Dickens Society Research Articles

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The Dickens Society Prizes

From the Editor

From the Editor Dominic Rainsford This is a particularly international issue of Dickens Quarterly, with contributors based in China, Denmark, Japan, Israel, Latvia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This raises a dilemma when it comes to name-order. Chinese and Japanese names (as well as various others not represented in the current issue) are normally presented with the family name first, in the languages in question. Western publishers, and Western society more broadly, have largely adopted the Chinese convention, referring to “Xi Jinping” and “Ai Weiwei,” for example, rather than “Jinping Xi” and “Weiwei Ai.” On the other hand, despite some official encouragement from the Japanese government, Western sources continue to Westernize the order of Japanese names: “Fumio Kishida” and “Yayoi Kusama,” for example, instead of “Kishida Fumio” and “Kusama Yayoi.” A few Western publications–for example, The Economist–now place family names first, consistently, in the case of both Chinese and Japanese individuals, but this is still rare in academic publishing. After consulting with contributors, Dickens Quarterly has decided to proceed, for the time being, with the pragmatic solution of following the predominant Western practice for Chinese and Japanese names, respectively. This was also the choice made by Athena Press, Japan, in the case of the collection Dickens and the Anatomy of Evil, reviewed in this issue. At the same time, Athena joined many other publishers in adopting the convention of placing family names in small capitals in the table of contents, so as to avoid confusion. We have decided to do the same, in the contributor notes and abstracts as well as in the table of contents (although not in bibliographic entries, or in references within the text of articles and reviews). We will keep this matter under review as wider familiarity with different conventions develops and in light of our contributors’ views and wishes. [End Page 137] Dominic Rainsford Aarhus University Copyright © 2023 The Dickens Society

From the Editor

From the Editor Dominic Rainsford Whether David Copperfield was the hero of his own life is a matter for inexhaustible debate–for him and the rest of us. He is now, however, the hero of his own issue of Dickens Quarterly. This has happened, like so many things in life, quite by chance. In other words, this is an "unofficial" special issue. While Bleak House has been, for some time, the most written-about Dickens novel, it is very good to see that Dickens's "favourite child" also continues to attract strong interest, resulting in essays of the caliber of those included here, all of which, I think, have something new and important to say about the novel. Like almost all of Dickens's writing, Copperfield has the paradoxical merit of being both sweet and disturbing, as we can see in the two pictorial interpretations of David meeting Betsey Trotwood shown below: the first by Phiz, in a delicately tinted version; the second by the obscure Danish modernist and Aunt Betsey-obsessive, Christian Kongstad Petersen.1 [End Page 5] Click for larger view View full resolution "I make myself known to my aunt". Frontispiece by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz") to David Copperfield, London Edition, Caxton Publishing Company, undated, c. 1900. [End Page 6] Click for larger view View full resolution Christian Kongstad Petersen (1862–1940), David Copperfield opsøger sin tante, Miss Betsey Trotwood i Dover (David Copperfield Seeks out his Aunt, Miss Betsey Trotwood, in Dover), pen and ink, scraped paper, 421 x 313 mm, 1925 and 1927; The Royal Collection of Graphic Art, National Gallery of Denmark, KKS1992-156. [End Page 7] Dominic Rainsford Aarhus University Footnotes 1. For many more reproductions of Kongstad Petersen's Dickens-inspired art, see my article on him in Dickens Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4 (2017). Copyright © 2023 The Dickens Society

The Dickens Checklist

The Dickens Checklist Dominic Rainsford The Dickens Checklist, recording new publications, doctoral dissertations, and online ressources of significance for Dickens studies, appears in each issue of the journal. A cumulative edition of the Checklist, consisting of listings since vol. 37, no. 1 (March 2020), is available at dickenssociety.org, and will be updated once a year. Dominic Rainsford Aarhus University Primary Sources Dickens, Charles. The Uncommercial Traveller. Edited by Daniel Tyler, Oxford UP, 2021. Oxford World’s Classics. [Previously published in hardback, 2015.] Google Scholar Secondary Sources: Biography and Criticism Alexander, Sam. “Population Thinking and Narrative Networks: Dickens, Joyce, and The Wire.” Modern Language Quarterly, vol. 82, no. 3, Sept. 2021, pp. 315–43. [BH] Google Scholar Alshwayyat, Ali Mahmoud Ali, et al. “Psychological Compassion as Portrayed in Dorothea in Eliot’s Middlemarch and Louisa in Dickens’ Hard Times.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 11, no. 10, Oct. 2021, pp. 1181–86, doi:10.17507/tpls.1110.05. Google Scholar Alzouabi, Lina Taysir. “A Reading of Charles Dickens’ Hard Times (1854) as a Crime Novel.” International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, vol. 4, no. 4, Apr. 2021, pp. 193–99, al-kindipublisher.com/index.php/ijllt/article/view/1569/1359. Google Scholar ———. “Social Environment and Crime in Dickens’ Oliver Twist and Great Expectations.” International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, vol. 4, no. 6, June 2021, pp. 163–70, al-kindipublisher.com/index.php/ijllt/article/view/1826/1529. Google Scholar Bell, Katie. “The Tell-Tale Sign of the Dickensian Influence: Dickens and Poe.” Dickens Society Blog, 29 Oct. 2021, dickenssociety.org/archives/3383. Google Scholar Camlot, Jason. Phonopoetics: The Making of Early Literary Recordings. Stanford UP, 2019. [Ch. 2: “Charles Dickens in Three Minutes or Less: Early Phonographic Fiction”] Google Scholar Cheslow, Erin. “Oral Storytelling as a Transnational Aesthetic in the Industrial Novel.” The Routledge Companion to Literature and Class, edited by Gloria McMillan, Routledge, 2021, pp. 333–44. [DS] Google Scholar Cubeta, Germana. “Dickens’s Fairness in Describing Italian Complexity.” The Routledge Companion to Literature and Class, edited by Gloria McMillan, Routledge, 2021, pp. 202–19. Google Scholar Dickens Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 4, Dec. 2021. [Dominic Rainsford, Trey Philpotts, Margaret Flanders Darby, and Amanda Helm, “In Memoriam: David Paroissien 1939–2021,” pp. 357–64; Elizabeth Wells, “Intellectual Passing and the Co-Authorship of Communal Change in Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge,” pp. 365–87; Melissa McLeod, “Hearing Ghosts in Dickens’s David Copperfield,” pp. 388–410; Jian Choe, “Van Gogh and Hard Times,” pp. 411–28; Daniel Stuart, “No shadow of another parting”: Unrequited Love, Stalking, and Dickens’s Rejected Men,” pp. 429–51; William F. Long, “‘It is said that Dickens is Insane’: Documenting a Rumor,” pp. 452–66; William F. Long, “A Drunken Cabman at Charles Dickens’s,” pp. 467–70; Tabitha Sparks, review of The Science of Starving in Victorian Literature, Medicine, and Political Economy, by Andrew Mangham, pp. 471–73; Dominic Rainsford, review of The Hothouse Flower: Nurturing Women in the Victorian Conservatory, by Margaret Flanders Darby, pp. 474–78; Sara Malton, “The Fifty-Second Annual Dickens Society Meeting,” pp. 484–85; Susan Cook, “Dickens Society Treasurer’s Report for the Fiscal Year 1 September 2020 to 31 August 2021, pp. 486–87; Dominic Rainsford, “The Dickens Checklist,” pp. 491–95.] Google Scholar The Dickensian, vol. 117, part 3, no. 515, Winter 2021. [Emily Bell, “From the Editor,” pp. 225–27; William F. Long, “‘A Young and Unknown Writer’: Documenting the Arrival in Public Print of ‘Charles Dickens,’” pp. 228–45; Wayne S. B. Jackson, “Charles Dickens’s Association with Goodwin’s Oyster Store, 295 Strand,” pp. 246–52; Michael Steele, “‘The little piece of business between the Sun and myself ’: Dickens’s Early Experiences with Photography,” pp. 253–70; Mizuki Tsutsui, “The Absent Reader in David Copperfield,” pp. 271–80; Paul Graham, “Anthony Powell as Dickens Critic and Parodist,” pp. 281–89; Leonee Ormond, “Dickens and Marcus Stone,” pp. 290–300; Robert Butterworth, review of Dickens and the Bible: “What Providence Meant,” by Jennifer Gribble, pp. 301–02; Robert Laurella, review of Spectral Dickens: The Uncanny Forms of Novelistic Characterization, by Alexander Bove, pp. 303–04; Robert L. Patten, reviews...

The Dickens Checklist

The Dickens Checklist Dominic Rainsford (bio) Primary Sources Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Manuscript facsimile. Preface by Simon Callow, SP Books, 2020. Secondary Sources: Biography and Criticism Bove, Alexander. Spectral Dickens: The Uncanny Forms of Novelistic Characterization. Manchester UP, 2021. Dickens Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 1, Mar. 2020. [Dominic Rainsford, "From the Editor," pp. 5–6; "Anti-racism Statement of the Charles Dickens Society," pp. 6–7; James Armstrong, "Reimagining Melodrama in The Old Curiosity Shop," pp. 8–28; Shannon Russell, "How a Slave Was Made a Woman: Dombey and Son and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," pp. 29–53; Trey Philpotts, "Dickens, the Flâneur, and Dickens's Journals: A Reconsideration," pp. 54–69; William F. Long, "'The Last Devil's Walk' and the Dickens Scandal," pp. 70–82; Helena Kelly, "Ellen Ternan's Connections with Rochester: Some New Material," pp. 83–87; Giles Whiteley, "'Muttered thunder': A Miltonism in Little Dorrit and The Mystery of Edwin Drood," pp. 88–96; Natalie McKnight, review of The Mystery of Charles Dickens, by A. N. Wilson, pp. 97–99; Hazel Mackenzie, review of Plotting the News in the Victorian Novel, by Jessica R. Valdez, pp. 99–102; David Paroissien, review of The French Revolution, by Thomas Carlyle, edited by Mark Cumming et al., pp. 102–07; Jeremy Tambling, review of Essays on Literature, by Thomas Carlyle, edited by Fleming McClelland et al., pp. 108–12; Adam Abraham, review of Victorians on Broadway, by Sharon Aronofsky Weltman, pp. 112–14; Dominic Rainsford, "The Dickens Checklist," pp. 119–23.] Dickens Studies Annual, vol. 52, no. 1, 2021. [The Editors, Introduction, pp. v–vi; Galia Benziman, "Talking Birds and Talking to Birds: Transcending the Child in Barnaby Rudge," pp. 1–29; Joe McLaughlin, "Queer Families, Queer Futures in Dombey and Son," pp. 30–52; Michael P. Hatch, "A Novel of Displacement: Seeking Spatial Justice in Bleak House's Consequential Ground," pp. 53–75; Saber Hamdi, "What's in a 'Timber Fiction'? The Significance of Wood in Dickens's Our Mutual Friend," pp. 76–102; Adrian Tait, "Eco-criticism(s) and Victorian Fiction: A Review Essay," pp. 103–37; Vincent A. Lankewish et al., "Teaching Nineteenth-Century Novels to Today's Teens," pp. 138–62; Sean Grass, "Recent Dickens Studies 2019: A Journal of the Plague Year," pp. 163–213.] The Dickensian, vol. 116, part 3, no. 512, Winter 2020. [Tony Williams, "From the Associate Editor," pp. 239–40; Laurence Senelick, "Dickens on the French Stage, 1911: Part I – Monsieur Pickwick," pp. 241–51; Robert C. Hanna, "Poz, Bos, and the Phenomenon of Plagiarising Plagiarists," pp. 252–60; Takeo Sakai, "Forty-five Green Parasols in the Eatanswill Election," pp. 261–72; William F. Long, "Pickwick in the Provinces: Advertising and Reacting to the Early Numbers," pp. 273–94; Keiko Kiriyama, "A Tender Light on the Stage: An Analysis of Dancing in Bleak House and Little Dorrit," pp. 295–306; Alan Dilnot, review of The Dickens Boy, by Tom Keneally, pp. 308–10; Grahame Smith, review of The Mystery of Charles Dickens, by A. N. Wilson, pp. 311–13; Ben Winyard, review of Dickens After Dickens, edited by Emily Bell, pp. 313–15; Fred Schwarzbach, review of Plagiarizing the Victorian Novel: Imitation, Parody, Aftertext, by Adam Abraham, pp. 316–18; Leon Litvack, review of Victorian Negatives: Literary Culture and the Dark Side of Photography in the Nineteenth Century, by Susan E. Cook, pp. 318–20; Malcolm Andrews, review of Oliver Twist: Manuscript (SP Books), pp. 320–21; Peter Orford, conference report: The Impact of Dickens (University of Buckingham), pp. 324–25; Tony Williams, editor, "Fellowship Notes and News," pp. 326–35; "The Charles Dickens Museum," pp. 350–53.] Faulkner, Eleanor. "Dental Afterlives: Dickens and Victorian Dentistry." Dickens Society Blog, 18 Jan. 2021, dickenssociety.org/archives/3102. Grossman, Jonathan H., editor. Dorrit Now. Special Issue of Nineteenth- Century Literature, vol. 75, no. 2, Sept. 2020. [Sukanya Banerjee, "Writing Bureaucracy, Bureaucratic Writing: Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, and Mid-Victorian Liberalism," pp. 133–58; Kathleen Frederickson, "Getting the Goods in Little Dorrit: Quarantine's Queer Logistics," pp. 159–83; Jason R. Rudy, "Settled: Dorrit Down Under," pp. 184–206; Daniel M. Stout, "Little, Maybe Less: Little Dorrit's...

From the Editor

From the Editor Dominic Rainsford (bio) Dickens Quarterly has existed for 50 years – including the period of 1970–83, when its originally modest aims were expressed in the title Dickens Studies Newsletter. It was founded, in other words, in the year of the Dickens centenary, and it will forevermore celebrate major anniversaries that coincide with those of the man himself. Now, as we mark the 150th post-Dickens year, I am truly honored (and only slightly daunted) to assume the editorship after David Paroissien, who has done so much to foster Dickens scholarship since he took over the Newsletter, as it still was, in March 1983. I thank David most sincerely, as well as the other members of the editorial team and the Dickens Society, for their generous help and support. David has kindly agreed to become a member of the Editorial Board, and I am very confident that he will continue to write for us on a regular basis. Among the great virtues of Dickens Quarterly has been its equal hospitality towards established scholars and new voices. The current issue continues this tradition, including articles from both the President-elect of the Dickens Society and a doctoral student – united here as joint appreciators of Our Mutual Friend. We also follow tradition in accommodating work by life-long literary academics and, in William Long, a writer whose notable Dickensian productivity follows a distinguished background in a very different field. Diversity of this and other kinds will continue to be a watchword of the Quarterly. We will be faithful to its record of thoroughly researched, fact-based, eminently readable scholarship, while also finding space for theoretical speculation and experiment. We will dig out further revelations about Dickens in his own time, but will also seek new arguments for his relevance to ours, within literary academia and beyond. The reviews in this issue – not least of the final parts of Duane DeVries’s extraordinary bibliography – as well as those already lined up for subsequent numbers, give clear evidence of the fact that interest in Dickens continues to flourish. Only Shakespeare can compare (which would have been fine with Dickens) as a single author who is practically an academic discipline (as well as a cultural dynamo) in himself. We publish alongside two other [End Page 5] admirable organs – the Dickensian and Dickens Studies Annual – but each has its own identity, and there will be plenty of good material to go around. I look forward, therefore, to many new developments in Dickens studies, which the Quarterly will do its best to nurture and disseminate, and to receiving a steady stream of scholarly contributions, whether they come from great eminences within the field, early-career scholars, or indeed from infant phenomena who, as we go to press, may just have turned their first Dickensian page. [End Page 6] Dominic Rainsford Dominic Rainsford is Professor of Literature in English and Head of the Department of English at Aarhus University, Denmark, as well as general editor of this journal. The expanded 2nd edition of his Studying Literature in English, rebranded as Literature in English: How and Why, will appear from Routledge in June 2020. Copyright © 2020 Dickens Society

From the Editor

From the Editor Dominic Rainsford The 25th Dickens Society Symposium, which would have marked the 150th anniversary of Dickens's death and was due to take place in London in splendid coordination with the Dickens Fellowship, shared the sad fate of so many events planned for this awful and astonishing year, and had to be cancelled. But all was not lost. The anniversary day itself, June 9th, was rescued for many of us by a Zoom-based conference, #Dickens 150, brilliantly managed by Emily Bell and Lydia Craig. Highlights included keynote lectures by Leon Litvack and Pete Orford, as well as a moving appeal for emergency support for the Dickens Museum from the Director, Cindy Sughrue. The proceeds from #Dickens 150 were donated to the Museum, which happily, as I write, is due to reopen on July 25th. Dickens would have had a great deal to say about the present situation, and we can only lament, as usual, that he is no longer with us. But we continue reading him because the world that he addressed in the nineteenth century is still in most respects our world. And of course, he knew a great deal about disease–physical, as well as mental and metaphorical–and how its processes of dissemination and unequal effects reveal (as they do now) all of the weaknesses and injustices of an entire social system. This grim timeliness, in Bleak House and elsewhere, was forcefully explored in another fine section of #Dickens 150: a roundtable on "Dickens and Contagion."1 While Dickens Quarterly must always keep its focus on Dickens's own era and the facts of life and art as they then applied, we will certainly embrace up-to-the-minute significance when it comes our way. It was a happy and thought-provoking coincidence, therefore, when we received in quick succession three unsolicited pieces which, in very different ways, address Dickens and misinformation or "fake news," ranging from an awkward misrepresentation of Dickens's wishes in his own lifetime (William F. Long), through the perpetuation over more than a century of erroneous dictionary definitions, with Dickens's authority taken in vain (David L. Gold), to the sometimes horrendously garbled abuse of Dickens as source of inspirational soundbites in social media (Lydia Craig). Some may feel that this is an [End Page 221] especially relevant area to explore in an issue of the Quarterly that coincides with the US Presidential election. But it would always be relevant, and may point the way (along with Adam Abraham's book, reviewed in this issue) towards a wider consideration of authenticity, authority, trust and sincerity, through imaginative literature, a medium which is false by definition (fiction, hyperbole, subjectivism), but which we nevertheless seem to look to, not least in the case of Dickens, as a source of, or at least a route towards, valuable and applicable truth. It is a timely reminder, too, of how extensive and diverse Dickens's reach continues to be, from austere literary theorists and scrupulous textual scholars, through a host of profoundly uncategorizable "general readers," to the likes of "PapaPolarBear" and "Chavstallion" (not to mention the unfortunate "Inselstricken"). Seeking, in our small way, for some reliability within this vertiginous environment, Dickens Quarterly will continue to be meticulous in evaluating sources and checking quotations. While Dickens's words may be chopped up and twisted around, all over the Internet, here they will continue to be drawn from standard editions. It is great news, therefore, that the first volume of the Oxford Dickens (long-awaited successor to the Clarendon) is scheduled for publication later this year: Paul Schlicke's edition of Sketches by Boz, which will soon be reviewed in these pages. Meanwhile, scholarly work on Dickens, including doctoral dissertations, continues to be formidable in both quality and quantity. This should be clear from the "Dickens Checklist" in this issue, which has been further swelled by a concerted effort to catch up on everything from 2019 that has not previously been reported. Future checklists are likely to revert to something more like the normal size, but we will try to be as comprehensive as possible. Meanwhile, the present list is quite revealing about which Dickensian...

Dickens Society 25th Annual Symposium: 16th–18th July 2020, Bloomsbury, London

Dickens Society 25th Annual Symposium: 16th–18th July 2020, Bloomsbury, London

Dickens Society 25th Annual Symposium: 17th–19th July 2020, Bloomsbury, London

Dickens Society 25th Annual Symposium: 17th–19th July 2020, Bloomsbury, London

Dickens Society 24th Annual Symposium July 26–28, 2019, Salt Lake City, Utah

Dickens Society 24th Annual Symposium July 26–28, 2019, Salt Lake City, Utah

Dickens Society 23rd Annual Symposium "Dickens and Language": July 30 - August 1, 2018, Tübingen, Germany

Dickens Society 23rd Annual Symposium "Dickens and Language": July 30 - August 1, 2018, Tübingen, Germany

The Forty-Ninth Annual Dickens Society Meeting: Tübingen, Germany

The Forty-Ninth Annual Dickens Society Meeting: Tübingen, Germany

The Forty-Eighth Annual Dickens Society Meeting

The Forty-Eighth Annual Dickens Society Meeting Diana C. Archibald, Secretary-Treasurer The forty-eighth annual Dickens Society business meeting was called to order on 15 July 2017 at 4:15 PM by President Iain Crawford, who welcomed members and thanked the symposium host institution, Boston University. The minutes from the previous year were approved. Our President reported the 18 June 2017 approval of a bylaws amendment. All future voting for the Society will take place electronically through a secure site, with elections being held the last week in August. Election results will be announced and officers and trustees will take office at the start of our fiscal year, September 1. This year’s nominating committee, appointed by the President in accordance with our bylaws, is Natalie Cole (Chair), Dominic Rainsford, Elizabeth Bridgham and Chris Louttit.1 Crawford invited those who wish to serve as trustees or officers (for Vice-President this year and for Secretary-Treasurer in 2018) to send expressions of interest to the Nominating Committee, who nominate a slate of candidates. This invitation was also sent to members via our email listserv on July 5. Crawford also conveyed the outcome of the Executive Committee and Trustee discussion of funding priorities now that the Society’s finances are improving. The leadership proposed that we maintain a minimum of $20,000 reserve and focus spending on supporting symposium travel for graduate students, independent scholars, and untenured faculty through our bursary program. In future years, as long as our funding remains comparable to this year, we would increase bursary support to a total of $5,000, offering higher amounts for those crossing the Atlantic to attend the annual symposium. David Paroissien moved that we approve the proposal, Matthias Bauer seconded the motion, and it was unanimously approved. Secretary-Treasurer Diana Archibald reported that the Society’s individual membership numbers have continued to climb to 186 and are now almost as high as they were during the spike after the bicentennial (191). Membership has increased 10% since we began our outreach campaign [End Page 370] and bursary program two years ago and 51% over the last ten years. Our financial situation has continued to improve, as well. Dickens Quarterly revenues through our publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press, increased to $17,528 this year, more than doubled from last year’s profit of $8,174. A sizable increase was expected this year, though revenues exceeded the original estimate. We are now fully benefiting from income generated through Project Muse, and the Press expects our revenue stream to continue at this level within a few thousand dollars each year. Archibald submitted the preliminary Fiscal Year 2017 financial report for discussion, and the final 2017 report is included in the next section. Financial records are audited by the Dickens Society Audit Committee. Dickens Quarterly Editor David Paroissien indicated that the journal has been doing well overall. Although institutional subscriptions are down again this year (135, from 153 last year), access through Project Muse and bundling of journals seems to be helping the journal continue to be accessible for many. He encouraged everyone to continue outreach efforts to solicit high-quality submissions, especially for the three special issue topics announced: Dickens and Wills, Engaging Dickens, and Obscure or Under-read Dickens. Proposals continue to be welcome. Communications Committee Chair, Emily Bell, summarized the terrific results of our social media campaign. The Dickens Society website now includes a blog, co-edited by Emily Bell and Catherine Quirk, and is accepting submissions on an ongoing basis – articles and videos are welcome. Bell also announced that we have more than a thousand twitter followers and praised the 2017 bursary recipients who were live-tweeting the Boston symposium. Our Facebook page, managed by Laurena Tsudama, also has 430 likes, and is helping us to promote the blog, our events, and encourage general interest in Dickens – a big part of our mission. The Dickens Society has also helped populate over a hundred locations on Placing Literature, an online interactive mapping site. So far, settings are mostly taken from Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. The project is ongoing and welcomes more participants. Finally, a private Facebook Group was proposed to offer...

Henry Lives! Learning from Lawson Fandom

In an age when many fan activities are undertaken via online networks, devotees of long-dead Australian author Henry Lawson are predominantly bound by face-to-face participation in shared commemorative events. Traditionally seen by fans and readers as 'the Mate of Australia', Lawson is a figure who has inspired a constellation of transformative fan practices ranging from impersonation to extreme outback pilgrimages. Based on interviews with fans and participant observation, this article will show Henry Lawson Society events are intrinsically interactive, encouraging all members to participate in a variety of modes, through visual art, music, poetry and theatre. I argue that Henry Lawson fans are productive rather than critical, circulating their homages within a well-defined community of interest. I argue that Henry Lawson fans re-deploy texts in creative ways in order to make sense of their own social experience. Through a study the fan activities of passionate amateurs - such as Henry Lawson Literary and Memorial Society members - 'nonauthorised' ways of interpreting texts may be discerned, providing alternatives to the 'suspicious reading' of critics.

The Forty-Seventh Annual Dickens Society Meeting

The Forty-Seventh Annual Dickens Society Meeting Diana C. Archibald The forty-seventh annual Dickens Society business meeting was called to order on 11 July 2016 at 11:00 AM by President Iain Crawford, who welcomed members and thanked the symposium host institution, The University of Iceland. The minutes from the previous year were approved and officers gave reports. Secretary-Treasurer Diana Archibald noted that the 2016 Society’s individual membership numbers (171) are up slightly since last year (168), and have steadily increased over the last decade (with the exception of the spike in 2013 due to the bicentenary). She reported that last year’s introduction of several outreach initiatives, including increased participation at regional and international conferences, launching a new website and social media campaign, and publicizing the Partlow Prize more widely, seem to be yielding positive results. Our financial situation has improved significantly, with the Society earning a profit for the first time since 2011. The move to publishing Dickens Quarterly through Johns Hopkins University Press, a transition that took a few years to manage, is now bearing fruit. The Press forecasts a modest rise next year in subscriptions revenues and projected income from Project Muse, after which they expect our revenue stream to hold steady. Archibald submitted the preliminary Fiscal Year 2016 financial report for discussion and the final 2016 report is included in the next section. Financial records are audited by the Dickens Society Audit Committee: Iain Crawford, Natalie McKnight, and Rob Jacklosky. Associate editor Trey Philpotts reported on the Dickens Quarterly, noting the success of the arrangements with JHUP. Even though there has been a decline in institutional membership numbers, the journal’s availability via Project Muse has increased our reach. He also noted the need to continue outreach efforts to solicit high-quality submissions, and invited members both to contribute and to promote our journal in other arenas. [End Page 328] Emily Bowles, Communications Committee chair, reported on the success of our social media efforts. Under her leadership a group of four graduate students and an independent scholar live tweeted the symposium <twitter.com/dickens_society> and planned to produce both a final report about the symposium and blog posts for a new part of our Society website <dickenssociety.org>. Additionally, our Facebook page is active and growing a loyal following. She announced a new collaboration between the Dickens Society and Placing Literature, an online interactive mapping site where the Society will be developing the Charles Dickens Collection, gathering information about a series of locations important to Dickens’s novels. Those who are interested in participating in this initiative or in other social media efforts were encouraged to contact Emily Bowles <emily.bowles@york.ac.uk>. Next, we heard reports from symposia organizers. Last year’s host, Sara Malton, sent an account of the Liquid Dickens Halifax symposium. The original organizer of the 2016 Adapting Dickens symposium in Reykjavik, Martin Regal, was unable to attend the symposium, and Diana Archibald welcomed delegates on his behalf and thanked the administration at the University of Iceland for their support. The 2017 symposium, Interdisciplinary Dickens, will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, to be hosted by Natalie McKnight’s home institution, Boston University, and the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning. In 2018 our symposium will take place in Cardiff, Wales. Some discussion ensued about potential sites for 2019 and 2020, and there will be an announcement about future venues once locations are confirmed. An election followed. A slate of new trustees was put forward by the nominating committee [Natalie McKnight (chair), Sean Grass, Wendy Parkins, David Paroissien, Leslie Simon], and members voted unanimously to approve them: Trustees (term ending 2019): Holly Furneaux (Cardiff University), Claire Wood (University of York), Juliet John (Royal Holloway, University of London), and Susan Cook (Southern New Hampshire University); and Secretary-Treasurer Diana Archibald (University of Massachusetts Lowell) for a second term. The members expressed appreciation for the four outgoing trustees: Marie-Amélie Coste, André Decuir, Norbert Lennartz, and Sara Malton. Finally, we discussed funding allocations and priorities for the Society now that we have a small disposable income available. A request for funding support by the Retrospect Opera was debated and...

Dickens Society 22nd Annual Symposium “Interdisciplinary Dickens”: July 14–16, 2017 College of General Studies, Boston University

Dickens Society 22nd Annual Symposium “Interdisciplinary Dickens”: July 14–16, 2017 College of General Studies, Boston University

Dickens Society 22nd Annual Symposium “Interdisciplinary Dickens”: July 14–16, 2017 College of General Studies, Boston University

Dickens Society 22nd Annual Symposium “Interdisciplinary Dickens”: July 14–16, 2017 College of General Studies, Boston University

The Forty-Sixth Annual Dickens Society Meeting: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

The Forty-Sixth Annual Dickens Society Meeting: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Dickens Society 21st Annual Symposium: “Adapting Dickens”: Iceland University, Reykjavik 11–13 July 2016

Dickens Society 21st Annual Symposium: “Adapting Dickens”: Iceland University, Reykjavik 11–13 July 2016

Dickens Society Treasurer’s Report for Fiscal Year 31 August 2014 to 1 September 2015

Dickens Society Treasurer’s Report for Fiscal Year 31 August 2014 to 1 September 2015