Briefer Mention

BRIEFER MENTION Altick, Richard D. Paintings from Books: Art and Literature in Britain, 17601900 . Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 1985. $60.00 This book, says Altick, "is not meant to be either a volume of art criticism or a formal contribution to art history. It bears no direct relationship to the flourishing branch of present-day interdisciplinary scholarship that seeks to interpret pictures in detaü by iconographical and other means. Nor it is a study of popular art per se. Instead," continues Altick, "it explores a hitherto neglected phenomenon in the historical sociology of English literature, the interaction of middle-class literary culture and popular taste under the auspices of painted art. Paintings are not considered as autonomous objects of art but simply as primary documentation of the literary and artistic tastes that were cunent from the middle of the eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth." The book is richly illustrated and stimulating; the price is completely justified. Jann, Rosemary. The Art and Science of Victorian History. Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 1985. $27.00 In examining the ways in which Victorian historiography fulfilled specific needs for its society, Jann discusses the work of Thomas Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Babington Macaulay, James Anthony Froude, John Richard Green, and Edward Augustus Freeman. "These six represent," says Jann, "a range of approaches." Their undertakings were essentially of "affirmation rather than induction. Historical 'reality' became more sociologically complex, but it was still molded by desired truth. For these very reasons, the Victorian history tells us more about the ways the Victorians wished to shape their own experience than about the shape of the past itself." Each of the six chapters Erovides a comparative framework to examine the cultmal function of the istorian by asking similar questions about theory and practice. Morrison, Arthur. The Hole in the Wall. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1982. Paper £4.95 As usual, we like to bring attention to affordable reprints of such minor classics as this, which first appeared in 1902. Sagar, Keith. D. H. Lawrence: Life into Art. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985. Cloth $30.00 Paper $12.95 In this latest work, Sagar says his "intention now is to get as close as I can to Lawrence the creative writer again grounding the book in Lawrence's letters and manuscripts, and in other primary documents." Continues Sagar: "My concern is not, primarily, to trace the evolution of the selected works through the surviving manuscript drafts ... so much as to trace the genesis of them in Lawrence s mind before he put pen to paper." While he admits he cannot "explain" Lawrence's genius, he hopes to "describe some of the forces, both external and internal, which determined that the work before us should be as it is. . . ." 343 Vann, J. Don. Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modem Language Association of America, 1985. $50.00 Victorian Novels in Serial identifies 195 novels which appeared in serial form and in volume form as well as that part of each novel which was included in each serial installment. Fifty of the novels appeared in the ELT period from 1880 to as late as 1909. These are by Ainsworth, Collins, Hardy, Kipling, Meredith, Reade, Stevenson, Trollope, and Mrs. Ward. Also included are Dickens, Eliot, Gaskell, Kingsley, Bulwer-Lytton, Marryat, and Thackeray. As Vann notes, some classic novelists did not publish serially—the Brontes and Disraeli, for example. For each novel included, the serial/volume relationship is presented in tabular form. The date of first publication in volume form is given for most, but (unaccountably in some cases) not all of the novels. Footnotes point out title changes, omission of material in the serial or volume version, extensive revision, and the exact point of division when a book chapter has been split into two serial installments. A brief introduction comments on the history of serialization and its impact on literary form. A five-page bibliography shows readers where to look for extended discussion of such complex subjects as the transition of Hardy's serials into novel form. BOOKS RECEIVED Forster, E. M. Howards End. Intro, by Samuel Hynes. New York and London: Bantam Books, 1985. $3.95...