Editors' Note

In this issue, we are excited to present "Beyond Britain: A Forum." We asked leading scholars in disciplines from the history of food to that of aboriginal contact to choose a place and time that they saw as a pivotal point in nineteenth-century history and culture. Ranging from Sodom and Gomorrah in 1851 to Los Angeles in 1900, these essays demonstrate the importance of far-flung sites to our understandings of Victorianism.

We also celebrate the achievement of Tyson Stolte (University of British Columbia) in winning the journal's annual Hamilton Prize for his essay, "'What Is Natural in Me': David Copperfield, Faculty Psychology, and the Association of Ideas." We offer congratulations to this year's runners-up: Peter J. Capuano (University of Virginia) for "Handling the Perceptual Politics of Identity in Great Expectations" and Laura Faulkner (University of Victoria) for "'That's convenient, not to say odd': Coincidence and Causality in the Work of Thomas Hardy." Many thanks to the four advisory board members who adjudicated this year's competition: Linda Hughes, Judith Johnston, Bernard Lightman, and Suzy Anger (who kindly recused herself for the final round of vetting to avoid a conflict of interest). Thanks, too, to the graduate students who entered the competition and the colleagues who alerted them to the Hamilton Prize.