December 2006
PVA adds "The Rediscovery of Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) — 'Queen of Sensation'" and Katy Crane contributes "Anti-Semitism in the works of E. Nesbit." JB provides a dozen photographs and text of the beautiful Morris/Burne Jones stained glass windows in St. Margaret's Church, Rottingdean and writes a joint review of Rosemary Ashton's 142 Strand: A Radical Address in Victorian London and Lee Jackson's A Dictionary of Victorian London. GPL continues creating style sheets and converting the site.
November 2006
JB, who reviews John Batchelor's Lady Trevelyan and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Deborah Cohen's Household Gods: The British and Their Possessions, also provides images and information about Victorian Brighton — its station, clocktower, and the Victoria Fountain as well as photographs and text for her "Kipling in Rottingdean, Sussex (1897-1902)"
Daniel Block adds "Romance and the Female Poet in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh."
GPL, who begins the ardous process of converting VW's 31,000 documents to CSS, scans, edits, and adds "Mrs. S. C. Hall on Thomas Babington Macaulay," drawing upon Project Gutenberg, creates a VW version of Macaulay's The Lays of Ancient Rome, to which Sally King and John P. Nagler later add discussion questions. He also contributes various brief essays on the aesthetes and decadents, including "The Grosvenor Gallery and the Aesthetic Movement," "Is There Such a Thing as Decadence?," Charles Baudelaire and Decadence," and "Aesthetes, Decadents, and the Idea of Art for Art's Sake."
October 2006
PVA contributes a series of essays, including "The Conclusions of Lady Audley's Secret and The Mystery of Edwin Drood: Was Dickens Thinking of Using Braddon's Solution?"
JB adds a brief history of Kensal Green cemetery, London, and a dozen photographs of the graves of some well-known Victorians buried there plus a photograph George Meredith's writing chalet on Box Hill, Surrey, and other images, including the dramatic roof of the London Hippodrome. She also provides a dozen photographs and text for a sequence on Sir George Gilbert Scott's sumptuous India and Foreign Offices, Whitehall, London.
Daniel Block adds "Christina Rossetti's 'Song' ('When I am dead, my dearest') and Wordsworth's 'A Slumber Did my Spirit Seal,'" and Paramvir Sawhney adds "Apotheosis and selfhood in Christina Rossetti's 'The Thread of Life'." Erin Frauenhofer contributes a question set, "I Can Tell You About Rossetti's 'May,'" and Lydia Gidwitz contributesd another Scars: The Plight of Women in Rossetti's 'A Daughter of Eve.'" GPL writes "The British East India Company — the Company that Owned a Nation (or Two)" and with PVA adds a series of images from the Illustrated London News, including East India Company's Thames Goods-shed (1852)
September 2006
PVA contributes "The Cinematic Adaptations of The Mystery of Edwin Drood: 1909, 1914, 1935, and 1993; or, Dickens Gone Hollywood."
JB, who reviews Judith Flanders's Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain, provides images and information about the memorial cloisters at the Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey; Dr Jenner's statue and the Italian Gardens in Kensington Gardens; Sir Alfred Gilbert's memorial to Queen Alexandra (with commentary and discussion by GPL), and Francis Derwent Woods's memorial to the Machine Gunners' Corps, also in London; the little-known interiors of William Burges at Milton Court, Dorking, Surrey; and Sir George Gilbert Scott's unpretentious Holy Trinity Church, Wescott, in Surrey. A discussion, "St Albans Cathedral and Abbey Church: A Case History in Victorian Restoration," focussing on the domineering Lord Grimthorpe. A review of Judith Flanders's Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain.
Daniel Block discusses "Central Metaphor of Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus," and Alison Fanous adds Embracing Life and Death in "A Better Resurrection" and "At Home" by Christina Rossetti.
Dick Sullivan contributes "Forgetting Obvious Things: The legacy of the Victorian?"
August 2006
By the 28th, the site had 28,164 documents, and quite a few additional ones came in afterwards during the last few days of the month. Philip V. Allingham, our Contributing Editor from Canada, attended a Dickens conference in Belfast and while there took many photographs of the city, including series on the Prince Albert Memorial Clock Tower, the Customs House, the Calder Memorial Fountain, the Old Town Hall, St. George's Church, the The Scottish Temperance Building, Ulster Hall, and several pubs (The Crown Bar, Bittles Bar, and The Botanic Inn); all Victorianists must respect the sacrifices PVA made to take these last photographs. Upon his return to Canada, Professor Allingham also contributed words and text for a wide variety of material from The Illustrated London News, including articles on Irish Emigration, Disraeli, French fashion, the arrival of the Nineveh sculpture at the British Museum, the inhumanity of Pentonville Prison's silent system, North American railroad passenger cars, and several dozen plates depicting the Great Exhibition of 1851. GPL creates html documents for all this material and new sections on Belfast, pubs, as well as for other cities and towns.
Jaqueline Banerjee, our indefatigable Contributing Editor from the U. K., adds photographs, text, and bibliographies for two main areas, sculpture in and around Hyde Park, London, and architecture and sculpture from Esher, a small village in Surrey, where Queen Victoria attended church before her ascension to the throne and to which she was always generous. JB created groups of photographs and texts on Christ Church and St. George's Church, the water fountain Queen Victoria donated to the town and the monument for her Diamond Jublilee plus John Williamson's various monuments — that for Prince Leopold and Princess Charlotte of Belgium, the Duke of Albany, and the tomb of Vicount and Vicountess Esher — as well as Susan Durant's Memorial for King Leopold of Belgium.
Her photographs include Alexander Munro's Boy and Dolphin, and Richard Westmacott's Wellington Monument (Achilles) plus John Nash's Marble Arch, Richard Westmacott's England, Ireland and Scotland, E. H. Baily's Naval Warrior with Justice and Pleace and Plenty and the Wellington (or Constitution) Arch and Adrian Jones's Angel of Peace Descending on the Chariot of War, Decimus Burton's Hyde Park Gate with John Herring's Martial Frieze.
Ellen Moody contributes a second essay on Trollope — Trollope's Comfort Romances for Men: Heterosexual Male Heroism in his Work. Dick Sullivan opens a new section of Victorian authors with Pooter and the Mudlarks: An Orwellian View and followsw it with his substantial essay, "Mr Pooter: an Alternative Point of View". JB, who contributes "The Seaside in the Victorian Literary Imagination," photographs Richmond Lock, London.
GPL reviews Kate Colquhoun's "The Busiest Man in England:" A Life of Joseph Paxton, Gardener, Architect, and Visionary, and, adding passages from Colquhoun, reorganizes the botany section in science. Inspired by JB's contribution of photographs of Hadrian's Wall, GPL creates a section on Northumbria to which he adds several dozen illustrations and texts from J. M. Bruce's classic Roman Wall (1867). Drawng on a catalogue contributed by the Maas Gallery, London, GPL adds plates and accompanying texts for paintings and drawings, including works by William Etty, Luke Fildes, J. R. Herbert, Phil May, Emily Mary Osborn, William Bell Scott, and G. F. Watts. Continuing to expand the Arnold section, GPL adds essays on his political views on subjects including the evolution of his beliefs, his distrust of aristocracy, and the limits of his liberalism. He also contributes "The British East India Company — the Company that Owned a Nation (or Two)" and photographs of Feodora Gleichen's Artemis Fountain, Adrian Jones's St. George Slaying the Dragon (Cavalry Memorial),
July 2006
Jaqueline Banerjee continues to create materials on the north of England, contributing a section on Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, a Victorian resort made possible by the railway, and a series of photographs and commentaries on structures important in the history of techonology and society, including a six-part series on Central Station, Newcastle ("the first covered station in the world"), and others on stations at York and Durham. Turning to matters ecclesiastical, JB provides photographs and commentaries for Pugin's St. Mary's Catherdral, Newcastle, Victorian restorations and additions of the Cathedral Church of St Nicholas, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Henry Woodyer's St Martin's Church (Surrey), and Durham Cathedral. She also photographs Gilbert's statue of Queen Victoria in Newcastle and Earl Grey's Column by Bailey.
PVA and GPL select and edit various student essays on Wilde, Hardy, and Dickens as well as John McLenan's two dozen illustrations of A Tale of Two Cities that appeared in Harper's Magazine, to which PVA also writes an introduction. PVA also scanned, edited, and converted to html, Henry Morley's 1851 essay on China in Household Words.
GPL writes essays on (1) Clive Wilmer and Ruskin, (2) Tom Brown at Oxford and (3) Hughes's The Scouring of the White Horse and adds Richard Doyle's illustrations to this last work. GPL creates a new section on Eton College including a dozen essays and more than two dozen images of the school by artists including E. D. Brinton, F. L. Briggs, and Sydney P. Hall. He adds a similar one on Rugby and other public schools that include lists of their alumni discused in the Victorian Web. GPL also creates a section on Thomas Arnold, containing a dozen essays about the great Broad Churchman as well as one of his sermons. Finally, he adds images and text provided by (1) The G. F. Watts Gallery and (2) Peter Nahum; these last include paintings and watercolors by J. D. Watson and others. He reorganizes and adds to the section on iron and glass in Victorian architecture and also creates sitemaps for various architectural types, including churches and post offices.
Dick Sullivan contributes "The Poetry of A. E. Housman: A Personal View," a biography of the poet," on essay Postman's Park and the Painter, George Frederic Watts, to complement JB's series of photographs, and a comment on Ruskin by A. E. Housman. Matt Christensen contributes " An Alternative Interpretation of Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market'," and Sonja Mayer sends in an essay on Jane Eyre.
Aloysius Tay, the chief computer technician at the University Scholars Program, National University of Singapore, installs software that automatically synchronizes the Singapore mirror with the main server in New York, which he also runs.
June 2006
By the end of the month the the Victorian Web had 27,255 documents and images. Marta Miquel Baldellou of the University of Lleida, Spain, contributes a four-part study of the relationship of Bulwer-Lytton and Poe. Tom Kinsella writes an introduction to Victorian trade book bindings in the form of a review of Edmund King's book on the subject. Jacqueline Banerjee, now Contributing Editor of the Victorian Web for the UK, contributes photographs of the statue of Rowland Hill, inventor of the penny post, St. Andrew's Church, Surbiton, and material on Charterhouse School (whose alumni include Richard Crashaw, Richard Lovelace, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, John Wesley and William Makepeace Thackeray). She accompanies these with a series of photographs of the school buildings designed by Sir Philip Charles Hardwick, Sir Arthur Blomfield, and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. GPL, who creates a new section for Victorian education, creates a section on Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, and writes a set of essays on the novel.
Dick Sullivan contributes essays on Victorian Rhyming Slang and Victorian Back Slang and well as "Portrait of a Victorian — A Washerwoman's Daughter" and Stained Glass and Gaslight — Darkness, Smog, and a Little Light in Victorian Cities. Othmar Plöckinger from Salzburg, Austria sends in the musical setting of Christina Rossetti's "Song" ["When I am dead"] that he composed and, with three other musicians, performed. GPL writes Victorian Doubt and Victorian Architecture, adds new architects to the architecture overview,
PVA creates a set of essays on the Opium Wars with China, leading GPL to expand the section on Victorian addictions. He also writes "Early and Mid-Victorian Attitudes towards Prostitution."
May 2006
Jacqueline Banerjee contributes photographs and documents about Postman's Park and the memorial plaques it contains plus three photographs of Milan's Galleria di Vittorio Emmanuele II, which becomes part of GPL's section on iron and glass in Victorian architecture. He also creates a section for Decimus Burton and re-organizes material on domestic architecture and architecture in the Straits Colonies. GPL creates a list of contributors to the site and adds a section on Burma (Myanmar) to the site. Stuart Currie, a PhD Candidate at the University of Worcester, contributes "George Whyte-Melville, Vampirism, and the Crimean War" and a discussion of "Why there was so little Crimean War fiction." Dick Sullivan adds "Reflections on Lady Butler's The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras," which explains how people who lived through the Korean War might experience this military painting very differently from Ruskin or the artist, and, prompted by some of George Orwell's remarks, "The Cornhill Magazine — Fees for Writers in 1860."
April 2006
s of the end of March, the Victorian Web has grown to 26,891 documents and images. This month turns out to mark not only our largest number of visitors thus far — around 18 million — but also the most abundant major acquitisions of new material, the overwhelming majority of it from contributors in the UK; authors in New Zealand, Canada, and the U. S. also contribute essays. To begin with, GPL scans, converts to html, and links to materials throughout the the site Dick Sullivan's Navvyman, a book first published in 1983 that provides a fascinating history of the men who built Britain's canals, tunnels, and railroads. Sullivan's book contains much information about social, religious, and labor history and creates a kind of tipping point in certain areas, allowing GPL to create overviews (or sitemaps) for a range of subjects, including Evangelical Christianity and alcoholism and add to several link-lists related to technology. During this month
Jacqueline Banerjee also contributes a brief biography of Angela Burdett-Coutts, the great Victorian philanthropist who was the first woman to receive a peerage, which leads GPL to add many links to this biography in documents about Dickens, Collins, the Crimean War, education, and women's history. Dr. Banerjee also contributes "Thomas Hardy's Poetry: The London Years." JB, who has become a major source of valuable visual documentation, sends in many photographs, including a series on the Lake District, the railway waterpoint near St. Pancras Station, The St. Pancras Workhouse, Camden Lock and the nearby canal, and the Burdett-Coutts Memorial Sundial.
Two other contributors from England provide material for sections on new authors: David Blackmore's chronology and biographical essay on R. D. Blackmore, the author of Lorna Doone, permits the creation of a section on him, which he later expands with a list of works, three reviews from contemporary periodicals, and a gallery of images related to the author, including portraits and photographs of places associated with him. Near the end of the month, Karen Devlin's contributions similarly permit the creation of a new section on an author — the poet and novelist Mary Coleridge, a direct descendant of the Romantic poet with that last name.
April also sees the arrival of material that begins a dialogue: Dick Sullivan's "Hopkins and the Spiritual" prompts GPL to write "Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Difficulties of Victorian Poetry" and J. T. Best's ingenious reading of "Porphyria's Lover" occasions 'Porphyria's Lover' — A Case study in what counts as evidence and where the ambiguities arise in dramatic monologues."
Drawing upon Dick Sullivan's Old Ships, Boats & Maritime Museums (1978), a copy of which the author sends to GPL, he creates a series of documents on Victorian ships and ship design, including "Cambria — a Thames River Spritsail Barge" and "Brunel's Great Britain, one of the most important steam ships ever built" with texts by Sullivan. (Sullivan also identifies or provides information about the subjects of photographs sent in by other contributors.)
March 2006
Jacqueline Banerjee contributes series of photographs on Leighton House and other artist's homes. GPL scans, edits, and puts up various parts of Justin McCarthy's 1872 long essay on Bulwer-Lytton, including "Two Points of Superiority over Dickens and Thackeray" and "'His range was so wide': The Genres of Bulwer-Lytton's Fiction" as well as his entire essay on Charles Kingsley and his discussion of Thackeray's characters. Gordon Weaver contributes "Arthur Conan Doyle as Defender of the Unjustly Accused," a study of Victorian racism, injustice, and Conan Dyle's part in securing justice at last. Annalise K. Walker of British Columbia, Canada (who at 80 is perhaps our oldest contributor) sends in "On Trollope's Barchester Series," and PVA composes "Essay Topics for Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest."
February 2006
London Photos, a commercial photo library, generously shares twenty beautiful photographs with the Victorian Web (an example: Tower Bridge). Jackie Banerjee, who has recently contributed essays, sends in her own architectural photographs, including those of Gilbert Scott's St. Mary Abbot's Church, Kensington, St. Mary the Virgin (Surrey) by G. E. Street, and Tower House by William Burges. PVA adds essay topics about Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. GPL writes a brief discussion of the navvy or construction worker based upon information sent in by a Gerry Newby.
January 2006
Christopher S. Nassaar, Professor of English Emeritus, American University of Beirut, contributes the "Pater in Wilde's The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates." Ian S. Pettigrew shares material from his site on radical and artisan poets as well as providing links to the original, often rare texts. Dr. Roy H. W. Johnston contributes essays on science and empire in Victorian Ireland. Jacqueline Banerjee writes a series of essays on Richard Jefferies, include ones on his word-painting, relation to ancient greece, and his contributions to Victorian science-fiction, our first essay, I believe, on that genre.
Last modified 5 January 2024