Under Construction

“The Phonograph’s Salutation” (1888, 1891), a poem written and recited onto record by Horatio Nelson Powers, was first “published” as an audio recording onto a wax cylinder in 1888, with the print text of the poem included on a pamphlet that was made to accompany the cylinder. The cylinder and accompanying print version were then sent across the Atlantic Ocean from Orange, New Jersey, where the recording was made, to London, England, where it was used to promote the capacities of Edison’s new perfected phonograph as a means of creating audible correspondence, or, phonograms. 

Olive Schreiner's Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland (1897) gives voice to one of the most powerful and uncompromising denunciations of imperial violence published in the nineteenth century, and yet the work stands largely unread by students of Victorian literature. The novella, set in Rhodesia under Company Rule, depicts an encounter between a young British soldier lost in the veld and a mysterious Christ-like stranger who transforms his views on colonialism.

The first volume of poetry to be identified as Pre-Raphaelite, William Morris’s Defence of Guenevere was published when its author was only 24.

Charlotte Riddell’s The Race for Wealth, first serialized in Once a Week and published in book form in 1866, revolves around two themes: adulteration and adultery. It is both a business novel, exploring the ambiguities of commerce and trade, and a sensational novel, pushing the boundaries of conventionality. Set in eastern London, the novel is replete with topical references to popular culture, contemporaneous urban developments, financial legislation, the history of the City of London and the adulteration debate that was raging at the time.