Victorian Biography Reconsidered: A Study of Nineteenth-Century 'Hidden' Lives

326 Pages·2010·2.02 MB·English

by  Juliette Atkinson

VICTORIAN BIOGRAPHY RECONSIDERED
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Victorian Biography
Reconsidered
A Study of Nineteenth-Century
‘Hidden’ Lives
JULIETTE ATKINSON
1
3
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# Juliette Atkinson 2010
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Acknowledgements
My first thanks go to Rosemary Ashton, who guided me through every step of
this project. I am more grateful than words can express for her advice, her
continuous encouragements, and the extraordinary pains she took with my
work. I am also indebted to Clare Pettitt and Joanne Shattock, who combed
through an earlier version of this book in great detail. I have done my best to
follow their recommendations and am profoundly thankful for their ongoing
support.
The Department of English at University College London was a tremendously
stimulating place from which to carry out this research. Numerous members of
staff read early drafts of this book; their comments were always thought-
provoking. Philip Horne read several chapters and was of precious counsel.
I also wish to thank Ardis Butterfield, Susan Irvine, John Mullan, Rene´ Weis,
Sarah Wintle, and Henry Woudhuysen for their suggestions. Anita Garfoot and
Kathryn Metzenthin provided essential additional assistance. University College
London generously funded my work with a Graduate School Research Scholar-
ship between 2004 and 2007.
The idea for this book germinated in the course of my time at Oxford, and in
particular during the wonderful Masters course on life-writing developed by
Hermione Lee. Those classes opened my eyes to the delightful complexities of a
genre that I had never properly considered before. A number of conferences have
offered me opportunities to engage in lively discussions with other biography
enthusiasts. I would like to thank David Amigoni, Anna Barton, Meg Jensen,
Jane Jordan, and Patricia Laurence for organizing such memorable events.
My thanks also go to the librarians and curators of manuscripts at the following
institutions: the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the British Library, the Brotherton
Library at Leeds University, the National Library of Scotland, Senate House
Library in London, and the West Yorkshire Archive Service in Leeds. I would
like in particular to thank Kenneth Dunn for his exertions on my behalf.
I am deeply grateful for Andrew McNeillie’s encouraging response to my
proposal for this book. My two readers at Oxford University Press led me to
develop my research in a number of new directions that I have thoroughly
enjoyed taking, and I am exceedingly obliged to them for their insights. I have
also relied on the valuable help that Ariane Petit has provided throughout this
process and the advice of Jacqueline Baker, Susan Beer, Kathleen Kerr, and
Emma Tuck.
My final and warmest thanks go to my husband Fre´de´ric, for his sustaining
patience and humour, and to my parents, who have unstintingly supported me in
every possible way.
viii Acknowledgements
An early version of the section on Thomas Carlyle in Chapter 4 was published
under the title ‘“Poor Sons of Adam in General, in this Sad Age of Cobwebs”:
Biography as Social Criticism in Thomas Carlyle’s The Life of John Sterling’ in
Life Writing: The Spirit of the Age and the State of the Art, edited by Meg Jensen
and Jane Jordan (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2009), pp. 2–11.
It is reprinted here with the permission of Cambridge Scholars Publishing. The
author would also like to thank the National Portrait Gallery, London, Punch,
Ltd, and the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to reproduce
copyright material. All reasonable effort has been made to contact the holders
of copyright materials reproduced in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in
future publishings if notice is given to the publisher.
Contents
List of Illustrations x
Introduction 1
1 The Many Faces of Victorian Biography 14
2 Victorian Hero-Worship 46
3 ‘The Simple Annals of the Poor’: Biographies of Humble Men 73
4 ‘Tragic Failures’ and ‘Happy Mediocrity’: Biographies of
Unsuccessful Men 112
5 ‘Quiet and Uneventful’?: Female Literary Biography 146
6 ‘Inheritors of Unfulfill’d Renown’: Championing Romantic Poets 183
7 ‘Forgotten Benefactors’: The Dictionary of National Biography 216
Conclusion: ‘The Lives of the Obscure’ and Virginia Woolf 252
Bibliography 265
Index 307