Past Scents: Historical Perspectives on Smell

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments Like many other authors who have grappled with the subject of smell previously, I have found my time engaged in the field of sense studies to be among the most collegial of professional experiences. Not only did colleagues regularly offer to read drafts of the chapters presented here, but from this project’s outset I have received regular unsolicited emails from colleagues who have drawn my attention to useful texts and those that were otherwise difficult to locate, as well as a steady stream of fascinating smell references from their own readings and research. No other research I have undertaken to date has resulted in such a rich harvest of disparate sources. I wish to thank numerous friends, acquaintances, and academic colleagues from diverse disciplines for their generosity. These include Irene Alonso-Pérez, Warwick Anderson, Nina Attwood, Jeremy Boulton, Christina Bradstreet, Michael Bresalier, Steven Bunker, Connie Chiang, Richard Clay, Harry Cocks, Virginia Crossman, Angus Dawson, Mary Dobson, Holly Dugan, Margot Finn, Elaine Fulton, Nancy Graham, Matthew Grenby, Susan Harvey, Marsha Henry, Victoria Henshaw, Clare Hickman, Matthew Hilton, June Jones, Matthew Newson Kerr, Julia Lajus, the late Joan Lane, Tracey Lauriault, George Lukowski, Cathy McClive, Michael McVaugh, Samuel Martland, Catherine Maxwell, Brian Moeran, Graham Mooney, Jean-François Mouhot, Sabina Rashid, Bill Regier, Guenter Risse, Corey Ross, Katja Schönherr, Leonard Schwarz, Kevin Siena, Tom Slater, Leonard Smith, Lisa Smith, Mark Smith, Carolyn Steedman, Ingrid Sykes, Anthony Synnott, Marion Thain, Shelley Trower, Rosemary Wall, Stuart Wildman, Andrew Williams, Ben Wurgaft, cs x . ACknowledgmentS and Rebecca Wynter. Many others spoke up at seminars when I presented some of my findings at the universities of Birmingham, Warwick, Liverpool, and London. Although these people were not always properly introduced, their input has also greatly influenced the way my ideas ultimately came together here. I am particularly grateful to those who have taken the time to read chapters and suggest changes, most of which I have followed. In the first instance, I wish to thank Susan Harvey for offering a lengthy and painful criticism of chapter 1. That there should have been so many issues to work through is no surprise, given that a medical historian of Victorian England was attempting to write about the early history of religion. Despite many inevitable shortcomings , I found each diversion from my regular academic reading utterly fascinating, and it often required great strength to put down additional volumes and stop myself from conducting further literature searches; this is work that others will no doubt undertake. Rebecca Wynter was similarly thorough in her reading of the book’s introduction and first two chapters; her careful reading on this and many other occasions once again greatly improved the text and forced me to consider the sensitivity of the book’s contents even more. Sabina Rashid introduced me to some new and intoxicating fragrances and happily read through chapters 3 and 4, confirming some of my findings along the way with many enjoyable personal anecdotes. Marsha Henry tried, as in her daily life, to set me straight on the subject of gender; should this element still appear less than satisfactory to some, it is the result of my own hardheadedness, not her attempts to introduce me to more sophisticated gender theorizing. She has also suggested and forwarded many interesting and helpful readings, seminars, newspaper articles, blogs, and so on, over the past four to five years. Virginia Smith was kind enough to read through chapter 5, which initially lacked pre-Victorian content, and to suggest further readings. Matthew Newson Kerr, Jon Herington, and Mary Dobson looked at the final chapter on “Smell and the City” and provided many helpful suggestions and clarifications. Two anonymous readers also provided a wealth of useful and detailed feedback and confirmed many of my thoughts on future research in this area. Mark Smith, editor of the senses series at University of Illinois Press, also read each chapter in early draft stages and provided feedback that was both helpful and encouraging, with his regular thoughtful emails and sage advice preventing me on many occasions from throwing in the towel and abandoning this project altogether. I wish to thank the British Academy for modest funding that facilitated the organization of a conference on “The Senses and the Enlightenment,” which has since been published as a special ACknowledgmentS · xi issue of the Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies (2012), and encouraged early scent discussions both with...