Editors' Note

This issue's forum offers an "Anatomy of the Victorian Periodical," a collection of focused studies of the Victorian periodical's defining parts, from the boldface type of the masthead to the most miniscule of advertisements. Casting their gaze beyond the content of the lead articles and serial novels that have been the focus of much recent research on the periodical, these essays consider elements scholars have too often overlooked. In essays on cover pages, obituaries, indexes, society pages, and illustration, our contributors ask us to think about the significance and function of the periodical's individual parts in new ways. While we learn in this forum about prizes, such as engraved pocket watches earned by loyal readers, we also learn about the less tangible rewards of a recent attempt to re-create a sheet of Victorian-era wood-type printing. We are grateful to our contributors for sharing their knowledge, the product of careful archival research but also of messy, hands-on experimentation, with readers of Victorian Review.

We are delighted to announce the first recipient of the Surridge Prize: Deborah Lutz's "Emily Brontë's Paper Work," which appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of Victorian Review. In selecting the essay, the committee members were impressed by its willingness to engage with recent work in material culture and book history and its ability to move from artifact to text and back, undoing this conventional opposition in startlingly productive ways. The essay's attention to the material conditions of Brontë's writing, the committee felt, brings out a new understanding of how a simple gesture, the tearing of a page from a notebook, might inform the very form and meaning of a writer's work. The essay is notable, too, for its graceful, generous, yet scrupulous style, so perfectly apposite to its subject matter.

Formerly the Editors' Prize, the Surridge Prize is awarded annually to the best article published in the journal. The prize is valued at $250 (Canadian). The winning article is selected by members of the Editorial team and the winner is announced at the annual meeting of the Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada. All articles published in the journal in the year are considered in the Surridge Prize competition. The Surridge Prize is named in honour of the effort and achievements of Lisa Surridge, editor of Victorian Review from 2007 to 2016.