literature,” this advertisement is a parody of Fanny Umphelby’s dialogic primer The Child’s Guide to Knowledge (1825).2 The book is formatted as a barrage of seemingly disconnected questions asked by a child named Q. — “who,” Evelyn Sharp fondly recalls, “began by asking us the origin of the Universe, and ended by asking us the origin of the British lion as seen on copper coins” (239) — and answered by another character, A. In Hatchards’ version, however, the seemingly indefatigable Q. is flummoxed by the sheer quantity of Lang’s literary output. Q. — Who is Andrew Lang? A. — A syndicate of literary gentlemen. Q. — But I have seen photographs of him? A. — They were composite photographs. Q. — You mean to say he really doesn’t exist? A. — He couldn’t. No man could do as much as he. 1 Almost five hundred articles and pamphlets on a broad range of subjects bear Lang’s name, and he published an average of four monographs per year as either sole author, contributing author, or editor (Dorson 206); however, as this dissertation will argue, the extent of his contributions to these books varied. For the most complete bibliography of Lang’s works, see Roger Lancelyn Green’s Andrew Lang: A Critical Biography (1946). 2 Originally published under the title 262 Questions and Answers and credited simply to “A Lady,” this primer was eventually retitled The Child’s Guide to Knowledge; Being a Collection of Useful and Familiar Questions and Answers on Every-day Subjects, Adapted for Young Persons, and Arranged in the Most Simple and Easy Language, and its author’s identity was widely known by about 1900 (Norcia 232).

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