Coming of Age: the Barbara Quinn Schmidt Years, 1985 – 1993

Due to the dedicated and determined efforts of her predecessors in the editor's chair Barbara Quinn Schmidt was able to bring a period of maturity and stability to the journal. After 11 productive years at Toronto VPR found a new beginning, a new editor, and a new home at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville in the spring of 1985, where it would remain for the next 8½ years (fig. 1). Many of the major changes to the periodical had already been accomplished. In 1973, in order to increase circulation and stabilize finances, the numbering of single issues had been changed to a quarterly format, and in 1976 VPN became VPR, reflecting its growth from a "newsletter" to an established scholarly journal. In addition, many of the original projects which the newsletter had been monitoring in the early issues, such as the DNB listing, the VPP effort, and the Wellesley Index, had either progressed satisfactorily, or been abandoned, making way for a new maturity of content for the journal.

As periodicals scholarship became more sophisticated, the articles and book reviews reflected this. Bibliographies, checklists, indices, compilations were appearing, thus allowing the journal to comment on these. In 1985 Richard Fulton's invaluable volume, A Union List of Victorian Serials: A Union List of Selected 19^th-Century British Serials Available in United States and Canadian Libraries appeared and was accorded a penetrating review citing its excellence, but also identifying its problems (18:4, Winter 1985). The same issue also reported on a new bibliography of Anthony Trollope's periodical contributions. Bruce White added two helpful articles: "Index to [VPN] Volumes 1-10" (18:3, Fall 1985) and "Contributors to VPN, Vols. One through Ten" (20:1, Spring 1987). The new editor also introduced the very useful "Announcements" segment at the end of each issue which was an invaluable tool for readers who wished to keep abreast of all important events and publications both in periodicals and in allied fields.

Figure 1.

Cover of VPR 18:1 (Spring 1985)

Quinn Schmidt was herself an excellent periodicals scholar and a good judge of potential contributors and contributions, who went out of her way to encourage and to publish new and original information. This soon took the form of "Special Issues" organized by guest editors who were expert in their fields and who could solicit essays from others in their specialized disciplines. Special Issues had appeared in previous years, the earliest being the excellent offering by Helene E. Roberts, "British Art Periodicals of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" (no. 9, June 1970), but never with the frequency or intensity now applied. Quinn Schmidt's first attempt was "Kingsley and Macmillan's Magazine" (19:4, Winter 1986) which brought together a series of five articles on various phases of Kingsley's career. This was followed by the "Special Dickens Issue" edited by acknowledged Dickens expert J. Don Vann (21:4, Winter 1988) and the "Special Dickens Issue: Part Two" also by Vann (22:2, Summer 1989). Combined, these two issues presented five lengthy articles relating to Dickens and periodicals.

Following close upon the Dickens came a new way of thinking about periodical literature in a "Special Critical Theory Issue" guest edited by Laurel Brake and Anne Humphreys (22:3, Fall 1989). The first of a two-part series on the Athenaeum was offered in 1990, followed by "Athenaeum Two" later the same year (23:1, Spring 1990; 23:4, Winter 1990). No guest editor was mentioned for these issues. Also in 1990 there appeared the first of what would become, for a time, an annual feature, "The Wellesley Index Issue" (23:2, Summer 1990), guest edited by Robert A. Colby, who was also designated as "Coordinator of the Wellesley Index Project." This was planned to be the first of ongoing issues devoted to "addenda and corrigenda" for the Index. Walter Houghton, himself, was the first to acknowledge that the Index would be forever a "work in progress" as new references and new scholarship carried out by new generations...