YES,31, 200I YES,31, 200I pertequoniam genus omne animantum Concipitur. CARDIFF UNIVERSITY MALCOLM KELSALL VictorianSexual Dissidence. Ed. by RICHARDDELLAMORA.Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. I999. vii + 329 pp. $20; I14. The jacket information on Richard Dellamora's Victorian Sexual Dissidence explains how this collection exploits the frameworkof popular criticalterms used to discuss the late-Victorian period such as homo/hetero, patriarchal/feminist, and masculine /effeminate 'while refining and resisting it in places to show how certain Victorians imagined difference in ways that continue to challenge us today'. The qualificationis importantbecause it suggests,perhaps inadvertently,the limitation of the materialin this collection. In spite of the well-knowncentralphenomenon of the New Woman, a subjectof recent books and conferences, most of the essaystake the issues of masculinity and same-sex relations between men to be the defining issuesof the era. Opening the collection with a three-essaysection on women looks likecompensation, butthe remainingessaysareslantedheavilytowardsmasculinity. Interestingly,of the twelve contributors,six men and six women, the women write on both male and female authorsand issues,but none of the men treatsa specifically female topic. That said, the women's essays tend to be better written, more memorable and more enjoyable. It is pleasing to see Vernon Lee (whoseportraitby John Singer Sargent graces the cover) gaining serious attention from two leading critics Kathy Psomiades and Martha Vicinus. In a thoughtful essay Psomiades examines Lee's relation to aestheticism through her anti-aestheticist novel Miss Brown (I884) and her colloboratist work on physiological and psychological aestheticswith her partner Kit Anstruther-Thomson.Vicinus considers the varied meanings of the beautiful adolescent boy in the literature of the period and uses Lee's short fiction to suggest that certain of her youthful male subjectsexpress her pessimismabout same-sexrelationships.However, thisessay(theonly directreprint in the collection) is more successful in its introductory general claims than in its interpretationof Lee's subtle and enigmatic stories.This tends to be ratherclumsy and overly-reductivein its psychobiography. One also wonders why Vicinus chose the stories she presents in preference to 'A Wicked Voice', Lee's fascinating tale about the ghost of a castratosinger,which would seem to fitheroverallthesisbetter. The editoralso reprintsuncorrectedVicinus'scompletely inaccuratestatementthat Lee is 'Americanby citizenship' (p. 95). Still it is a useful step in reintroducingLee to a wider audience and hopefullywill encourage othersto follow. The splendidLee archiveat Colby College, Maine, remainsasyet a virtuallyuntappedresource. Takingup the theme of women's relation to classicalHellenism, Yopie Prinsalso focuses on some less-known but significantfemale figures such as the couple who comprise 'Michael Field' and the classicistJane Ellen Harrison. This is a fresh and livelypiece and one does not have to subscribeto Prins'sslightlystrainedargument for a literary'tantulate'(a networkof influentialliterary'aunts')to enjoy its insights or its scholarship. Thais Morgan and Regenia Gagnier take on more general themes. Morgan's essay is an extended footnote on 'Victorian Effeminacies'which succinctlyrevisesand modifiessome of her earlierwork. Gagnierprovidesa helpful model of different kinds of aesthetics: ethical aesthetics, aesthetics of production, aesthetics of taste or consumption, and aesthetics of evaluation, which although they may overlap, have 'particularmotivations and specific audiences in a web of social relations' (p. I30). Julia F. Saville contributesa well-researchedessay on the pertequoniam genus omne animantum Concipitur. CARDIFF UNIVERSITY MALCOLM KELSALL VictorianSexual Dissidence. Ed. by RICHARDDELLAMORA.Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. I999. vii + 329 pp. $20; I14. The jacket information on Richard Dellamora's Victorian Sexual Dissidence explains how this collection exploits the frameworkof popular criticalterms used to discuss the late-Victorian period such as homo/hetero, patriarchal/feminist, and masculine /effeminate 'while refining and resisting it in places to show how certain Victorians imagined difference in ways that continue to challenge us today'. The qualificationis importantbecause it suggests,perhaps inadvertently,the limitation of the materialin this collection. In spite of the well-knowncentralphenomenon of the New Woman, a subjectof recent books and conferences, most of the essaystake the issues of masculinity and same-sex relations between men to be the defining issuesof the era. Opening the collection with a three-essaysection on women looks likecompensation, butthe remainingessaysareslantedheavilytowardsmasculinity. Interestingly,of the twelve contributors,six men and six women, the women write on both male and female authorsand issues...