In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Victorian Social Activists' Novels
  • Larry K. Uffelman (bio)
Oliver Lovesy , ed., Victorian Social Activists' Novels (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), 4 vols., $625 cloth.

This handsomely produced and well-edited set, printed on acid-free paper, contains the social reformist novels of five women, only one of whom is well known. The set is comprised of Caroline Norton, The Wife (1835); Millicent Garrett Fawcett, Janet Doncaster (1875); Ellice Jane Hopkins, Rose Turquand (1876); Mary Eleanor Benson, At Sundry Times and in Divers Manners (1891); and Margaret Todd, Mona Maclean, Medical Student (1892).

The authors represented here advocated slow, incremental change within state institutions and wrote at least one novel as a means of publicizing their message. In most cases, the novel published in the set is the only one the author wrote, although these authors were active in other reformist arenas. According to Oliver Lovesy, editor of the set, Todd's novel was the most successful of the group, having gone through twelve editions published under the pseudonym "Graham Travers."

Volume 1 contains an introduction to the fiction of Victorian social activists in general and to those represented in this set in particular. It also places these authors within a social and reformist tradition. Each volume opens with an introduction to place the novel (or in one case novels) in its context. This is followed by a "note on the text," which is, in turn, followed by the novel itself. At the end of each volume are informative appendixes that contain contextual matter—often material that appeared originally in the periodicals of the time—and elaborate upon issues relevant to the novel in question.

Editorial notes and a table containing textual variants close each volume. Many of the textual variants are unimportant, noting primarily changes in punctuation; however, many others are interesting and suggest revisions that bring the text into line with the moral tastes of the age. Examples of the latter sort occur most frequently in the textual notes to Todd's Mona Maclean. Many of these changes are interesting and might form a pattern if a reader decided to study them. A few examples will suffice to make the point: "a blind impulse" in revision became "an emotion," and the heroine "held out her hand, meeting his eyes" was changed to "when they reached her door she held out her hand." Throughout the text, Todd revised "bastard" [End Page 367] to "illegitimate." Finally, in at least one instance, Todd revised more extensively, adding whole sentences to the final version of her novel.

Although hardly earth-shatteringly significant, these revisions and others like them nevertheless show the author adjusting her text, perhaps occasionally toning down an extraneous emotional charge. For example, "an emotion" is cooler than "a blind impulse." In another instance, cited above, the revision indicates that "she" merely holds out her hand and does not look her male companion in the eye, thereby parting more coolly than she did in the original wording. And surely changing "bastard" to "illegitimate" softens the passage a tad. The point is that this edition allows a reader to consider the effect revision had in these novels where it occurs and by doing so to gain insight into the author's conception that would be otherwise unavailable.

This edition should be of value to advanced undergraduates as well as to graduate students and faculty interested in topics such as Victorian feminist movements, Victorian women's issues, Victorian women's fiction, and Victorian social reformist fiction.

Larry K. Uffelman
Mansfield University
Larry K. Uffelman

Larry K. Uffelman is Professor Emeritus of English at Mansfield University and a long-time member of RSVP. He has contributed to and edited RSVP's recurring checklist of scholarship on periodicals. He has also published on Charles Kingsley's serialized novels and Elizabeth Gaskell's serial fiction.

...

pdf

Share