Born in Landport, Portsmouth on February 7th, 1812, Charles Dickens is known as one of the most influential writers of the 19th century. However, Dickens’ fame did not come to him easily.  In fact, although not poor, Dickens' family suffered from poor financial management, which caused his father, John, a clerk in the Naval Pay Office, to be sent to Marshalsea prison due to his accumulated debt in 1824. Thus, John’s wife and children were sent to prison to live with him there, except for Charles Dickens himself. Instead, at the age of 12, Dickens was forced to seek employment at Warren’s Blacking Factory, (a re-infested warehouse) where he would label jars of boot polish. Although his time in the factory lasted less than a year, Dickens’ own writing illustrates how traumatizing his experience was at the factory. For example, he says, “[f]or many years, when I came near to Robert Warren’s, in the Strand, I crossed over to the opposite side of the way, to avoid a certain smell of the cement they put upon the blacking corks, which reminded me of what I once was. My old way home by the borough made me cry, after my oldest child could speak” (Dickens 141). Dickens’ experience as a child worker haunted him through adulthood, which illustrates his interest in raising awareness on the living conditions of the less fortunate, especially children, in A Christmas Carol.

Principal Sources:

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Classical Comics, 2008, Print. 

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by Yousef Farhang

The Poor Law put a new system in place in which the poor were to be housed in workhouses and would be given clothing, food, and some schooling for the children in return for working several hours every day. Some people were optimistic because the new Poor Law would take the homeless off the streets and encourage them to work for a living, but the poor themselves were afraid of the workhouses and rioted against the new law. 

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by Austyn Thomas

On July 17, 1841, the first issue of the illustrated magazine, Punch, was published. Punch was an illustrated comedy magazine, which featured cartoons which satirized and critiqued key issues of Victorian society. One of the key contributors to the magazine was artist John Leech. The cartoons illustrated by Leech and the other creators for the magazine would regularly critique the wealth inequality and worker exploitation found in Victorian era England. These statements and critiques had the magazine deemed as a radical publication at the time, although the magazine’s harsh satire slowly softened into a more conservative outlook throughout the 1850s. The magazine also acted as a means for John Leech and Charles Dickens to work together on A Christmas Carol. Soon after the magazine’s debut, it began to be published by Bradbury and Evans, the same firm which Dickens would soon work under. Through this relationship, Leech was able to illustrate Dickens’ Christmas novella, which further explored the class issues found in Punch’s inception.

Sources: 

www.victorianweb.org/art/illus…

www.victorianweb.org/periodica…

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by Mark Dasilva

“The Employment and Conditions of Children in Mines and Manufactories” was a document published following a three year investigation into the horrific and morally questionable conditions surrounding children forced to work in coal mines around Britain. This document contained reports of children, male and female, as young as four years old being sent to work. The commission itself was established by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 7th earl of Shaftesbury and the report was compiled by Richard Henry Horne, a close friend of author Charles Dickens. This report was the first to shine a light on the mistreatment and exploitation of children in the workforce and was the first time British upper-class had been exposed to such graphic images of this exploitation. Ultimately, this publication would directly lead Parliament's legislation against the employment underground of all females and of boys under ten years of age. Furthermore this report would be followed by a second report interviewing over 1500 child workers and finally culminating in the Factory Act of 1844. What made this report so effective were the series of disturbing illustrations that accompanied it. Each depicting the demeaning and dangerous tasks these children were forced to carry out in the mines. Charles Dickens himself was cited as being outraged by the report and it served as inspiration for the writing of many pieces of protest literature including his own literary classic “A Christmas Carol”.

Source

Diana Garrisi (2017) The Victorian press coverage of the 1842 report on child labour. The metamorphosis of images, Early Popular Visual Culture

“Report on Child Labour, 1842.” The British Library, The British Library, 6 Feb. 2014, www.bl.uk/collection-items/report-on-child-labour-1842.

Victorian Web. < www.victorianweb.org/ >. Web. 10/14/2020.

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by Simon Mancuso

Macmillan and Company, one of the most important publishing houses of the Victorian period, was founded in Cambridge in 1843 by the Scottish brothers Alexander and Daniel Macmillan. As befitted a university town and its clientele, the publishing house focused on academic literature in its first ten years, before branching into fiction. After Daniel died, Alexander moved the headquarters of the firm to London in 1858 and continued to expand the range of literature he published. Macmillan's Magazine, a shilling monthly, was launched in 1859. In the 1860s Macmillan published illustrated books by two Victorian authors who have retained readerships up to the present. Macmillan published both 19th century illustrated editions of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market: the 1862 edition, illustrated by the poet's brother Dante Gabriel; and the 1893 edition, illustrated by Laurence Housman. Macmillan also brought out both of Lewis Carroll's Alice books, illustrated by John Tenniel. 

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by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra

A Christmas Carol is a novella written by Charles Dicken with illustrations by John Leech and published by Chapman & Hall. It is a ghost story set at Christmas. The novella contains 8 illustrations that are either wood or steel engravings which are all coloured by hand. Although Dickens had not planned on writing a Christmas Carol until six weeks before it's publication, it went on to be his most successful work, selling 6000 copies in it's original run. The character Tiny Tim was inspired by Dickens disabled nephew. The first edition is bound in red cloth with gilt design on the front board and spine. 

Tatiana Batista, Faye Hamidavi & Anjali Jaikarran

Source: victorianweb.org

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by Tatiana Batista

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed in 1848. They were a group of British artists that wanted to rebel against the conventional Victorian way of writing and creating art. The group consisted of seven members, one of which was Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Brotherhood developed a controversial style that highlighted the reader’s relationship to the text and images, as they often created art that was mysterious and needed to be thought through to understand. They relied heavily on symbolism and the depiction of religious figures and themes. They also created detailed and realistic images of women that showed them off as sexual beings. This is significant because it was through this Pre-Raphaelite style that women were brought to the forefront. Women were being viewed as sexual beings capable of lusts and passions. This was a new revelation for many people as images such as the ones created by Dante Rossetti in “The Goblin Market,” would have been taboo and frowned upon prior to the Pre-Raphaelite Movement and its later popularization. Christina Rossetti could not be part of the Brotherhood because she was female, but she often modeled for the artists and would visit their exhibits, therefore alluding to the Pre-Raphaelite style also evident in her work. 

Source: “Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,” Britannaica 

Source: Christina Rossetti and Illustration : A Publishing History, by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra

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by Marina Arnone

Spiritualism began as a fad that spread throughout America and England during the 1850s. The religion first made its appearance in New York in April of 1848, introduced by The Fox Sisters. Although the Victorian era is highly associated with the rise of industrialization and scientific progression, the Victorian people were taken by ideas of the supernatural and the occult. Spiritualism rooted itself in Europe when it appeared in the northern industrial side of England in 1852, where a strong sense of disagreement with religion was already underway. The increasing doubt and questioning of faith during the nineteenth century, began to make it more difficult for educated people to accept the bible as the singular truth. The overtaking of Spiritualism in Victorian literature converted many authors and poets; famously, Arthur Conan Doyle as an example. Alfred Tennyson was one of the remaining faithful poets who held onto Anglican beliefs. However, Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalott” proves to have certain connections to Spiritualist ideologies. Some specific topics that circulated during this time were mesmerism, clairvoyance, and crystal-gazing to name a few. Clairvoyance and crystal-gazing are the more promising reflections of Spiritualism in the poem, especially in William Holman Hunt’s illustrations.

Sources:

Luckhurst, Roger. “The Victorian Supernatural.” British Library, 15 May 2014, www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-victorian-supernatural. 

Diniejko, Andrzej. “Victorian Spiritualism.” The Victorian Web, www.victorianweb.org/religion/…

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by Kisha Rendon

The Public Health Act of 1848 was the first step in paving the road to improving public health. In 1842, Edwin Chadwick published his essay, "The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain," paying the price of publication himself as the Poor Law Commission did not want to be associated with it. In his report, Chadwick argued that spending the money to improve public health would be cost effective, as less people would seek poor relief if the health of the poor improved. He considered the most important steps in improving health to be bettering drainage and sewage systems, removing wastes from homes and roads, ensuring clean drinking water, and appointing a medical officer in each town. After yet another severe cholera outbreak in the summer of 1848, the government was forced to act and passed the Public Heath Act of 1848. This Act established a Central Board of Health, but it had limited powers and no money; it provided a framework that could be used by local authorities, but could not compel much action. Even though the Public Health Act of 1848 may not have been able to ennact much action, it started the conversation and paved the way for improvements in health to happen. 

Dearest Paulina,

Will my woes never be alleviated? Will I never find peace in this cruel world? So many lives that I love have been lost--and what am I to do? Benjamin held a high temperature for the last fortnight and stopped taking water Sunday afternoon. He claimed he was so thirsty, yet the well water seemed to worsen his countenance. I remained by his bedside during the day, cleaning after his messes and messes against his own person. My dear friend, he appeared in his doom but mother assured me of his recovery! Alas, she told a lie! This morning, when I entered to change his bed cloths, I found my dear brother laying cold and green. He would not respond to my inquiries of his countenance; he would not respond at all. I held my pocket mirror to his nose and alas, no fog! My dearest brother, dead! And now, I am plagued with a deeper fear, for I have noticed my mother is of lower spirits than usual, and has had trouble keeping her meals ingested. I fear, Paulina, that my mother will meet the same doom as Benjamin, and what am I to do? How, Paulina--how did you remain composed in your father's illness? How did you keep your faith and hope? I must be strong, but who will be here if she leaves? What will become of me if my home becomes grave? I am not yet married, and will surely have to find work to support myself--but my friend, as a governess? I fear such a life of seclusion! I fear being alone, Paulina! I fear that the health of my loved ones will never improve, but I would rather perish in their same fate than live a life alone!

Works Cited

"The 1848 Public Health Act." UK Parliament, 2020, www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/towncountry/towns/tyne-and-wear-case-study/about-the-group/public-administration/the-1848-public-health-act/. 

"Local Board of Health." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 May 2020,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_board_of_health.

"Public Health Act 1848 and the General Board of Health."  Policy Navigator, 2020, The Health Foundation. 

navigator.health.org.uk/theme/public-health-act-1848-and-general-board-health.

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by Savannah Funderburk

The Pre-Raphaelite movement, known more commonly as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a nineteen-century group of new wave artists (poets, painters, and critics). The goal of the Pre-Raphaelite movement was to go against traditional art and create something for the ‘modern age’. They moved away from using shades of brown to create emphasized shadows, instead leaned towards replicating the use of sharp and vibrant colours found in fifteenth-century art. The movement was founded in approximately September of 1848 by William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Everett Millais and many other budding and innovative artists. The movement was inspired and associated with John Ruskin, an art critic who was influential to the world of art in America, England, and Britain as a whole. He is well known for influencing the Gothic Revival in the nineteenth century and the twentieth-century functionalist reaction against all such revivalist styles in architecture and design. Christina Rossetti, sister to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was a well-renowned poet in her own right, was not an official member but she was an important member of the inner circle. Later on, her infamous poem, ‘Goblin Market’, would later be illustrated by her brother and William Holman Hunt in the Pre-Raphaelite art style. The second wave of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, founded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was aesthetic Pre-Raphaelitism which focused on medieval eroticism and a particular art technique that created moody or dark atmospheres. This second wave is mostly associated with poetry and sometimes literature.  

Sources:

Pre-Raphaelites: An Introduction

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Founded

Ruskin: Introduction

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by Anjali Jaikarran

Wood engraving, a form of relief reproduction technology, dominated the mid to late Victorian illustrated book publishing industry. Unlike the traditional woodcut method of image production which involved carving into the side of a wooden plank with a knife (Kooistra), wood engraving technology employed tools such as ‘spitstickers’ and ‘lozenge gravers’ (Royal Academy of Arts) to cut out the white segments of the image and accentuate the raised outlines of the woodblock which were then inked and pressed onto paper. In light of this methodology, the practice was also known as “the art of the white line” (Walker 15).

Though wood engraving can be traced back to eighth-century Japan (Hunsberger), its success in the Victorian illustrated book market is attributable to the European tradespeople who recovered the art. Most notable of these tradespeople is Thomas Beswick (1753-1828), the English engraver and silversmith who reformed the practice for metal and wood (Hunsberger) and is credited with the innovative development of graving out the “whites” of the design (Kooistra). Beswick’s technology gave way for the mass-production of illustrated books, periodicals, and magazines during this period as it efficiently allowed for the wood-engraved image to be set up with letterpress type, it was suitable for multiple usages after a metal mould was cast from the original block, and its process could be mediated by labour and manual technology at the height of industrial capitalism in England (Kooistra). From 1850 to 1880, wood engravings accounted for upwards of 25% of all the illustrations published in illustrated books in Britain (Allingham).

Despite the notion of wood engraving in the mid-century as a “good and stable profession,” (National Museums Scotland) its popularity declined dramatically at the end of the 1800s due to developments in line illustration and photomechanical imaging. Although many engravers were experts at recreating the work of illustrators, they could not compete with the facsimile image produced by photography.  

Image: Two plates by Thomas Bewick from The Fables of Aesop (1818): "The Dog in the Manger," "The Cock and the Jewel."

Sources Referenced: 

Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, “The Moxon Tennyson as Textual Event: 1857, Wood Engraving, and Visual Culture”

Wood Engraving as an Art and a Trade

The Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Illustration: Woodblock Engraving, Steel Engraving, and Other Processes

Thomas Bewick and Wood Engraving

National Museums Scotland: The Wood Engraving Profession

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by Emma Fraschetti

Poets of the Nineteenth Century, one of the most beautiful of all Victorian gift books, was also one of the first to feature the new style of illustration introduced by Pre-Raphaelite artists. The book was conceived and executed by the Brothers Dalziel, a large wood-engraving firm that dominated the illustration market until the end of the century. The Dalziels hired the Reverend Robert Aris Willmott to select poems from 1771-1856 and commissioned 18 artists to produce 100 illustrations for the anthology. Pre-Raphaelite artists included Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes, and John Everett Millais. The featured image shows F. M. Brown's  wood-engraved illustration for Lord Byron's "The Prisoner of Chillon," which dramatically focuses on a foreshortened corpse and the agony of a shackled prisoner in the cell.  As befitted a costly gift, the book's 400 pages were edged with gilt and enclosed in a decorative cover with a design stamped in gold. In contrast to the contemporaneous Poems, Illustrated, by Alfred Tennyson (aka "The Moxon Tennyson"), Poets of the Nineteenth Century was an immediate commercial and critical success. It sold out its first two editions of 5000 and 3000 copies within a year—an almost unimaginable print run for poetry publishing today—and was reissued multiple times in the following decades. Although dated 1857, it was actually brought out in October 1856, in time for the annual Christmas market when "guinea gift books" were more likely to be purchased by middle-class consumers looking to purchase an attractive present for display on the drawing-room table. This type of “forward dating” allowed publishers to bring the book out as “new” for two consecutive Christmas seasons.

Source:  Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Poetry, Pictures, and Popular Publishing: The Illustrated Gift Book and Victorian Visual Culture 1855-1875 

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by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra

The Moxon Tennyson is a collection of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson illustrated by the Pre-Raphaelite artists Dante Gabriel Rosetti, John Millais, and William Holman Hunt (all of whom were greatly influenced by Tennyson’s work), and the Victorian artists Thomas Creswick, J.C. Horsley, William Mulready and Clarkson Stanfield

Due to the importance of illustration in the book’s popularity, it is associated with the publisher (Edward Moxon) and referred to as the Moxon Tennyson. The Moxon Tennyson is considered to have launched the golden age of wood-engraved illustration. Wood-engraved illustration was popular from the 1960s to the 1890s when photographic methods of illustrations gained traction. The illustrations in the Moxon Tennyson were woodblocks created by the Daziel brothers after the hand-drawn illustrations of mostly Pre-Raphaelite artists. There are a total of fifty-five illustrations in the Moxon, thirty of which were made by John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The remaining twenty-five illustrations were done by academic artists such as Maclise and Landseer

The genre this was published in was considered victorian poetry. It was filled with illustrations that were heavily influenced by medieval literature and culture. While these illustrations were wood carved illustrations, they were often being related to fine art rather than "the mass art of wood engraving." These influences caused readers to develop a new approach to illustrations as a whole.

The Moxon Tennyson was initially not well-received nor popular upon publication, the former due to the dissonance of the varying art-styles contained in the book, and the latter due to its high market price. Tennyson himself criticized the illustrations (particularly those by the Pre-Raphaelite artists) for not being faithful to his poetry. The manner in which the Moxon’s illustrators diverged from Tennyson’s verse, however, was greatly influential in the long-run; it set the groundwork for illustrations to be appreciated in and of themselves -- not merely as works subordinate to the texts to which they were set.

Curated by Nicole Bernard, Zeinab Fakih, and Justin Hovey.

Kooistra, Lorraine Janzen. “The Moxon Tennyson as Textual Event: 1857, Wood Engraving, and Visual Culture.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web. 17 September 2020.

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by Nicole Bernard

Early in the year of 1859, Christina Rosetti began volunteering at the London Diocesan Penitentiary, otherwise known as the Highgate Penitentiary, due to its location within the district of Highgate, London. As denoted by an advertisement for the house from an 1860 edition of the newspaper, The Morning Post, this penitentiary was an "establishment for fallen women of every grade." More specifically, many of the women under its care had previously worked as prostitutes. The reform house inculcated these women with religious principles and fitted them with the abilities to complete domestic tasks expected of the typical Victorian woman, in an attempt to reform and reintegrate them back into English society. What is of note concerning Rosetti's work volunteering with this organization is that it is concerned entirely with reinventing the fallen women - essentially, women who have used sex work as a means of income. Instead of ostracizing them (as was common within Victorian society, due to prostitution being seen as a moral ill), the penitentiary was attempting, in a sense, to redeem these women. With this in mind, it is easy to recognize the religious parallels between Rosetti's volunteer work, and her work "Goblin Market", which, at its most basic interpretation, is a poem about a sister saving her sibling, who has committed a grave sin by consuming forbidden goblin fruit.

Principle Sources:

London Diocesan Penitentiary Newspaper Clipping

Christina Rosetti Biography

Christina Rosetti: A Writer's Life

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by Alexandra Monstur

Clemence Annie Housman was born in Bromsgrove, England, on November 23, 1861, to Edward Housman and Sarah Jane Williams Housman. Her name was chosen because her birth day fell on Saint Clement’s Day in the liturgical calendar; notably, Clemence was fascinated by sainthood throughout her life. Clemence was the third child and oldest girl in a family of seven children, the eldest of whom was the well-known poet, A .E. Housman (1859-1936). Clemence was very close to the second youngest of her siblings, Laurence (1865-1959), with whom she lived and worked her entire life. In addition to writing novels, Clemence was a wood engraver and an activist in the feminist movement for female suffrage.(Oakely, Inseperable Siblings)

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by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra

L'Union, the first Black Newspaper in the South, is published in 1862. The newspaper expressed oposition to white racism and asserted their rights to self-determination. It was not easy for Blacks to publish newspapers in the south at this time. Many newspaper were short-lived and copies were not preserved for historians.

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by Kassidy Montuoro-Germann

Elizabeth Eleanor Rossetti (formerly Elizabeth Siddal) died of a laudanum overdose at 7:20 a.m. on 11 February 1862 at 14 Chatham Place. Image: Elizabeth Siddal self-portrait.  This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional, public domain work of art.

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by Dino Franco Felluga

Elizabeth Eleanor Rossetti (formerly Elizabeth Siddal) was buried on 17 February 1862 in Highgate Western Cemetary in the Rossetti family plot. Dante Gabriel Rossetti placed "Dante at Verona," "Love's Nocturne" and other manuscript poems in her coffin before interment. Image: the Rossetti family grave where Elizabeth Siddal is buried (courtesy of The Victorian Web).

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by Dino Franco Felluga

Goblin Market is a Victorian narrative poem written by Christina Rossetti and illustrated by her brother Dante Gabriel. Rossetti felt that the collaboration with her brother was crucial to her overall work, that she deliberately delayed the publication until Dante Garbiel’s illustrations were ready for press. He designed a total of two illustrations, the frontispiece and title page, for The Goblin Market. Both images were pressed using wood engravings, evoking the pre-raphaelite designs popular during the 1860’s. The passages appeal to the senses through vivid descriptions of colours, textures, aromas and taste. Critics assigned the poem to various general categories over the following decades and throughout the twentieth century. It was first viewed as a fairytale but was later viewed as an allegorical piece. Feminist critics often analyzed the poem’s social commentary on gender relations and the relationship between two sisters. Later in the nineteenth century, readers, reviewers, illustrators, and composers began to focus on the poem’s powerful aesthetic qualities. Its sensuous patterns, religious images, and social implications inspired the focus of school studies and as well as musical settings and performances. The power of its visual images, and the two wood-engraved designs by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the poem’s first publication, turned to evoke numerous artistic interpretations, ranging from stained glass windows to gift books.

Curated by Kisha Rendon, Joseph Pereira, and Payton Flood

Public Domain; source: COVE Goblin Market edition by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Antony Harrison

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by Payton Flood

This photograph of the Rossetti family was taken by Charles Luttwidge Dodgson, later  known as Lewis Carroll, the author of the Alice books. An  Oxford mathemetician, Dodgson was also an avid amateur photographer. In the fall of 1863, Dodgson took a series of photographs in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's back garden at 16 Cheyne Walk in London. This photograph shows Dante Gabriel Rossetti standing, at left; his sister, the poet Christina G. Rossetti, seated on the step; their mother, Frances Lavinia Rossetti, seated next to her; and another sibling, William Michael Rossetti, standing at right. Missing from the picture is the other Rossetti daughter, Maria Francesca. The Rossetti children are in their early to mid thirties in this photograph. At the time the photograph was taken, Dante Gabriel was a celebrated painter and a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite movement; Christina Rossetti was a critically admired poet and author of Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), which her brother had illustrated; and Lewis Carroll had written, but not yet published,  one of the most famous illustrated books of the Victorian period, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), with numerous wood-engraved pictures after John Tenniel's designs. Carroll admired both Christina's poetry and Dante Gabriel's design for her book, and had been reading Goblin Market on the famous day he took the Liddell sisters for an outing on the river and began telling them the story of "Alice's Adventures Underground," July 4, 1862.

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by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra

The Book of Were-Wolves by the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould is a collection of werewolf folklore and mythology originally published in 1865 by Smith, Elder & Co. The text investigates the various mentions of werewolves from “ancient writers of classic antiquity,” “Northern Sagas,” and “mediæval authors,” to create a “sketch of modern folklore relating to Lycanthropy” (Baring-Gould 6). Born in 1834 in Devon, England, Baring-Gould was a theologian, hagiographer, novelist, linguist, and collector of folk songs, as well as a composer of hymns, his most famous being “Onward Christian Soldiers.” He was ordained as an Anglican Priest in 1865. Baring-Gould’s uniquely diverse talents are represented in The Book of Were-Wolves, as various chapters pull from oral traditional tales, folk songs, historical accounts, and medical documentation that link lycanthropy to the real world. Baring-Gould attempts to associate lycanthropy with cannibalism, spiritual possession, and madness to reveal “that under the veil of mythology lies a solid reality, that a floating superstition holds in solution a positive truth” (Baring-Gould 6). This text would have been an excellent reference for Clemence Housman when writing The Were-Wolf. 

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by Michael Seravalle

Laurence Housman was born on July 18, 1865 in Bromsgrove, England, the sixth of Edward and Sarah Jane Williams Housman's seven children. He was exceptionally close with his older sister Clemence Housman (1861-1955). Their eldest sibling was the poet and classical scholar A.E. Housman (1859-1936). Laurence attended art school— primarily book arts— in London with Clemence, who mastered wood engraving. His exceptional version of Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market (1893) led to his involvement at The Bodley Head, where he designed and illustrated many books of poetry and fiction. Here, he also collaborated with Clemence, making illustrations which she would then engrave, including those for her story,The Were-Wolf, published in1896. By 1900, declining eyesight ended his illustration career, but he was also a prolific and controversial playwright. Laurence Housman lived as an outspoken suffragist, pacifist, socialist, and homosexual advocate for sexual tolerance and freedom (Oakley, Inseparable Siblings).

Associated Places

by Hayley Horvath

On 10 October 1869, Dante Gabriel Rossetti had the manuscripts that he had previously buried with Elizabeth Siddal exhumed. Image: "Praise and Prayer" manuscript, one of three surviving leaves from the manuscripts Rossetti buried with his wife on 17 February 1862 in Highgate Cemetary. The original is in the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. (MS Eng 769).

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by Jerome McGann

In 1876, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle began his medical career studying at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.  Here he met two professors who would later inspire his most famous protagonists.  The character Professor George Edward Challenger was inspired by Professor Rutherford, an Assyrian man with a booming voice, broad chest, and thick beard.  The character Sherlock Holmes was based on Dr. Joseph Bell, a Professor of Surgery, whose incredible deductive reasoning skills motivated Doyle to create a detective who used the same methods.  It is during his medical studies that Doyle began writing short stories.  His earliest surviving work of fiction, “The Haunted Grange of Goresthorpe,” was submitted to Blackwood’s Magazine, however, it was unsuccessful in achieving publication.  “The Mystery of Sasassa Valley” was Doyle’s first published piece; it was published anonymously in Chamber’s Edinburgh Journal on September 6^th, 1879.  His first academic article, “Gelsemium as a Poison” was published in the British Medical Journal on September 20^th, 1879.  In 1880, during his studies, Doyle also worked as a medical assistant to help support his family financially.  He graduated on October 22^nd,1881 and enlisted as a doctor aboard a steamboat to Western Africa; the trip was extremely unpleasant, with Doyle falling severely ill in Lagos.  A brief and unsuccessful partnership in 1882 pushed Doyle to open his own practice of ophthalmology in Southsea, England.  This practice was too unsuccessful; with very little clientele, Doyle was left ample time to continue his fiction writing.

Principal source: www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/ind…

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by Payton Flood

The Were-Wolf was written by Clemence Housman and originally illustrated by Everard Hopkins for the December 1890 Christmas number of the Atalanta periodical literary magazine. The Were-Wolf is a Gothic work of fiction, and is often read as a feminst text. Initially Clemence Housman created “The Were-Wolf” to entertain her wood engraving class, it was initially received as a feminist text due to the central character being female and a were wolf. The publication in Atalanta magazine is crucial to a feminist reading - considering the fact that it was a magazine for women, the text itself containing a female werewolf character changes the way that it is read.

By: Mila, Alicia and Andrea

Source: Housman, Clemence. The Were-Wolf (1896), illustrated by Laurence Housman; wood-engraved by Clemence Housman. Were-Wolf Digital Edition edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra et al, COVE Electronic Editions, 2018, editions.covecollective.org/ed…

Associated Places

by Andrea Aguiar

The first story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collection is published in Strand Magazine. After two novels starring Holmes and his partner Dr. Watson, this is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first short story featuring the detective as well as his second publication in Strand. It also marks the first time Sidney Paget provides the illustrations for a Holmes story. Paget is hired by Strand Magazine to illustrate all of the Holmes stories in the collection. This first collaboration leads to a long-time partnership between Conan Doyle and Paget, with Paget going on to illustrate more than 350 images for one novel and 37 short stories. Paget and Conan Doyle’s partnership extended beyond just Holmes stories, with Paget providing hundreds of illustrations for Conan Doyle’s non-detectives works in the magazine as well.

Conan Doyle’s stories and Paget’s iconic images made the Sherlock Holmes stories among the most popular of the Victorian era and created the blueprint for the sleuthing detective figure in mystery fiction for centuries. The popularity of these stories often led to issues of Strand Magazine featuring Holmes stories selling out. This resulted in frequent publications of Doyle’s works — including Holmes stories, other short stories, poems, articles, and interviews — being published in Strand Magazine until the final issue of the magazine was released in 1930.

Primary Sources:

Sidney Paget, The Victorian Web

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Victorian Web

Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

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by Fahimah Hamidavi

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is one of literature's most famous recurring characters and a staple in the mystery genre. Arthur Conan Doyle has crafted a series that has stood the test of time and cemented its place amongst literary canon. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was published on October 14th, 1892, by The Gresham Press and George Newnes as a collection of short stories containing over 100 images. In essence, Doyle’s work has been responsible for creating much of the conventions that are a staple of the mystery genre. Between 1887 and 1927, Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six stories with Sherlock Holmes. All the short stories appeared first in The  Strand magazine before eventually being published as book editions. Without question Sherlock Holmes is a classic literary figure, and his iconic look has played a large role in his historical staying power. Sidney Paget, the illustrator responsible for the work in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, played an essential role in the creation of the Sherlock Holmes that we know today. Paget used a photomechanical half-tone method of illustration that is directly responsible for the sketch style that defined the series’ illustration. What’s significant about Paget’s illustration is that he created these drawings entirely based on Doyle's references to Holmes’ dress. This is important because it speaks to the notion of the artist and author as separate bodies, each interpreting the text in their own individual way.

Source: victorianweb.org 

Submitted by: Simon Mancuso, Alexandra Monstur and Marina Arnone 

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by Marina Arnone

The edition of Christina G. Rossetti's Goblin Market that includes illustrations by Laurence Housman was published originally in 1893, about thirty years after the edition that included Dante Rossetti's illustrations. It was known that Housman closely studied the illustrations of Dante Rossetti before creating his twelve full page images and several textual decorations. This is extremely noteworthy because of the direct comparisons that can be made between both Gabriel Rossetti and Laurence Housman’s editions. Dante Rossetti's edition only contained two full page images, whilst Laurence Houseman's contained twelve. Housman was the one to create a fully illustrated version of the poem, notably, thirty years later. Christina Rossetti had actually requested Housman to refer to her brothers’ illustrations of the goblins. With that being said, it presents to us that Dante Rossetti’s illustrations were the illustrations that Christina herself resonated with the most and what she felt reflected her poem the best. Thus, leading Housman to study Dante’s work in the original publication and illustrations to then create a new edition, fully illustrated, in Christina’s lifetime in which fit her vision.

Source: Kooistra, Lorraine Janzen. Christina Rossetti and Illustration : A Publishing History, Ohio University Press, 2002. ProQuest Ebook Central, ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezpr…....

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by Patricia Lucreziano

In 1893, at the age of 15, Pamela Colman-Smith moved to Brooklyn, New York to enroll in the recently established Pratt Institute. The Pratt Institute is a private university founded by oil tycoon Charles Pratt, whose goal was to provide affordable education to working-class men and woman. Here, Colman-Smith studied art for four years before eventually leaving the institute without a degree in 1897 (partly due to on-and-off illnesses she suffered throughout her studies). It is at Pratt that Colman-Smith studied under Arthur Wesley Dow, a highly influential artist and educator who served as chairman of the university. Under Dow's guidance, Colman-Smith was introduced to the cutting-edge art movements dominating Western art at the time -- namely, Art Nouveau and Symbolism, both of which are seen to have influenced Colman-Smith's later work. Dow's own aesthetic theories had a profound influence on Colman-Smith's illustrations, particularly his attempt to incorporate elements of Asian art into Western painting (Colman-Smith, in her own theoretical writings, employed Dow's conception of beauty in art, for example). After leaving Pratt, Colman-Smith found work as an illustrator, eventually illustrating for such renowned writers as W.B. Yeats and Bram Stoker.

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by Justin Hovey

Oscar Wilde first published Salomé in French in 1893. The story of the play is loosely based on the biblical passage that tells of John the Baptist's beheading after the daughter of Herodias dances for Herod. In Wilde's version, it is Salome, not her mother, who demands John's head on a silver platter. The first English edition, Salome: A Tragedy in One Act,was published in 1894 by The Bodley Head and illustrated with 10 full-page pictures by Aubrey Beardsley. Both the text and its images were controversial. The publisher, John Lane, suppressed some of Beardsley's illustrations; these were later published in the 1907 edition. Oscar Wilde did not like Beardsley's illustrations. "My Herod is like the Herod of Gustave Moreau--wrapped in his jewels and sorrows. My Salomé is a mystic, the sister of Salammbô, a Sainte Thérèse who worships the moon; dear Aubrey's designs are like the naughty scribbles a precocious schoolboy makes on the margins of his copybooks" (Jean-Paul Raymond and Charles Ricketts, Oscar Wilde: Recollections).

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by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra

Oscar Wilde was arrested in London and charged with the crime of gross indecency. The arrest came after Wilde lost a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, who accused him of having sex with men, which was then a criminal offense in England. Wilde lost the libel case because the judge deemed the evidence supported the Marquess's claim. In fact, WIlde's lover at the time, Lord Alfred Douglas, was the Marquess's son, the translator of his controversial play, Salome. At the time of his arrest, Wilde was carrying a yellow-covered French novel, mistakenly identified in the press as The Yellow Book. This misnomer resulted in the firing of Aubrey Beardsley as the magazine's art editor. Beardsley was associated with Wilde through his decadent illustrations for the play, Salome, but was not otherwise involved with the author.

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by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra

The House of Joy was written and illustrated by Laurence Housman in 1895 and published by Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner & Co. The House of Joy is a collection of adult fairy tales and were often given as Christmas gifts. Housman's original method of illustration was pen and ink and was later reproduced for the public masses through line-blocking, which was a type of photo processing technology that was popularized in the 1890s. The book consists of 10 illustrations at the beginning of each tale and each story is dedicated to a woman or girl. The illustrations in the House of Joy are proleptic in nature, meaning they anticipate events. For example, the tale, The Prince With the Nine Sorrows, on page 16, illustrates a boy lying on the grass looking up in distress at 9 beautiful maidens. Right away the reader can make the connection between the title and anticipate that the image is showing what is to happen later in the story with this prince. Housman cleverly uses both images and text to engage and deepen the readers understanding of his work.

Information gathered came from the primary source, House of Joy, 1895.

By Alessia Dickson, Alicia and Melissa.

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by Alessia Dickson

The Were-Wolf was written by Clemence Housman and originally illustrated by Everard Hopkins for the December 1890 Christmas number of the Atalanta periodical literary magazine. Aterwards, the 1896 edition was illustrated through a collaborative effort between Housman and her brother Laurence Housman. Clemence wood-engraved the six featured illustrations and title page and bindings for the book following the designs created by her brother. The book was published through Housman’s connection to publisher John Lane at The Bodley Head. The Were-Wolf is a Gothic work of fiction with a total of 6 illustrations in the second published edition of the book, including the decorated title page, and an illuminated initial which were all designed by Laurence Houseman. Initially Clemence Housman created “The Were-Wolf” to entertain her wood engraving class, it was initially received as a feminist text due to the central character being female and a were wolf . The first edition was published in 1890 with illustrations done by Everard Hopkin. She later collaborated with her brother Laurence Housman and published the second edition in 1896 where she herself did the wood engravings for the title page along with the illustrations.

By: Mila, Alicia and Andrea

Source: Housman, Clemence. The Were-Wolf (1896), illustrated by Laurence Housman; wood-engraved by Clemence Housman. Were-Wolf Digital Edition edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra et al, COVE Electronic Editions, 2018, editions.covecollective.org/ed…

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by Andrea Aguiar

This collection of stories, titled the Annancy Stories, is written and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. It was published by R.H. Russell New York in 1899. 

This work is a collection of stories from Jamaican Folklore which includes 26 full pages of illustrations and numerous textual decorations.

The illustrations were in black and white, however her hand coloured prints showed signs of great promise as mentioned in an 1899 article. Furthermore, her illustrations mirror common bold caricature drawings in which she is able to give equal authority to both her texts and visuals.

Although published during the Victorian period, Annancy Stories is notable for its non-victorian and non-British illustrations. Instead, the collection of stories use the relationship of text and image in order to emphasize on themes of West Indies Folklore. The style of the illustrations are not commonly found in Victorian Literature which makes this book unique to the time period. 

The "Anansi" is spider-like Jamaican Folklore figure that is reoccuring in the book and is considered a god of all knowledge of stories. Pamela uses this figure in order to further distinguish her work from other works of the time period. 

Annancy Stories was published alongside four other books from Smith, which were reviewed very positively. Although critics noted that her works were not well known, they felt Smith’s work held great potential for the future.

Source: Denisoff, Dennis. “Pamela Colman Smith (1878-1951),” Y90s Biographies, edited by Dennis Denisoff. Yellow Nineties 2.0, General Editor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019, 1890s.ca/smith_bio/ ;

Contributed to by: Mark Dasilva, Yousef Farhang, and Patricia Lucreziano 

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by Patricia Lucreziano

After a long two years, Oscar Wilde was released from prison in 1897 which left him impoverished and exiled resulting in the decision to move to Paris. The last few years of his life were not the best due to being poor and not having a place he could call home; he only wrote one work at the time. On November 30th 1900 Oscar Wilde passed away due to meningitis, which put an end to his life in just five days. Many speculated how Wilde contracted the disease with some saying it stemmed from syphilis while many others thought that was absurd as they believed the meningitis may have resulted due to a faulty surgery he underwent or an infection he had in his ear due to an injury he got in prison. Despite the constant speculation, the day of his death was a loss for many nonetheless. 

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by Tatiana Batista

Laurence Housman and Clemence Housman spent much of their lives side by side. They attended school together and it naturally followed that they would pursue similar careers in the fine arts and literature. Their shared residence at No. 1 Pembroke Cottage in Kensington became the centre of their activity in the Women's Suffrage Movement. 

Kensington had a reputation for their suffrage activity. The Kensington Society encouraged feminist discourse, giving way to two branches of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) as well as a branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), a militant suffrage group.

Laurence and Clemence Housman began supporting the WSPU in 1908. Their cottage quickly became a centre for suffrage movements. In 1910, the Suffrage Atelier (founded by Laurence and Clemence) made Pembroke Cottage its headquarters. A WSPU banner was made there, suffragettes boycotting the 1911 census took refuge at the cottage, and suffrage craft work was produced there. The Housman's background in the fine arts and literature proved useful to promoting the women's suffrage agenda.

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by Nicole Bernard

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by Melissa Emanoilidis

This edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salome: A Tragedy in One Act, features sixteen provocative illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. It was published by John Lane and the Bodley Head in London and New York in 1907. Beardsley’s illustrations are photomechanical line block reproductions in pen and ink in an Art Nouveau style. Illustrations are featured in full-page reproductions, adjacent to the text, and are characterized by black and white massed shapes. Beardsley’s illustrations provide a stylized, symbolic visual commentary to Wilde’s play. This edition succeeds Wilde’s original publication of Salome in 1894, which Wilde intended to have the play put on at the Palace Theatre in London. However, the play failed to debut as a result of the British Examiner of Plays’ censoring efforts due to the text featuring biblical characters and perverse notions of religion and sexuality. This scandal was furthermore compounded by Wilde’s 1895 public indecency trial, which significantly hindered not only Wilde’s career, but Beardsley’s as well because of the popular associations between them as a result of this text.

Source:

beta.1890s.ca/wilde_bio/

archive.org/details/salometrag…

www.victorianweb.org/gender/sa…

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by Kyle Sarjeant

Goblin Market was written by Christina Rossetti and originally published in 1862. Since then, it has gone through many reprints and changes. The reprint in 1912, while published after Rossetti’s death, was still released at a time of great change for women. During this time, the Suffragette movement was up and well in London. During the year of this edition’s release, the Labour Party became the first political party to include female suffrage in their manifesto. While this reprint could easily be tossed aside as just another children’s poem, the protagonists encounter sexually suggestive situations. This, and other 20th century adaptations of this poem, have opened the poem to Feminist, Queer, and New Historicist critiques. During this time of the Suffragette movement, there was a big movement for the rise of women in politics and positions of power. This was a voting year as well in the US and, for the first time, all presidential candidates looked at women as important to a victory rather than a passing thought. And, of course, at this time Tarrant releasing a reprint of a feminist poem with female protagonists will have an effect, whether intentional or not. All through the streets of London, women were marching for their rights to participate, to have a vote.

Sources:

Paula Bartley, Votes for Women, 1860-1928 (Oxon, 2003), p. 85.

British Library Learning. “Women’s Suffrage Timeline.” The British Library, 2018, www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/articles/womens-suffrage-timeline, www.bl.uk/votes-for-women/arti….

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by Zeinab Fakih

Inspired by French feminist, Simone de Beauvoir and her book The Second Sex (1949), Betty Friedan released her own critique on the condition of American society with The Feminine Mystique (1963). Friedan comments on how white women had once been active participants in the workforce as independent women during the 1920s and 30s. That independence had shifted when they were forced into domestic / private spheres as housewives and mothers after WWII. Women were seen rather than heard - from societal opinions (like education, the marketplace or reconstruction of redemption based on Christianity) to female sexuality being primarily for consumption i.e., Playboy magazines. These are often preordained, patriarchal Victorian ideals of gender roles based on chastity and obedience easily associated with Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market.

Thus, The Feminine Mystique sparked conversations on women's rights, gender equality and female agency to challenge patriarchal orders. It also inspired the eventual legal victories in support of women and the creation of the National Organization of Women (NOW) in 1966, with current headquarters in Washington D.C. At the time of the sexual revolution between 1960s and 70s, this book plays a vital role in upturning the preconceptions of women being docile. While demanding sexual liberation, women also wanted to be respected / acknowledged as unrepressed, sexual beings - not for the pleasure of men, but for themselves.

Principle Source(s): Fallen or Forbidden: Rossetti’s Goblin Market |Betty Friedan Wikimedia image |Womenshistory.org | Sexual Revolution in the US during the 1960s

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by Alicia Beggs-Holder