Modernism’s Material Forms: Literary Experiments in Transatlantic Print Culture, 1880-1945 by Jennifer J. Sorensen Emery-Peck A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Language and Literature) in The University of Michigan 2009 Doctoral Committee: Professor Sara Blair, Chair Professor Jonathan Freedman Professor June Howard Associate Professor Kali Israel Associate Professor John Whittier-Ferguson © Jennifer J. Sorensen Emery-Peck 2009 Acknowledgements This project began its life as a seminar paper for Sara Blair’s American Modernism course; ever since generating that initial spark, Sara has nurtured and inspired this work to its fruition in this dissertation. She has continually pushed me to stretch my boundaries—cheering when she successfully nudged me out of my comfort zone and encouraging me to take risks in my thinking and writing. Her support, guidance, and thoughtful commentary have immeasurably improved the quality of the work and have enriched the experience of producing it. In her own work and in the questions she has asked me to think about over the years, Sara has modeled the intellectual investments that I value and she has bolstered my confidence and determination along the way by offering rallying-cries and unwavering support. John Whittier-Ferguson has also been there from the beginning and has worked tirelessly to help this project grow and flourish. John’s unbelievably detailed and thoughtful readings of my writing have been invaluable for the past six years and whenever I needed a pick-me-up during the long process of dissertating and job hunting, he always gave me the boost that I needed. In addition to supporting my research, John has also provided mentorship on pedagogy and he has continually inspired me with his passion for literature and for teaching. Jonathan Freedman has provided key interventions at different moments in the project—with broad strokes he transformed my initial monstrous chapter on James into two more interesting chapters and in an inspired moment, he suggested the juxtaposition of the two Presses in the final chapter. Both his local and global suggestions and general good humor have greatly benefited this dissertation. Walking into June Howard’s office for the first time in order to ask her to serve on my committee, I was justly intimidated as I only knew June through her scholarship and I knew that her books shone forth as an ideal version of the kinds of work I wanted to produce myself. I summoned my courage then because I believed that my dissertation would benefit enormously from her input and influence and it has. I am extremely thankful for her wonderfully astute and thorough responses to my work, for her warmth and encouragement throughout the dissertating process, and for her remarkable ability to cut to the central tensions and problems in a given piece and to relate those local dynamics to the central questions of the whole project. I am grateful to Kali Israel for agreeing to serve as my cognate member, for her thoughtful feedback at my defense, and for her incisive commentary on this dissertation as a whole. A large portion of this dissertation was written at the ERC on State Street and I could not have succeeded without the companionship of my fellow ERC Allstars: Angie Berkley, Taryn Hakala, and Casie LeGette. As part of DAWG, Angie and Casie helped me learn how to dissertate as they read little chunks of writing, forced me to work through any bouts of writer’s block, and offered thoughtful and useful feedback and kept me writing. Casie has spent years helping me test out ideas, providing companionship on long sojourns to the soup hut, and making sure that we celebrate big occasions in style. ii Angie’s positive energy has been happily infectious. She has been a very helpful sounding-board for many things big and small, a wonderfully diligent VCW co- coordinator, the most perfect office-neighbor, and a fantastic friend. Taryn helped me day in and day out by keeping me laughing, by motivating me to get to work early, and by encouraging me to take the long way round every now and then. When Sarah Allison first brought her laughter to our ERC table, I had no idea that she would emerge as an important reader of my work. Her wonderfully engaged readings of the second and the fifth chapters of this project have been extremely useful and her enthusiasm and generosity have often given me the jolt of energy I needed to revise and to aim for higher standards. The ERC Allstars have also helped make my non-working life much more enjoyable with delicious dinners, weekly TV viewings, and trivia outings. Thanks also to David Emery-Peck, Elspeth Healey, and Gavin Hollis for their contributions to the bright, albeit brief, career of “Not Without my Boxty.” The driving questions of this project evolved through my coursework at Michigan and my ideas were developed through my interactions and conversations with George Bornstein, Kerry Larson, Marjorie Levinson, Scotti Parrish, Adela Pinch, Yopie Prins, and Martha Vicinus. Yopie continued to inform my thinking about genre and poetics as a member of my examinations committee. I appreciate the critiques and advice offered by the members of the Visual Culture Workshop who read and commented on the beginnings of my chapter on Flush and I am especially grateful for the feedback offered by Adela Pinch, Lucy Hartley, Rebecca Zurier, Gavin Hollis, and Joanna Patterson. In his feedback on my project during the Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship application process, Gregg Crane offered keen insights about the larger stakes of my work and helpful advice for pitching my contribution to a wider audience. During the process of publishing an article-length version of the third chapter of this project in Narrative, I fortuitously benefited from the expert and thorough feedback of James Phelan which greatly improved that piece of the project and helped me to clarify many of my ideas for the whole. I was lucky to find Karen Kukil, Associate Curator of Special Collections at Smith College, in the audience for a conference paper version of my argument on Flush and I am grateful for her enthusiastic response to my work and for the offer of her time, access, and expertise which led to the inclusion of Vanessa Bell’s drafts of the drawn illustrations for the Hogarth edition in my project. I am greatly indebted to the faculty and staff of the English Department at the University of Michigan; I am especially thankful to Jan Burgess, Senia Vasquez, Beth Dethloff, Bonnie Campbell, and Lori Scott who helped make life much easier and more pleasant during my time in the graduate program. Much of this project and almost all of the archival research was sponsored by fellowships and research and travel grants provided by University of Michigan’s Rackham Graduate School. I am also grateful for the access to and guidance through the multiple archival collections that enriched this project and would like to thank the archivists at the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg Rare Book Room, the Beinecke Rare Book Room, the Smith College Mortimer Rare Book Room, the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library, the Hogarth Press Business Archive at the University of Reading, the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the Monks House Papers and the Leonard Woolf Papers at the University of Sussex, Brighton. iii Ultimately, this dissertation could not have been completed without the unfailing love and support of David and without the fortifying snuggles, good luck pets, and headbutts offered by Petey and Spicy. Virginia Woolf insisted that one cannot think well or write well if one has not dined well and David has provided many delicious home- cooked meals and many more meals out on the town—I owe him an infinitude of queso fundido! David was often the test audience for different chunks of this work and even in the dark times he helped me laugh at myself and keep everything in perspective—I could not have written this without his support. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..ii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….vi Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1. “The Real Thing” Framed between Advertisements and Illustrations: Henry James Experiments with Landscapes of Print Culture in Transatlantic Periodicals……………………………………………………………...…….15 2. “Clearness is too expensive”: Telegrams and Formal Economies in Henry James…………...…………………………………………………………….75 3. Tom and Vivien Eliot Do Narrative in Different Voices: Mixing Genres in The Waste Land’s Pub………………………………………...…………...151 4. Framing a Dog’s Life: Virginia Woolf’s “Looking-Glass” Biography of Flush………………………………………………………………….……207 5. Publishing Modernism: The Transatlantic Experiments of the Boni & Liveright and Hogarth Presses …………………………………………….283 Coda…………………………………………………………………………………….359 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………364 v List of Figures Figure 1.1: James’s text as frame for Blind’s Illustration………………………………………25 1.2: Close-up view of ornamental first letter……………………………………………27 1.3: First Page of April 16, 1892 issue of Black and White Magazine………………….37 1.4: Second Page of April 16, 1892 issue of Black and White Magazine……………….38 1.5: “MRS. MONARCH WENT THROUGH HER PACES BEFORE ME, AND DID IT QUITE WELL.”………………………………………………………………42 1.6: “MRS. MONARCH BROUGHT THE MODEL A CUP OF TEA, AND HE TOOK IT FROM HER AS IF HE HAD BEEN A GENTLEMAN AT A PARTY, SQUEEZING A CRUSH HAT WITH HIS ELBOW.”……………….46