RICE UNIVERSITY Material Fictions: Readers and Textuality in the British Novel, 1814-1852 by Duncan Ingraham Haseli A THESIS SUBMITTED EM PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE Doctor of Philosophy AppRavæD, THESIS CPMMITTEE: Robert L. Patten, Lynette S. Autrey Professor in the Humanities, Director Helena Michie, Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor in the Humanities, Professor of and Chair, English Martin Wiener, Mary Gibbs Jones Professor, History HOUSTON, TEXAS JANUARY 2009 UMI Number: 3362239 Copyright 2009 by Hasell, Duncan Ingraham INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform 3362239 Copyright 2009 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 AnnArbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright Duncan Ingraham Hasell 2009 ABSTRACT Material Fictions: Readers and Textuality in the British Novel, 1814-1852 by Duncan Ingraham Hasell I argue in the first chapter that the British novel's material textuality, that is the physical features of the texts that carry semantic weight and the multiple forms in which texts are created and distributed, often challenges and subverts present conceptions of the cultural roles of the novel in the nineteenth century. My project looks at how the multiple forms of the novel within nineteenth-century Britain both reflected and sought to change the relations between the novel and its readers. I suggest that different material instantiations of a literary work reveal historical contingencies that are unrecoverable from any one edition by itself. I consider the ways that the material characteristics of the physical document such as paper, size, and typeface, its mode of production, and other materialities, such as price and print run size constrain reading. While no reading is totally constrained by the text, every text represents possible uses of the written word in which we can recognize the constraints or discipline that these texts seek to exercise on their readers. The remaining chapters are a series of case studies that analyze how material textuality affects our understanding of Walter Scott's Waverley, Frederick Marryat's Peter Simple, and W. M. Thackeray's History of Henry Esmond. Table of Contents Chapter I: Material Textuality—What's Past Is Prologue 1 Chapter II: Walter Scott—Refracting History in Waverley 39 Chapter III: Captain Marryat—Nautical Fiction and a Sea Change in the No vel. 117 Chapter IV: W. M. Thackeray—Historical Types in Henry Esmond 153 Coda 178 Endnotes 183 Works Cited 189 Appendix 206 1 Chapter 1 Material Textuality—What's Past Is Prologue Texts are inevitably affected by the physical means of their transmission; the physical features of the artifacts conveying texts therefore play an integral role in the attempt to comprehend those texts. For this reason, the concept of a textual source must involve the attention to the presentation of a text, not simply to the text as a disembodied group of words. All objects purporting to present the same text—whether finished manuscripts, first editions, later printings, or photocopies—are separate records with their own characteristics; they all carry different information, even if the words and punctuation are indeed identical, since each one reflects a different historical moment. Any such record may be a primary source, but an object which is a primary source for one purpose is not necessarily so for another. —"Statement on the Significance of Primary Records" Modern Language Association The Modern Language Association (MLA), it seems safe to say, has been, is now, and will always be against the wanton destruction of books. In 1995 the "Statement on the Significance of Primary Records" cited above was drafted in response to a trend that seemed to be leading inevitably in that direction. Libraries were actively "deaccessioning" or sometimes simply throwing away whole archives of material as they microfilmed and digitized their collections. Overall, the "Statement" acknowledges the 2 importance and advantages of good copies over frail and deteriorating "originals." However, it reflects a radical concept of the material text in its justification of the maintenance of "primary sources," one that argues that all objects presenting a text are significant. No one disputes the significance of records such as manuscripts and first editions, but to most of the general public and to many scholars the significance of later printings is problematic. Most reprinted texts are generally seen as disposable or, at most, worth only the paper they are printed on. Furthermore, later printings are usually seen as more prone to errors in transcription, hence often misleading. One might grant later printings significance for historical purposes—for example, within a study of the history of printing or an analysis of print culture—but one might still argue against these later printings having any literary significance; the ideas a text conveys are important, not the material means of conveyance. However, if one concedes that the physical features of a document, the textual artifact, play an integral role in the ways that a text makes meaning, then this suggests the physical features of texts do have literary significance whether a text is in its first or fiftieth printing. The nineteenth century is the age of the steam-powered press, mechanized paper production, and an exponential increase in the demand for and supply of reading material. This makes the nineteenth century not only the age of the machine press but also the age of the reprint. Certainly texts were reprinted earlier, but this production was limited by inadequate technology, tråde practices, government controls, and the lack of an audience. Texts were reformatted, reprinted, and rereleased on a scale in the nineteenth century that dwarfed all previous print production. Never before in Britain had so many people had 3 the access and the literacy to understand texts as in nineteenth century. In this dissertation I argue that our way of thinking about the novel changes when we consider the material texts of the novel in early- to mid-nineteenth-century Britain and the ways the texts themselves reflect on their own materiality. I consider how texts are "affected by the physical means of their transmission" and how the "physical features of the artifacts conveying texts" function in "the attempt to comprehend those texts." Furthermore, the study and analysis of the physical artifact and the text's relationship to it not only helps in our present-day comprehension of texts but also can reveal much about how texts were comprehended at the time of their release. Evaluating and analyzing the material conditions of the production and reception of the artifact can reveal much about the processes of reading. My conception of material textuality, then, involves two senses of the term and is a modification of the two-part definition proposed by George Bornstein. "Material textuality," writes Bornstein, is the notion of "both the physical features of the text that carry semantic weight and the multiple forms in which texts are created and distributed" (1). First, according to Bornstein, there are all the material aspects of the physical print and paper document itself: paper size, page quantity, paper quality, typography, design, format, binding, illustrations, diagrams, and the multiple variant combinations of these elements that appear in each material expression of the text. In short, anything and everything that might be observed in any single material instantiation of a text. However, Bornstein does not acknowledge that the semantic weight of a particular physical feature may be more in the eye of the beholder than intrinsic to text itself. For instance, is a standard font such as Times New Roman semantically weightless, or does it carry the full 4 burden of submission to convention? I think the answer to this question has to be decided on a case by case basis and that decision needs to take into account the second sense of the material textuality I intend. This second sense of material textuality refers to the "multiple forms in which texts are created and distributed" for Bornstein. He is interested in how the multiple forms of a text relate to each other. I am interested in that and how each multiple form relates to the wider material context of its production and distribution. These multiple material contexts are not only embodied within the material artifact that contains the text, but additionally derived from other historical sources. Information on print runs, prices, and other material aspects of a textual creation and distribution are integral to material textuality but not really a part of any single form of a text. For instance, Waverley by Sir Walter Scott had a list price of eighteen shillings when it was first released. This sales price is not a part of the text. It is not printed anywhere on the first editions of the novel, and it is only to be found in the historical accounts of the novel. Furthermore, in and of itself it does have much to reveal. However, comparing this price with the prices of other novels published at the same time shows how the factor of price may have differentiated Waverley from other novels for its audience. We can make certain connections between the price of a text and its reception when we consider price as an indicator of relative value.