---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Date: 29 September 2003 00:00 -0500 From: Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]> To: Recipients of VICTORIA digests <[log in to unmask]> Subject: VICTORIA Digest - 27 Sep 2003 to 28 Sep 2003 (#2003-61) There are 14 messages totalling 463 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Cornwell on Jack the Ripper (5) 2. If I were a cassowary 3. UPDATE: CFP 18th- and 19th Century British Women Writers Conference 4. swimming (2) 5. Thanks re: Death and Dying Resouces 6. Mayhew Thanks 7. VICTORIA Digest - 26 Sep 2003 to 27 Sep 2003 (#2003-60) 8. image of the professor 9. lennox amott, poet ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 09:06:54 +0100 From: Michel Faber <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Cornwell on Jack the Ripper Leslie Bailey wrote: > My English 102 (College Writing II) students are preparing preliminary > bibliographies for their lengthy term papers, all of which deal with > Victorian topics (for the good of the curriculum, naturally). One student > has selected Jack the Ripper as his area of interest and asked me if > Patricia Cornwell's recent "Portrait of a Killer (Jack the Ripper, Case > Closed)" is accepted as an authoritative text. I have seen no discussion > on VICTORIA of this publication and am wondering how Ripperites view her > findings that Walter Sickert, world-class artist, was the Whitechapel > murderer. There was a long and occasionally heated discussion of Patricia Cornwell and her theory on VICTORIA a couple of years ago. It began with Kristan Tetens asking, on the 7th of December 2001: > I was just wondering if list members had a reaction to the assertion made > last night on ABC's Primetime Live by crime novelist Patricia Cornwell > that Walter Sickert, painter (protege of Whistler) and actor (once > associated with Henry Irving at the Lyceum) was Jack the Ripper. and pretty much monopolised VICTORIA's energies until the 7th of January 2002, by which time the discussion had diverged to address Cornwell's (de)merits as a novelist. All the posts should be accessible via the VICTORIA archives, although if you are determined to access each & every one, please note that using "Cornwell" as your keyword will fail to summon up those posts which misspelled the author's name "Cornwall". Best wishes, Michel Faber [log in to unmask] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 11:12:45 +0100 From: Chris Willis <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Cornwell on Jack the Ripper Hi! It's definitely not an authoritative text - quite the reverse! The Sickert speculation has been around for a long time and has been largely discredited. There was a long discussion of this on the list last year so it's probably best to refer back to that. There's a Sickert conference at Tate Britain on 28 November which will touch on the various Ripper speculations - details on the Tate website. All the best Chris ================================================================ Chris Willis [log in to unmask] www.chriswillis.freeserve.co.uk/ Campaign Against Compulsory ID Cards http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/issues/id-cards.shtml The human cost of war www.iraqbodycount.org ================================================================ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 16:44:02 -0400 From: "Eileen M. Curran" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: If I were a cassowary For more light verse by Samuel Wilberforce see the following, all in "Bentley's Miscellany": "The doom of Cormac," 33 (Apr. 1853). 415-426; "The weird man," 34 (Sept. 1853), 261-271 and 34 (Oct. 1853), 375-382; "A Tyrolese legend," 34 (Dec. 1853), 602-604. [All identified as his in "Victorian Periodicals Review," 34 (2001), 374-376.] At least in 1853 he did not wish to be identified with anything so frivolous and asked Bentley not to identify him as the writer. The first poem, at Wilberforce's suggestion, was signed "W.A.S." and the rest were unsigned. Perhaps to some extent Bentley even preserved his anonymity in-house: the Receipts page detailing publication and payment is headed not with Wilberforce's name but "Oxon.". (Wilberforce signed his letters to Bentley "S Oxon"--i.e., Samuel, Oxoniensis Episcopus. They are at the University of Illinois and available on microfilm.) Eileen [log in to unmask] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 11:23:29 -0400 From: Monica Smith <[log in to unmask]> Subject: UPDATE: CFP 18th- and 19th Century British Women Writers Conference Please forgive the cross posting. UPDATE: Keynote Speakers: Susan Gubar, Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Indiana University; Yopie Prins, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan; Susan Wolfson, Professor of English at Princeton University. UPDATE: Deadline for abstracts: October 31, 2003. The Twelfth Annual Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers Conference invites proposals for its 2004 conference to be held March 25-28, 2004 at the University of Georgia. This year's theme, "Location, Location, Location: Textual Spaces and Places," focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to and discussions of British women's writings during the period. While we welcome scholarship on all aspects of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British women writers, we particularly encourage papers on the following subjects: * Gendered Spaces and Locations * Location in the Canon * Domestic Spaces * Closet Space * The Body as Location, the Located Body * Travel: Geographical Spaces * Country and City: Landscapes and Cityscapes * Locating the Self or (An)other * Sacred and Secular Spaces * Genre and the Role of Generic Spaces * Performance Spaces * Locating the British Empire * Time and Space/Place * Cyberspace * Classical and Modern Spaces * National, Transnational, International, and Regional Spaces * Classed Spaces * Public and Private Spaces * Place, Pedagogy, and Profession Please send 1-2 page abstracts for papers and proposals for panels to [log in to unmask] by October 31. 2003. Please include your name, address, phone number, and email address. (If you submit a panel, please provide a moderator.) Proposals may also be sent via regular post to: British Women Writers Conference c/o Monica Smith University of Georgia Department of English 254 Park Hall Athens, GA 30602 Please visit our website for more information: <http://www.english.uga.edu/~bwwc>. **************************************************** Monica Smith University of Georgia Department of English 254 Park Hall Athens, GA 30602 [log in to unmask] www.english.uga.edu/~msmith ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 21:27:30 -0500 From: Shannon Rose Smith <[log in to unmask]> Subject: swimming Hello List, I'm currently working on a study of 19th c. representations of athletics in literature, and was hoping to appeal to the collective wisdom of the list. Can anyone recommend any 19th c. works which deal with swimming or characters who pursue the sport? Other than Byron swimming the Hellespont, I'm having difficulty thinking of any. Any suggestions will be pursued with athletic vigour! Thank you, Shannon Smith Shannon Smith Graduate Student Department of English Queen's University Kingston, ON ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 13:18:45 -0400 From: Anna Jones <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Thanks re: Death and Dying Resouces Many thanks to all who responded to my "death and dying" query. As always, VICTORIA is a fantastic resource and community. Best, AMJ Anna M. Jones Assistant Professor Department of English University of Central Florida Orlando, FL 32816-1346 407-823-3406 ---------- "To a man not accustomed to thinking there is nothing in the world so difficult as to think. After some loose fashion we turn things in our mind and ultimately reach some decision, guided probably by our feelings at the last moment rather than any process of ratiocination;--and then we think that we have thought." --Anthony Trollope ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 17:31:32 -0400 From: "Tilley, Barbara" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Mayhew Thanks This is a bit late, I know, but I wanted to send out a warm thank you to Lee Jackson, Neil Davie, and Tom Prasch for their most helpful information about Henry Mayhew. I took the information that had been sent along and shared it with my class and that, of course, generated more questions about authenticity and voice! Thanks again, Barbara Tilley [log in to unmask] Assistant Professor of English Hilbert College 5200 South Park Ave. Hamburg, NY 14052 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 19:09:23 -0400 From: Jamie Ridenhour <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Cornwell on Jack the Ripper Very few people who have studied the Ripper case in depth give credence to Cornwell's book. Ripperologists in general think Cornwell has wasted a great deal of money to prove nothing. Aside from Sickert having a fairly good alibi for each murder date (he was in France during that time), the much-touted DNA findings are not nearly as definitive as they seem on first announcement. I don't know what book would be considered the best authority, although Donald Rumbelow's Complete Jack the Ripper is fairly unbiased and comprehensive through its last revision in the mid-90's. The best source of information on the web (maybe anywhere) for all things Ripper is www.casebook.org, an extremely comprehensive site that features an accessibly presented refutation of Cornwell's book. They also have information on any and all suspects (with evidence, pros, and cons), canonical victims and the many other "might-be's", and reviews of the large number of Ripper books out there. Jamie Ridenhour University of South Carolina [log in to unmask] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 22:58:03 -0400 From: "Rachel M. Bright" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Cornwell on Jack the Ripper You should search the VICTORIA archives for "Patricia Cornwell" and/or "Walter Sickert"--her book was discussed extensively on the list when it first came out (Dec. 2001). You might also want to search the GASLIGHT web site for more feedback and opinions on Cornwell (http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/). Suffice it to say, based on the postings, Cornwell's book and methods are controversial. Rachel M. Bright English Department Temple University [log in to unmask] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 13:59:44 +0100 From: Robert Ward <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: VICTORIA Digest - 26 Sep 2003 to 27 Sep 2003 (#2003-60) On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 00:00:52 -0500, Automatic digest processor <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > There is one message totalling 29 lines in this issue. > > Topics of the day: > > 1. Cornwell on Jack the Ripper > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 15:07:09 -0700 > From: Leslie Bailey <[log in to unmask]> > I ... am wondering how Ripperites view her > findings that Walter Sickert, world-class artist, was the Whitechapel > murderer. > I found it an interesting and fascinating book. Not so much for light it shed on the Ripper mystery, which because there is so little evidence must remain insoluble, but for the insight into Cornwell's thinking. Cornwell has clearly done a lot of reserach into the Ripper mystery and into the activities of Walter Sickert, and points out that Sickert was in many ways unconventional and eccentric, which perhaps indicated much deeper psychological problems. (Or perhaps not - artists have not always been noted for conventionality.) But nevertheless Cornwell has only managed to demonstrate that Sickert was in London at the time, had some odd habits, and could conceivably have committed the murders. The fundamental fallacy is that "could have done" is not the same as "did do", or on any reasonable balance of probabilities might have done in reality. It's a great idea for a Victorian murder mystery along the lines of Cornwell's excellent "Dr Scarpetta" stories, and I give her credit for research into Victorian London and Sickert's life. But I don't think it it provides any great insight into the Ripper case. The basic problem with her exposition is that she starts from the premise "Sickert was the Ripper" and then proceeds to find evidence to support it. The thing I missed from her work was any serious dicussion of the strength of that evidence or why we should place any reliance on it; and perhaps more crucially, any discussion of countervailing evidence. Am I being too severe? I don't think so. Walter Sickert may be dead and buried so we can't libel him, but neverthless if we're suggesting he (or anyone else) might have been responsible for a horrific series of brutal murders it needs a much more compelling argument. RW -- Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 13:21:52 -0400 From: "Dr. Joanna Devereux" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: image of the professor Can anyone suggest any works from late in the century dealing with the = image of the professor? A graduate student I know is interested in = looking at this figure, specifically as it (probably "he" mainly) = appeared around the turn of the 19th into the 20thC. Many thanks for any ideas or suggestions! Jo Devereux ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 17:06:02 -0400 From: Scott Messing <[log in to unmask]> Subject: lennox amott, poet Dear List: I am trying to locate any biographical information on Lennox Amott. All I know at this point is that he published several volumes of verse: "Stray Thoughts" (1881), "Midsummer Idylls" (1882), "The Minstrel" (1883), and "Chimes" (1887). The fact that he had four works published within a half dozen years suggests he enjoyed some repute, but I have not found his name in the stand literature nor have my colleagues in the library been successful. Hopefully, Scott Messing [log in to unmask] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 20:01:01 -0700 From: "Bailey, Les" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Cornwell on Jack the Ripper I am very grateful to those persons who took the time (either privately = on on-list) to tell me and my student how to evaluate Cornwell's study = of Jack the Ripper. =20 The generosity of those who subscribe to VICTORIA is always impressive = and, I know, instructs students to understand that the essence of = academic life is, indeed, a great and giving conversation. =20 Thanks again., Les ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 22:58:32 -0500 From: BEm004176B Adcrafters <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: swimming From: "Shannon Rose Smith" Can anyone recommend any 19th c. works which deal with swimming or > characters who pursue the sport? I'm not sure if you're looking for poetry, but Swinburne's "The Lake of Gaube" (1899) gives a lengthy description of the swimmer, including these lines: "As a sea-mew's love of the sea-wind breasted and ridden for rapture's sake Is the love of his body and soul for the dark- ling delight of the soundless lake; As the silent speed of a dream too living to live for a thought's space more Is the flight of his limbs through the still strong chill of the darkness from shore to shore." Diana Ostrander [log in to unmask] ------------------------------ End of VICTORIA Digest - 27 Sep 2003 to 28 Sep 2003 (#2003-61) ************************************************************** ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------