Missing Persons

ELT 37:4 1994 Traditionalists will also have trouble with Fenwick's use of certain bibliographical terms and conventions, particularly those which refer to a first American edition (using sheets imported from England or sheets printed from stereos, but with a new title page, ads, etc.), simply as a "reissue" of the first British edition. In some cases, these American reissues are not collated, not even listed or described, except in the prefatory essay. There is similar confusion about the term "reissue," which is used throughout the book in place of the more generally used "impression." In one case, a proposed German translation is referred to as a "German issue of the book" rather than as a German edition. In her preface, the author briefly notes that most of the technical conventions are self-explanatory and cites her source, but never explains how her conventions and terms differ from those in most other bibliographies. Although Fenwick makes it clear in the preface that she was not concerned with "textual bibliography," the reader will frequently find it difficult, if not impossible, to determine the extent to which first and second editions differ, or if Stephen's periodical pieces were revised before being collected and published in book form. The numbering and lettering system employed throughout the book is a simple alphabetical progression, a fact which tends to hide, rather than reveal, anything about the existence of different editions or settings of type. Despite its flaws, Fenwick's book achieves a success far beyond the sum of its parts. The wide range of material included, the meticulous research apparent on each page, the careful acknowledgment of every source, and the high quality of Fenwick's writing not only make available a comprehensive picture of the huge body of work that created Stephen's lofty contemporary reputation, but serve as well to reveal something important about the man behind the work—the versatility of his interests, his indefatigable application to his calling and craft, and the warmth of his personal and professional friendships. This study's many facets and features combine to make it a work of value to anyone with a general interest in certain aspects of the Victorian literary world, and indispensable to students and scholars with a special interest in Stephen's life and work. Clinton Krauss _______________ Montpelier, Vermont Missing Persons C. S. Nicholls, ed. The Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. xxi + 768 pp. $115 534 BOOK REVIEWS "I ONLY BEG that you will not get into the Dictionary yourself," Leslie Stephen wrote to Thomas Hardy in 1889 while editing the earlier volumes of The Dictionary of National Biography. "You can avoid it by living a couple of years—hardly a great price to pay for the exemption. But I will not answer for my grandson, who will probably edit a supplement." His grandson did not edit a supplement, but he did write an excellent life of Stephen's daughter and is now engaged in writing brief lives of relatives and friends. It is not difficult to trace the influence of The Dictionary of National Biography in the biographical art of Virginia Woolf and Quentin Bell as well as that of Lytton Strachey, E. M. Forster, J. M. Keynes, and others in and beyond Bloomsbury. The DNB appeared under the editorship of Leslie Stephen and then Sidney Lee in sixty-three volumes between 1885 and 1900. The death of Queen Victoria in 1901 made a supplement immediately necessary. In it appeared those worthies who in the past fifteen years had died out of alphabetical order, such as Arnold, Newman, and Ruskin, and also some 200 other famous people of the past who had been ignored for one reason or another. (The agnostic Stephen had curtailed the eligible saints, for example, and Lee, editing the supplement put some of them back in starting with Saints Alban and Asaph.) But after 1901 there was no appeal. Supplements did appear every ten years· but the volumes included only those who had died within the past decade. Now for the second time the DNB has published another supplementary volume to include those who died before 1985...