Replication in the Long Nineteenth Century: Re-Makings and Reproductions ed. by Julie Codell and Linda K. Hughes (review)

Given the substantial body of critical work on Victorian technologies of reproduction— covering topics such as industrialization, literary production, art, photography, scientific experimentation, and more—it might appear to some that the topic has run its course. Julie Codell and Linda K. Hughes's recent collection belies this perception. Replication in the Long Nineteenth Century: Re-Makings and Reproductions features a lively set of essays covering a range of topics that nonetheless cohere admirably, reinforcing what Miles Orvell has described as the nineteenth century's "culture of replication" (qtd. in Codell and Hughes 2). The collection is conceptually grounded in a nuanced understanding of Codell and Hughes's key term: drawing this term from the Italian "replica" (3), the editors—and many of their contributors—emphasize replication's meaning as both a copy and the process of rethinking and remaking. It is not simply that the nineteenth century saw an expansion of forms and uses of reproduction, but that these reproductions forged new ground as they reworked source or copied material.

In addition to nuancing replication amidst a field of similar terms—reproduction, imitation, copy, and so on—the coeditors position their study as the first interdisciplinary treatment of this phenomenon. The collection's scope comes across through the range of methodologies and subjects represented by the essays as well as within several of the included pieces, such as Ryan D. Tweney's "The Origins of Replication in Science," an engaging treatment of word choice in Michael Faraday's scientific discourse. An interdisciplinary approach to such an expansive concept is by definition ambitious, and at over 300 pages with fifteen contributed essays, an introduction, and an afterword, the book represents an impressive range of approaches and subjects. Contributions are organized under the thematic subheadings "Replication and Networks," "Replication and Technology," "Replication and Authenticity," and "Replication and Time," with the stated intent of emphasizing interdisciplinarity. This organization does provide opportunities for contributions to speak to one another across disciplines, though these groupings are not always as conceptually tight as they might be. "Replication and Technology," for instance, might describe several essays included in other sections; "Replication and Authenticity" is a topic that likewise runs throughout the collection.

Subjects and approaches that might seem to be obvious features in a collection on nineteenth-century replication—such as a study of photography per se—emerge more implicitly through some of the contributions, as in Dorothy Moss's excellent study of William Merritt Chase's staged photographic portraits of socialites depicting master works of art, "Portraying and Performing the Copy, c. 1900." As Codell and Hughes explain in their introduction, "We propose here both a broad and a narrow view. We will generally not consider such areas as sculptural casts, forgeries, or mass reproductions across media—engravings or photographs of paintings, for example." They are concerned instead with "re-makings that exhibit, sometimes self-consciously, a relation (or reply) to a prior version or that travel away from a prior version in distinctive or innovative terms" (4–5). Many of the contributions to this volume assume a case study form and highlight instances of replication that show us something new.

The first part of the collection, "Replication and Networks," addresses the ways various replications circulate, demonstrating differing agendas and outcomes for the remakings emerging from each context. In addition to Moss's essay, this section features Sally M. Foster's case for biographical approaches to replicas of archaeological material, Codell's history of transatlantic autograph replicas, and Emilie Taylor-Brown's work on parasitology and professional authority told through Ronald Ross's mosquito malaria study.

In many ways the fourth section, "Replication and Time," feels like it would be a natural fit to follow the first section, focusing as it does on repetition as temporal...