Welcome to Shades of Meaning, an anthology of haunted, ghostly, and ghastly tales from the Victorian period. In this edition you will find links to five Victorian ghost stories, complete with annotations, as well as accompanying elements such as editorial introductions and galleries of associated images for each narrative. These supplemental materials were collected and constructed by… Read more
Catherine Louisa Pirkis’s The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective (1893-4) was one of the first detective series to feature female sleuth. Loveday Brooke is a single and fiercely independent professional woman who regularly out-thinks her male rivals. The seven stories in the series were first published in the Ludgate Magazine with illustrations… Read more
Editor-In-Chief: Alexis Easley
Editor(s): Alexis Easley, Kari Aakre
“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… Read more
Editor-In-Chief: Jason Camlot
Arthur Hugh Clough’s verse-novel, Amours de Voyage was completed shortly after the events of the 1849 Roman Republic, which Clough witnessed as a tourist. Amours de Voyage was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in four parts in 1858: Canto I in Vol. 1.4 (February, 1858); Canto II in Vol. 1.5 (March 1858); Canto III in Vol. 1.6 (… Read more
Editor-In-Chief: Dino Franco Felluga
Editor(s): Marybeth Perdomo, Alexandra Anderson, Monica Wolfe, Ayla Wilder, Allyn Pearson, Alyssa Fernandez, Gwenael Jouin, Stacey Smythe, Emily Pearson, Matt Morgenstern
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. Its medieval themes, based on Morris’s readings in Malory and Froissart, masked and enabled its stark portrayals of violence, pain, idealism, and frustrated love. This edition makes available "Concerning Geffray Teste Noire," a… Read more
Editor(s): Florence Boos, Kyle Barton
This is a collection of Literary Exhibitions created in fall, 2023, by students of James Madison University through the course ENG329: Haunted Victorians. Included in this Anthology are five ghost stories from the long Victorian period: all have been annotated by the student editors, and all have an accompanying gallery of images and an interpretive introduction essay (a "Catalog") composed by… Read more
Annotated Texts
1. "At the End of the Passage" (Kipling, 1890)
2. "To Let" (Croker, 1893)
3. "Herself" (Braddon, 1894)
4. "The Hungry Stones" (Tagore, 1895)
Welcome to our anthology of select stories of haunting from the Victorian period, all of which engage with and explore the dynamics of imperialism and imperialist - and… Read more
Curated in partnership with the George Eliot Archive, this COVE edition of “The George Eliot Portrait Gallery: Perspectives on the Writer” features portraits of the writer Mary Ann Evans, known to the world as George Eliot. “The George Eliot Portrait Gallery” is remarkable in the number and scope of rare portraits that it presents. And as the editorial introduction discusses, the… Read more
Editor-In-Chief: Beverley Rilett
Editor(s): Anne Nagel, Bev Rilett
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… Read more
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… Read more
Editor-In-Chief: Jennifer MacLure
Varney the Vampyre, or, the Feast of Blood: A Romance (1845-7) is one of the longest-running and most successful Victorian penny fiction serials, popularly termed "penny bloods." Written primarily by James Malcolm Rymer, the creator of penny fiction villain Sweeney Todd, as one of the top writers at Edward Lloyd's Salisbury Square penny fiction factory, Varney is an innovative, wide-… Read more
Editor(s): Rebecca Nesvet
This COVE edition of Michael Field’s Whym Chow: Flame of Love will make accessible the privately printed collection of poems, and situate the volume within a larger Victorian fascination with animals and animal culture. In addition to scholarly discussions of aestheticism, late nineteenth century publishing, and implications of imperialism, this edition focuses on Michael… Read more
Editor(s): Heather Witcher, John Havard
