The Book Beautiful: Walter Pater and the House of Macmillan by Robert M. Seiler (review)

Abstract

her work and a concept which throws an interestinglight on the supposedlyweak concluding episode in 'Goblin Market'. The seven years opened by these letters lend greater substance to Rossetti, as a character who was filled with religious conviction but was unable to embrace the exclusively religious life; as one who was filled with a sense of righteousness, but righteousness held within the strongly restraining limits of a Victorian sense of sexual decorum; as one who easily fell into a melancholy mood, but who was sympathetic, tender, and sensitive not only to those close to her but to sufferersof whom she knew only by repute. This second volume of the letters, like the first,is edited with a scholarlyscrupulousnessby Anthony Harrison.The tone of the letters is circumspect,careful,low-keyed, and Harrisonhas succeeded in supplyingtactful and appropriate annotation where it is required. The difficulty of identifying Rossetti's correspondentsis increased by her habit of destroying incoming letters. Perhapswhat ismore remarkableisthatwe have herebeforeus nearlyone thousand letters from Christina Rossetti, letters which were not destroyed even when their contents are nugatory.This saysmuch of the love and admirationin which she was held by so many. UNIVERSITY OF READING J. B. BULLEN TheBookBeautiful: WalterPaterandtheHouseofMacmillan. Ed. by ROBERTM. SEILER. London and New Brunswick,NJ:Athlone. I999. xii + 206 pp. ?4o. 'I have the feel of it still in my fingers.' So Arthur Symons recalled the lingering, tactile thrill of handling the first edition of Walter Pater's TheRenaissance, with its chocolate end papers,roughlyribbedpages, and darkblue-green cloth binding. Robert Seiler's collection of the Macmillan Archive correspondence between Pater, that most guarded of Victorian men of letters, and his sole book publisher, offersan intriguingcase studyof the textual condition duringthe last quarterof the nineteenth century. Pater'sliterarycareer, much like his hypnotic prose, was often characterized by a perverse rhythm of hesitancy, delay, and revision. As Seiler points out, Pater was a critic, journalist, novelist, and classics don whose work existed 'atthe marginsof many genres' and 'contestedthe rulesof orthodox literary production' (p. 55). One constant in this eclectic body of work is Pater's concern not only for the content (he often made the most fastidiousrevisions),but also for the physicalform of hisbook production. Indeed, it is this sense of the bibliographic crafting of each edition, that almost excessive care to shape paper, binding, and type into an aesthetically perfect whole, which Seiler fleshes out with dense introductory sections on Victorian bookmaking, the history of Macmillan & Co., and the troubledtrajectoryof Pater'scareer. The letters,with the exception of some informativeannotations, arewisely left to speak for themselves as they document the material difficultiesfaced by Pater in realizinghisaestheticvision. Time aftertime, histentativerequestsforbetterquality materialsand more favourableterms are skilfullymanipulatedby a publisherkeen to steer a sensible course between economic prudence and aesthetic achievement. We often hearAlexanderMacmillanventriloquizingPater'slanguage, arguingwith him for a 'higherliterature'thatmustbe embodied in a 'dainty'book, whilstvetoing his more extravagantchoices in paper and binding. More difficultto interpretare Pater'smoments of extreme preciousness, which can strikeour modern sensibility as examples of high camp. 'Alas!'he laments over an irregularityin the folding of a sheet, 'for the hands of bookbinders, which are apt to tarnish a little title-page' (p. 81). It is tempting to read such delicate posturing in the light of recent critical her work and a concept which throws an interestinglight on the supposedlyweak concluding episode in 'Goblin Market'. The seven years opened by these letters lend greater substance to Rossetti, as a character who was filled with religious conviction but was unable to embrace the exclusively religious life; as one who was filled with a sense of righteousness, but righteousness held within the strongly restraining limits of a Victorian sense of sexual decorum; as one who easily fell into a melancholy mood, but who was sympathetic, tender, and sensitive not only to those close to her but to sufferersof whom she knew only by repute. This second volume of the letters, like the first,is edited with a scholarlyscrupulousnessby Anthony Harrison.The tone of the letters is circumspect,careful,low-keyed, and Harrisonhas succeeded in supplyingtactful and appropriate annotation where it is required. The difficulty of identifying Rossetti's correspondentsis increased by her habit of destroying incoming letters...