Victor Gollancz Research Articles

Spades and Gravers: Clare Leighton, Victor Gollancz and the Radical Countryside

Socialist artist, wood engraver, and writer Clare Leighton transformed the interwar wood engraving revival from a niche movement within fine book publishing into an everyday art for the people when in 1935 she brought out with leftist publisher Victor Gollancz her authored and illustrated Four Hedges: A Gardener's Chronicle. Read alongside Country Matters (1937), a second illustrated countryside book that Gollancz commissioned from Leighton, Four Hedges becomes a key 1930s text because it realigns modernist values associated with the wood engraved productions of small presses with the more democratic values of mass-reproduced trade books. Combining feminist biography, close reading, and modernist and middlebrow book history, this article argues that the wood engraved books that Gollancz commissioned from Leighton contribute to rather than resist or exist outside of the radical 1930s once they are located within Leighton's rural arts practice and Gollancz's publishing ventures, including his publication of George Orwell's legendary urban documentary, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937).

Representing the Poor: Interwar Documentary Film, Mass Observation, and Victor Gollancz Ltd.

This article explores the emergence of a new mode of representing the poor that became dominant in Britain in the early twentieth century—a mode in which the “point of view” of impoverished people themselves was increasingly foregrounded. Focusing on examples drawn from documentary film, Mass Observation, and the publications of Victor Gollancz Ltd., the article considers how, while marking a kind of formal shift away from a late Victorian discourse of poverty, this development maintains that earlier discourse’s disciplinary agenda. In examining three case studies—John Taylor, Arthur Elton, Edgar Anstey, and Ruby Grierson’s Housing Problems; Humphrey Jennings and Charles Madge’s Mass Observation Day Survey; and H. Beales and R. Lambert’s Memoirs of the Unemployed—it argues that the new point of view mode marked a continuation in the twentieth century of the outlook that shaped representations of poverty in the late Victorian era.

The Kindertransport: Contesting Memory by Jennifer Craig-Norton (review)

Reviewed by: The Kindertransport: Contesting Memory by Jennifer Craig-Norton Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz Jennifer Craig-Norton. The Kindertransport: Contesting Memory. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019. 364 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009420000288 In the beginning there were children. Then came persecution and danger. After that came the rescuers who helped get the children to safety, but wouldn't rescue the parents. Then there were the carers who looked after the children. Some were better, some were worse, and some were downright awful. Many children had one carer. Others went from one to another. Some children had no carers and ended up in hostels. Many children adapted. More than a few didn't. Time passed, the children grew up, and the persecution ended. Some of the parents survived and tried to join their children. Sometimes they managed to bridge the gap of years. Much of the time they couldn't. Most of the parents didn't survive. Their children were on their own. Many of the children began as Jews. Some ended up as Christians. Quite a number felt little connection to any type of religious practice. More time passed. Some tried to forget their past. Others knew that they never could forget. A third group just didn't remember much from before and didn't have what to forget. Everyone got older. [End Page 444] Most of the parents were dead. Many of the carers were no longer alive. The children were themselves parents and grandparents. Some of them were no longer alive. The ones who were began to take stock of their lives and past. Then came memory. And then came those who contested memory. That, in brief, is the story of The Kindertransport: Contesting Memory, an excellent, thought-provoking study that Jennifer Craig-Norton has dedicated "to the Kinder, their parents and families," or as she succinctly puts it: "This is your story." Until now there have been several studies of the Kindertransport movement, the story of how the British government allowed some 10,000 refugee children from the Reich—Jews and non-Aryan Christians—to enter the country from December 1938 to September 1939, ostensibly as transmigrants, who in practice rarely transmigrated anywhere. My book Never Look Back: The Jewish Refugee Children in Great Britain 1938–1945 (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2012), based on my MA thesis from 1981, was the first in-depth study of the Kindertransports, with the added bonus of the fruits of thirty years of additional research in between my first and second look at the phenomenon. Even before my MA thesis, there was Karen Gershon's anthology, or rather "collective autobiography" as she called it, We Came as Children (London: Victor Gollancz, 1966), and between my thesis and book several articles were published about various aspects of the child-rescue scheme in Britain. Therefore, when I took Craig-Norton's volume in hand, I wondered where she would be able to make her unique mark on a topic that had thoroughly been discussed. And I was delighted to see that she indeed found a niche that was strikingly absent in the previous studies, including my own. From the outset, the movement that brought the bulk of the children to Britain, the "Movement for the Care of Children from Germany," which metamorphosed into the "Refugee Children's Movement," claimed that the refugee children's case files no longer existed. One explanation had to do with a flood; another with a fire; a third with the files having been deliberately destroyed as many of the former Kinder, who had reached positions in British society, wished to have no record of their past available for the perusal of all and sundry; and yet another explanation claimed they were destroyed during the war in case of invasion. Craig-Norton had also grappled with this lacuna until she found a very special group of files, those of the Polish-Jewish Refugee Fund, which was responsible for children from Poland, namely the German Jewish deportees of 1938 (the "Zbonszyn Deportation"), who had been brought to Great Britain. There she hit pay dirt—not only the children's files, but also information about their carers, in their...

Translation, Illustration, Transcreation. From the Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault to Classic Fairy Tales Retold

The article proposes that the fairy-tale tradition unfolds as a collective, dynamic and transformative process of transcreation across languages, contexts and media for different purposes and publics. It notably draws attention to the role of translators, illustrators and publishers whose collaborations have produced new versions of the familiar stories in print form, which have in turn inspired highly innovative projects for children and adults reflecting personal takes on the stories. As a case study, I trace the editorial history of Angela Carter’s translation of The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault (1977) illustrated by Martin Ware, which paved the way for Carter’s own collection of ‘ stories about fairy stories ’, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979), in contrapuntal fashion. The translation was reissued with child-friendly illustrations by Michael Foreman in Sleeping Beauty and Other Favourite Fairy Tales (1982), also published by Victor Gollancz, which later fed into Classic Fairy Tales Retold and Illustrated by Michael Foreman (2005)1.

‘The age of shouting had arrived’

When George Orwell’s advertising copywriting anti-hero, Gordon Comstock, declared in the 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying, ‘advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill-bucket’ (Victor Gollancz, London, p. 55), he was expressing something deep in the British psyche, that of the dichotomy between the creation of art and the pursuit of revenue. Nowhere is this seen more keenly than in publishing during the period. It is also significant that the third of Orwell’s novels was, like the previous ones, published by Victor Gollancz, because, despite the widespread view that in publishing it was a time of inertia, of maintaining the status quo, it is, of course, not as simple as that. Despite a lack of innovation in the industry the 1930s, reading numbers increased, more books were sold than ever before, the industry commercialized to an extent unseen in previous decades, and three of publishing’s most innovative men came to prominence. This paper seeks to explain how this came about—how an inherently conservative industry, with its prices and profit margins stabilized and protected by the Net Book Agreement, became radicalized in a way not seen before. I will contest that it is that very conservatism that made innovation both necessary and inevitable; that the growth in readership and disposable income during the period made it necessary to commercialize the publishing industry if it was to grow and prosper; and that business in general was waking up to the possibilities offered by marketing, and so publishing needed to harness the power of marketing if it was not to fall behind the business curve. Marketing can sometimes be about art or politics, but it is always about business. Where does that leave a personally wealthy, philanthropically inclined, but commercially minded publisher such as Gollancz? His enthusiastic take-up of the new marketing tools and processes that had come to prominence in the 1920s started with his time at Ernest Benn, accelerated with the founding of his new publishing company in 1928, and went into overdrive in 1936 when the Left Book Club was founded. It is true to say that Gollancz’s success was founded on three pillars: an unshakeable faith in his own abilities, an uncanny knack of selecting the ‘right’ titles commercially, and a thorough embracing of all that marketing and publicity had to offer, with little thought as to how that might appear to others as long as it was working for him. He was fortunate to have supporting him another great iconoclast of the time—the typographer Stanley Morison. This paper is as much about the Gollancz–Morison double act as it is about Gollancz individually, even if there can be no doubt as to the true driving force behind the changes.

Voluntary Aid Detachments: nursing volunteer ‘VADs' during World War One

British Journal of Healthcare AssistantsVol. 12, No. 11 Health MattersVoluntary Aid Detachments: nursing volunteer ‘VADs' during World War OneMenna Lloyd JonesMenna Lloyd JonesSearch for more papers by this authorMenna Lloyd JonesPublished Online:9 Nov 2018https://doi.org/10.12968/bjha.2018.12.11.559AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail View article References Brittain V. Testament of youth. London: Victor Gollancz; 1933 Google ScholarBritish Red Cross Society. Volunteers during the First World War. 2018. https://vad.redcross.org.uk/Volunteers-during-WW1 (accessed 9 October 2018) Google ScholarHistory Press. Women in WW1. 2018. https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/world-war-i/women-in-wwi/ (accessed 9 October 2018) Google ScholarImperial War Museum Staff. 5 Things you need to know about the First World War. 2018. https://tinyurl.com/ycyfygbv (accessed 9 October 2018). Google ScholarJones ML. The forgotten heroes of World War One. The story of the auxiliary hospitals and voluntary aid detachments of Merioneth, 1914 to 1921. London: Catford Print Centre; 2018 Google ScholarScarlet Finders. VAD accounts. https://tinyurl.com/yaw27o88 (accessed 9 October 2018) Google ScholarQueen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC). Voluntary Aid Detachment. 2017. http://www.qaranc.co.uk/voluntary-aid-detachment.php (accessed 9 October 2018) Google Scholar FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 2 November 2018Volume 12Issue 11ISSN (print): 1753-1586ISSN (online): 2052-4420 Metrics History Published online 9 November 2018 Published in print 2 November 2018 Information© MA Healthcare LimitedPDF download

Left Out: The Forgotten Tradition of Radical Publishing for Children in Britain, 1910–1949, by Kimberley Reynolds

In a famous 1940 essay, ‘Boys’ Weeklies’, George Orwell critically explored the tropes of boys’ (and some girls’) magazines and storylines. While damning of the conventions of the mainstream, Orwell opined that the slim left-wing contribution to this genre consisted of either ‘dreary up-lift’ or was ‘under Communist influence’ and thus ‘in either case no normal boy would look at it’. Kimberley Reynolds’s study disputes not only Orwell’s squib, but the more general neglect of radical children’s books, misshelved between the Edwardian and post-war ‘golden ages’. She is at pains to confound the notion of the inter-war as notably anxious, restless or, as Overy has it, a ‘morbid age’. Reynolds draws on some 249 books published by organs and authors of progressive education, modernist and avant-garde design and left-wing politics to show the scale and diversity of this market. The aim was to forge ‘a popular front of readers’ (p. 10). There are some familiar names here: publisher Victor Gollancz, Margaret Macmillan (subject of Carolyn Steedman’s 1990 study) and the mesh of people, presses and journals—H.G. Wells, Lawrence & Wishart, Left Review—usefully mapped on page 3. The themes of the chapters—war and peace, the Soviet Union, aesthetic radicalism, countryside and landscape, health and the body, and the built environment (although empire is a notable absence)—are recognisable from other histories of radicalism. And historians of these themes—Saler on modernism, Zweiniger-Bargielowska on physical culture—are knitted into the text.

Left Out: The Forgotten Tradition of Radical Publishing for Children in Britain 1910–1949 by Kimberley Reynolds

Reviewed by: Left Out: The Forgotten Tradition of Radical Publishing for Children in Britain 1910–1949 by Kimberley Reynolds Christopher Owen Left Out: The Forgotten Tradition of Radical Publishing for Children in Britain 1910–1949, by Kimberley Reynolds. Oxford University Press, 2016. With Left Out, Kimberley Reynolds has provided an important and interesting contribution to the study of the history of children's literature. This book responds directly to previous research on children's literature during the interwar period and to the claim that children's literature during this time was "culturally disengaged" and "apolitical" (5). Reynolds demonstrates that the very opposite of this is true. Left Out provides a clear history of writing, illustrating, translating, publishing, disseminating, and reading radical literature for children in Britain between 1910 and 1949. In her analysis, Reynolds shows that a great deal of literature for children published during this time encouraged critical thinking and provided tools for creating a more progressive future. Reynolds's definition of radical literature grounds her entire study. She argues that radical literature for children is socially progressive; promotes a more just, equal, and modern society; and works to break down stereotypical attitudes to gender, race, class, poverty, ethnicity, nationality, and childhood. She argues that while mainstream children's texts during this time construct an idealized version of childhood as separate from and superior to adulthood, radical texts focus on helping readers learn critical thinking skills. This definition, with all its breadth and specificity, contributes to both Left Out's successes and shortcomings. While Reynolds is able to provide a very thorough history of radical children's literature from this period, during my reading of this book I often thought that she overprioritizes class issues and socialism. This results in a neglect of other social identities and issues (that are included in her definition of radical literature) that could have been resolved through a more intersectional approach. The introduction to Left Out works well to explain the foundations of Reynolds's argument. She defines radical literature and places it within the context of Britain's left-wing politics, modernism and the avant-garde, and progressive education. Reynolds uses the publishing of Victor Gollancz as a case study, giving particular attention to An Outline for Boys and Girls and Their Parents, edited by Naomi Mitchison. In this case study, Reynolds not only provides a critical literary analysis of radical left-wing children's literature, but also describes in great detail [End Page 231] how this literature was published and disseminated. She concludes this analysis with an investigation into who the readers were of these radical texts, ultimately arguing that, whoever the readers were, they were given a great deal of information about their bodies, their world, and the ways they could make the future a more progressive place. Reynolds's introduction is so clear that if, like me, you are not a specialist in publishing history, the rest of this book should still be accessible. Chapter 1, "War and Peace in Radical Writing for Children," investigates literature that opposes war and criticizes politicians and those who enable military conflicts. At the beginning of the chapter, Reynolds provides a jarring image from Harry Golding and Albert Friend's War in Dolly land (A Book and A Game), which features toy soldiers lined up as a firing squad, aiming their guns at a blindfolded doll. Reynolds uses the juxtaposition of children's toys and the overly realistic image of war to exemplify her argument: radical children's literature questions the wisdom and skills of those responsible for war. Reynolds later moves on to discussing the messages of pacifism that were taught in Socialist Sunday Schools, progressive schools, and in texts like The Young Socialist. In this discussion, Reynolds analyzes texts of several different genres for a variety of different ages, concluding that these texts reflect the liberal Left idea that the cure for war is a new form of social organization. One such society that was believed to be developing into this idealized future was post-revolutionary Russia, which Reynolds mentions for a smooth transition into her next chapter. Chapter 2, "Moscow has a Plan!: Representations of the Soviet Union in Radical...

Victor Gollancz: um editor socialista nos anos do Popular Front britânico

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1984-9222.2016v8n15p87O artigo visa considerar a trajetória de Victor Gollancz (1893-1967), um dos mais importantes editores e ativistas humanitários britânicos do século XX. Como livreiro, Gollancz fundou sua própria editora em 1927, a Victor Gollancz Ltd., uma das mais bem sucedidas companhias britânicas do século XX. Em 1935, seria cofundador do Left Book Club em Londres, considerado o primeiro clube do livro da era moderna na Grã-Bretanha, cujos trabalhos duraram até 1947 e inspirou a criação de mais de 1500 seções locais por toda a Inglaterra e mais de 15 outras seções internacionais com filiais em todos os continentes. Como militante humanitário, Gollancz foi responsável por inúmeras campanhas de apoio aos refugiados da Guerra Civil espanhola na Inglaterra e, durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, das vítimas civis na Alemanha, além de campanhas pela melhoria das condições das prisões na Grã-Bretanha.

Charles Mackerras ed. by Nigel Simeone, John Tyrrell

CONDUCTORS AND SYMPHONIES Charles Mackerras. Edited by Nigel Simeone and John Tyrrell. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2015. [xxii, 298 p. ISBN 9781843839668 (hardcover), $45; ISBN 9781782044895 (e-book), $34.99.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, discography, index.Celebrated Australian conductor Charles Mackerras (1925-2010) was known throughout his long career for his probing musicianship and insightful performances of works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giacomo Puccini, Arthur Sullivan, and Giuseppe Verdi. But it was his discovery and promotion of the works of Leos Janacek and other Czech composers that helped to mark his legacy as one of the most important conductors of the twentieth century.A musical polymath, Mackerras began his career as a professional oboist, but early on turned his attention to opera and conducting. In 1947, he was awarded a scholarship to study conducting in Prague with Vacklav Talich, which provided his first exposure to the music of Janacsek. Mackerras and his wife Judy returned to England after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, and soon thereafter he was appointed to a post with the Sadler's Wells Opera Company (which would become English National Opera). He eventually rose to the position of Music Director at Sadler's Wells and was later associated with the Welsh National Opera, all the while expanding his international reputation as a conductor.The collection titled Charles lovingly edited by Nigel Simeone and John Tyrrell, presents Mackerras's life and legacy through a carefully selected collection of essays and tributes by many who worked with him. As the editors state in their preface, the volume neither a conventional biography, nor is it a symposium, but it aims to combine elements of (p. xi). Mackerras's widow Judy, who provided the editors with access to the extensive family archives, encouraged the publication. In their collection, the editors aim to enhance coverage of the last part of the conductor's life, but they also take note, and make appropriate reference to, the only other major book on the conductor, Nancy Phelan's Charles Mackerras: A Musician's Musician (London: Victor Gollancz, 1987), which was published more than a quarter-century prior to his death.While a symposium (or Festschrift) type of approach allows a number of different figures to discuss an individual's legacy, it also presents a disadvantage to readers who might prefer a single narrative discussion of the musician's life and works. In this volume, the main chapters on Mackerras's career by Nigel Simeone (An Immense Stylist Evolves: 1947-87; The Musical Values of Opera: WNO, 1987-92; Triumphs and Tribulations: Opera, 19932001; Rethinking Old Favorites: Opera, 2002-10) are interspersed with tributes and commentaries by others, including David Lloyd Jones (A Portrait of Charles Mackerras) and Patrick Summers (The Lion: Charles Mackerras).Of particular note in Simeone's chapter, An Immense Stylist Evolves, is the section on Mackerras's interest in historicallyinformed performance practice (Mozart and Handel: Figaro and Fireworks, [pp. 16-27], which includes copies of the conductor's annotated scores. In the 1950s, Mackerras was an early adopter of eighteenth-century vocal ornamentation (notably appoggiaturas), a practice that was widely accepted at that time. This chapter includes excerpts from Mackerras's own writings about his musicological research and implications for performance practice, along with reviews, both positive and less than positive, about the resulting performances.In his own Personal Portrait of Charles Mackerras, David Lloyd Jones recounts the response to Mackerras's performance of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte with the Hamburg State Opera in 1965. When Mackerras complained that there was not one damn appoggiatura the whole evening, the reply was, Herr Mackerras . …

Wittgenstein: Two Public Statements

russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 36 (summer 2016): 91 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036–01631; online 1913–8032 c:\users\ken\documents\type3601\red\rj 3601 077 red.docx 2016-04-01 10:08 aocuments WITTGENSTEIN:TWO PUBLIC STATEMENTS Kenneth Blackwell ittgenstein’s public statements are rare. In researching Russell’s bibliography and post-WWii actions I came across two new ones. The Report of the Conference on Academic Freedom (Cambridge: Heffer, 1935; B&R B58), which met at Oxford in August 1934, included “The Auckland Resolution ” (p. 80). Many British academics signed it, including “L. Wittgenstein”: 1. The university teacher has no less freedom of speech within the law than any other citizen, excepting that there is a special responsibility on him to weigh his public utterances. It must also be recognised that his position in the community may sometimes seem to him to involve a special obligation to speak and, indeed, to make a pronouncement not in accordance with the opinions and traditions of the majority of citizens. 2. The exercise of this freedom (as defined in Clause 1) and indeed, the obligation to speak should not place in jeopardy a university teacher’s tenure of his post or make him subject to supervision or correction by the governing authority. Russell did not sign it, presumably because he was not an “academic” at the time, though his speech appeared in the proceedings (see Papers 21: 65). The second statement is a memorial, presented 3 January 1946, to Prime Minister Attlee from “Save Europe Now”, Victor Gollancz’s organization to alleviate post-war German starvation. A ten-page mimeograph is in RA1 550. The many adherents are classified. Under Universities we find “Dr. L. Wittgenstein ”. Russell, now returned to academia, is under the Royal Society. Attlee rejected the request in a letter printed in The Times, 29 January 1946, although by April, as starvation worsened, the uk increased its relief. The text of the memorial, also signed by T. S. Eliot, Alys Russell, George Orwell et al., reads: Taking note of the statement by the Foreign Secretary on November 23rd that “Hunger and privation may bring a further terrific human loss more devastating even than the atomic bomb”, we earnestly beg that, without prejudice to the claims of special categories, such as children, nursing and expectant mothers, and heavy workers, general rations in this country should not be raised so long as there is famine on the Continent of Europe. t= ...

‘Causes That Were Lost’? Fifty Years of E. P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class as Contemporary History

In the summer of 1959, the historian John Saville was approached by R. W. Harris of Victor Gollancz publishing house to write a textbook on the nineteenth century British labour movement, in a seri...

A Wandering View: Writing Jews and Jewishness on British Television

This article discusses four different representations of Jews and Jewishness as seen on British television since 1960. The first three – Victor Gollancz's appearance on Face to Face (1960), an episode of the situation comedy Please Sir! (1968), and Simon Schama's The Story of the Jews (2013) all feature individuals who consciously articulate their identity as 'a Jew' in different ways. The final section argues for the subconscious presence of Jewishness in the central character of the BBC's long-running series Doctor Who.

Editorial

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the appearance of E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class , first published by Victor Gollancz in 1963. Inspirational for some, provocative and controversial for others, the book was a wellspring for social historians. We invited three historians working on different places and periods to reflect on their relationship with the book (rather than with the man) and to consider how they regard the book now, fifty years on. We asked, do you remember reading the book for the first time? Has your reading of the book changed since you first read it? How do students engage with the book today? Does the book continue to be relevant in 2013? The scope of the replies was broad. Ervand Abrahamian discusses the lasting influence of the book on the different factions in Middle East Studies and in particular the way that Thompson’s historical contextualization of Methodism has had relevance for historians of Iran. Historians who are attentive to the interplay of religion and politics, and reject the notion of a timeless, mystic Orient, have drawn strength and methodological inspiration from Thompson in both India and the Middle East.

<em>Women and the Shaping of British Methodism: Persistent Preachers, 1807––1907</em>, by Jennifer M. Lloyd

Reviewed by: Women and the Shaping of British Methodism: Persistent Preachers, 1807-1907 Robert Penner (bio) Women and the Shaping of British Methodism: Persistent Preachers, 1807-1907, by Jennifer M. Lloyd; pp. ix + 305. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2009, £60.00, $89.95. The narrative energy of Jennifer Lloyd's Women and the Shaping of British Methodism is generated by a contradiction between the egalitarian enthusiasms of the evangelical project and the repressive discipline of the institutional church. She neatly—and convincingly—reveals this contradiction by dividing her impressive collection of characters into a drama of two acts. Beginning with John Wesley's grudging acceptance that some women did indeed possess the exceptional gifts required to preach God's word, the drama reaches its climax with the heyday of female itinerancy in the years just prior [End Page 723] to the 1832 Reform Act. In the second and more somber act, an increasingly professionalized Methodist ministry forces women out from behind the pulpit and almost, but not entirely, off the public stage. The momentum of Methodism as a social and cultural force was not so much slowed by its founder's death in 1791 as it was split into a variety of trajectories. So long as Wesley was alive his charismatic leadership eased the tensions between the crowds that flocked to hear outdoor preachers, the lay leaders who held the chapel leases, and an itinerant ministry seeking to discipline the congregations. When he died, things fell apart. In her introductory chapters, Lloyd guides us through the hectic first half of the nineteenth century, which saw Wesleyanism fractured by dispute, dissent, and outright secession. The period between the Kilhamite New Connexion of the 1790s and the Methodist Union of 1907 saw a startling proliferation of sects: the Leeds Protestant Methodists; the Warrenites; the Wesleyan Methodist Association; the United Methodist Free Churches; the Arminian Methodists; the Tent Methodists; the Magical Methodists; and the two groups who provide Lloyd with her greatest numbers of preaching women, the Bible Christians and the Primitive Methodists. During this period of institutional fragmentation, Methodist women had the greatest success in establishing themselves as prophetic voices in their own right. Lloyd is at great pains to remind us that these women were not interested in supplanting the administrative monopoly of men but simply in praying, exhorting, and preaching. If they were practicing a nascent feminism it was at best a rather opportunistic sort, and the arguments justifying their practices tended to follow action rather than precede it. The continuing expansion of Methodism, particularly in isolated or industrializing regions, nonetheless meant that the demand for devotional leadership could not be met solely by the official representatives of the various conferences. It was in these already marginalized communities that female evangelicals thrived. Yet women never held anything like bureaucratic power. So long as Methodism was wracked by schism and institutional infighting it was possible for women to establish some degree of influence over religion in the chapel and cottage. That influence declined rapidly, however, as increasing organization brought stability to Methodism. This once rough and populist movement became professionalized, and the conferences began to negotiate reunions; evangelical women were often the first to be thrown under the bus of ecumenical cooperation. One of Lloyd's most important observations on this point, however, is that Methodist women did not vanish altogether from public life. They became increasingly active as philanthropists, fundraisers, missionaries, and even, for a brief period in the 1860s, nondenominational revivalists. Historians of Methodism have recently tried—rather bravely—to construct a post-Thompsonian frame in which to hang their subject. The incandescence of E. P. Thompson's polemic has illuminated a great deal about the role of evangelical religion in Britain, but it has, perhaps, obscured almost as much. Lloyd's book represents an attempt to write critically and thoughtfully about Methodists while avoiding the polarizing malice that resulted from finely calibrated phrases such as "the chiliasm of despair" and "sanctified emotional onanism" (Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class [Victor Gollancz 1963], 391, 40). Thompson receives barely a nod from Lloyd before she gets down to her work. She does not even condescend...

Primitive Heritage: An Anthropological Anthology. Edited by Margaret Mead and Nicolas Calas. Victor Gollancz

Primitive Heritage: An Anthropological Anthology. Edited by Margaret Mead and Nicolas Calas. Victor Gollancz

Kommentar zu Aurel Kolnai "Die grundlegenden Prinzipien der NS - Ideologie"

Abstract Aurel Kolnai (1900-1973) was a moral and political philosopher who in 1938 published War against the West, a critical study of Nazi Socialist ideology. Because the book sold well and received very good reviews Kolnai was asked by his publisher, Victor Gollancz, to give two lectures at the Left Book Club summer school in August 1939, one of which under the headline of pivotal principles of NS ideology covered main topics of his book. This handwritten manuscript is published here for the first time. The Hannah Arendt Institute is planning a historical-critical German edition of Kolnai's War against the West.

Holding Still: The Private Life of an Air Raid

Holding Still: The Private Life of an Air Raid

Introduction: The 1964 General Election—the ‘Not Quite, But’ and ‘But Only Just’ Election

Polling in the British general election of 1964 took place on 15 October. It had been almost exactly five years since the election of 1959—not quite the only occasion that a parliament had lasted i...

Ashton and MacMillan in Fairyland: Contrasting Styles in Le Baiser de la Fée

choreographer for the Vic-Wells Ballet is surprising. The story is complicated and the initial performance of the work, by the Ida Rubinstein company in 1928 with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska, had mixed reviews.3 Ashton knew this well?he had danced the role of a peasant in it?but he felt that the problem was caused by the ungainly dancing of Rubinstein, who played the Fairy.* He chose the ballet because he loved the score and, in an article written in November 1935, he hinted that the music as op posed to the story would take precedence.4 If Baiserwas an unlikely story for Ashton to tackle, it was even more so for Kenneth MacMillan, whose scorn for fairy stories is well known.5 But he, too, was drawn to the music and mounted his version in 1960, later reworking it for a revival in 1986. According to Lynn Seymour, who danced the Bride, her first major role for MacMillan, "Baiser was Kenneth's homage to Frederick Ashton."6 And she points out that because of the earlier Ashton version in which Margot Fonteyn danced the role of the Bride, many critics drew parallels between the Ashton-Fonteyn partnership and that of MacMillan and herself. But forming celebrated dance partnerships