Comments & Queries

Comments & Queries are welcome via e-mail. Our address is victstu@indiana.edu.

On the Cover is "So Far, Not the Slightest Attempt Has Been Made to Interfere With Me," by E. Herring, from the Cosmopolitan: A Monthly Illustrated Magazine. 31.1 (May 1901): 97. On the back cover is "They Cut Every Telegraph and Wrecked the Railways," by Warwick Goble, from the Cosmopolitan: A Monthly Illustrated Magazine. 23.5 (Sept. 1897): 549.

Call for Submissions: MLA Book Prizes

The descriptions and requirements are now available for the Modern Language Association's upcoming book prize competitions. Seventeen book prizes will be presented at the MLA convention in January 2012, including the MLA Prize for a First Book, the James Russell Lowell Prize for an outstanding scholarly work by a member of the association, and the MLA Prize for Independent Scholars. Detailed information on the prize competitions, including the number of copies, can be found at <http://www.mla.org/resources/awards/awards_submissions/awards_competitions>.

Send copies of each work, with the prize name on the mailing label and a letter confirming eligibility, to

MLA Prizes
26 Broadway, 3rd floor
New York, NY 10004-1789

For more information, call 646 576-5141 or write to awards@mla.org.

Changes at VS: As JanuFeb inevitably approaches, we say goodbye to Managing Editor Melanie Brezniak, who is finishing her dissertation—full time and at enviable speed—on recognition narratives in the Victorian novel. Melanie always remained preternaturally calm and composed when making life or death decisions about house style, but of course we'll especially miss the tea drinking and mid-morning vegetarian "chicken" nuggets. We also bid a fond adieu to Book Review Editor Lauren Simek; her early-morning arrivals kept the office on track and running smoothly and we'll miss her prodigious knowledge of commas (should I have put a comma before and?) and MLA style as much as we pine for her holiday office baking. Lauren, who now has the luxury of early morning dissertating, is working on explorations of moral philosophy and the self in Victorian women's writing. All the best to both Melanie and Lauren, whose expertise and email diplomacy are without compare!

As the new Managing Editor, Maureen Hattrup spends her time triple-checking proper bibliographic formatting and enjoying her new desk by the window. In her off-hours, she is working on a dissertation on nineteenth-century historiography.

Matthew Kaul takes over as Assistant Managing Editor, and has quickly learned to appreciate the VS animosity toward scare quotes and all fonts save Courier New. He's beginning a dissertation on Victorian literature and secularization.

Now Book Review Editor, Stephanie Koscak trades her purple pen for green, inherits a slightly better but still uncomfortable chair, and continues patching together a dissertation about pictures of the British monarchy in print.

Jeanette Samyn has stepped into the Assistant Book Review Editor position, where she spends time asking questions and watching for hawks outside the office window. She is starting work on a dissertation about the nineteenth-century British poor and historical memory.

This fall we have had the privilege of working with two excellent undergraduate interns.

Lauren James is an undergraduate pursuing an English major with minors in history and Latin. She would like to thank the VS staff for their support and consideration as she eavesdropped on their insider conversations about graduate school, learned proofreading, developed a newfound love of wombats, and asked—approximately three hundred times—how to get the printer working again.

Katie Shabi is an undergraduate English major with minors in history and art history, and is also currently writing an Honors thesis on postmodern literature. She would like to sincerely thank the Victorian Studies staff for granting her insider knowledge into the everyday workings of an academic journal, as well as for their often hilarious accounts of the joys and travails that accompany the life of the graduate student. The assistance she offered to the already well-run journal may have been small, but if you see the word "conjure" appear in this journal, chances are that that was her contribution.

As always, Victorian Studies thanks the Indiana...