1st Edition

Literary and Cultural Criticism from the Nineteenth Century Volume I: Life Writing

Edited By Valerie Sanders Copyright 2022

    This collection of primary sources examines literary and cultural criticism over the long nineteenth century. Volume I of 4, explores the subjects of life-writing, including biography, autobiography, diaries, and letters. This volume will be of great interest to students of literary history.

    General Introduction

    Introduction – volume 1

    Further Reading

    Part 1. Prefaces

    1.1 Authors

    Headnote

    1. Lady Sydney Morgan, ‘Prefatory Address’, Lady Morgan’s Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence, W. Hepworth Dixon (ed.), 3 vols (London: Wm H. Allen & Co, 1862), Vol I, pp. 1-3.

    2. Harriet Martineau, ‘Introduction to Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography’, Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography, with Memorials by Maria Weston Chapman, 3 vols (London: Smith, Elder, 1877), Vol. I, pp. 1-8.

    3. A.C. Benson, ‘Preface’, The House of Quiet: An Autobiography (1904) (London: John Murray, 1907), pp. iii-viii.

    1.2 Editors

    Headnote

    4. Richard Monckton Milnes, ‘Preface’, Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, edited by Richard Monckton Milnes, 2 vols (London: Edward Moxon, 1848), Vol I, pp. ix-xix.

    5. Christopher Wordsworth, ‘Introductory Chapter’, Memoirs of William Wordsworth, 2 vols (London: Edward Moxon, 1851), Vol I, pp. 1-6.

    6. Edith Coleridge, ‘Preface to the First Edition’, Memoir and Letters of Sara

    Coleridge Edited by Her Daughter 2 vols (2nd ed. London: Henry S. King & Co, 1873). Vol I., pp. v-viii.

    ----‘Preface to the Fourth Edition’ (1874) Memoir and Letters of Sara

    Coleridge Edited by Her Daughter (4th ed. Abridged. London: Henry S. King & Co, 1875). Vol I., pp. ix-xii.

    7. ‘Preface’, The Personal Life of George Grote. By Mrs Grote (London: John Murray, 1873), pp. iii-v.

    8. ‘Preface’ and ‘Postscript’, Memoirs of the Life of Anna Jameson by her niece Gerardine Macpherson (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1878), pp. vii-xvi.

    9. Margaret Howitt, ‘Preface’, in Mary Howitt, An Autobiography, edited by her daughter, Margaret Howitt (London: Isbister and Company Limited, 1889), pp. v-xiii.

    10. Hallam Tennyson, ‘Preface’, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir, 2 vols (London: Macmillan & Co, 1897) Vol I, pp. xi-xvii.

    11. E. T. Cook, ‘Introductory’, in The Life of John Ruskin, 2 vols (London: G. Allen & Company, 1912), Vol I. pp. xvii-xxv.

    Part 2. Theory

    Headnote

    12. Edwin Paxton Hood, The Uses of Biography: Romantic, Philosophic, and Didactic (London: Partridge and Oakey, 1852), pp. 9-12.

    13.Edith Simcox, ‘Autobiographies’, The North British Review 51 (January 1870), pp. 383-385, 412-414.

    14. Robert Goodbrand, ‘A Suggestion for a New Kind of Biography’, The Contemporary Review 14 (April 1870), pp. 20-28.

    15. George Smith, ‘On Biography and Biographies’, Temple Bar 94 (April 1892), pp. 578-583.

    16. Edmund Gosse, ‘The Custom of Biography’, The Anglo-Saxon Review 8 (March 1901), pp. 195-196, 204-208.

    Part 3. Overviews

    Headnote

    17. Margaret Oliphant, ‘New Books: Biographies’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 121 (February 1877), pp. 175-177, 183-185, 189-191, 193-195.

    18. Anonymous, ‘Studies in Biography’, Fraser’s Magazine 20 (August 1879), pp. 255-257, 264-267, 273-275.

    19. W.F. Pollock, ‘Some Recent Biographies’, The Fortnightly Review 34 (October 1883), pp. 536-541, 543-545, 553.

    Part 4. Romantic Biography

    Headnote

    20. John Wilson, ‘Moore’s Byron’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Review 27 (February 1830), pp. 389-391, 412-414, 417-420.

    21. William Maginn, ‘Moore’s Life of Byron’, Fraser’s Magazine 1 (March 1830), pp. 129-130, 132-133, 137.

    22. Thomas Carlyle, ‘Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Baronet’, The London and Westminster Review 6 (January 1838), pp. 295-304, 305, 341-343.

    Part 5. Working Class Life Writing

    Headnote

    23. Ebenezer Elliott, ‘Random Thoughts and Reminiscences. By the Corn-Law Rhymer’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 7 (July 1840), pp. 422-424.

    24. [Anonymous], ‘Passages in the Life of a Radical’, Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine 8 (May 1841), pp. 277-278, 287-288.

    25. ‘Passages in the Life of a Radical,’ The Quarterly Review 74 (October 1844), pp. 393-394.

    26. ‘John Duncan, Weaver and Botanist’, The Saturday Review (5 May 1883), pp. 574-575.

    27. Alexander Innes Shand, ‘Life of a Scotch Naturalist’, The Edinburgh Review 146 (July 1877), pp.133-135, 144-146.

    Part 6. Vanity

    Headnote

    28. J. G. Lockhart, ‘Autobiography,’ The Quarterly Review 35 (January 1827), pp. 164-165

    29. Sir Archibald Alison, ‘Autobiography –Chateaubriand’s Memoirs’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 66 (September 1849), pp. 292, 296-298.

    30. W.E. Aytoun, ‘Haydon’s Autobiography’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 74 (November 1853), pp. 519-521.

    Part 7. Female Memoirs

    Headnote

    31. Herman Merivale, ‘Autobiography and Letters of Mrs. Piozzi’, The Edinburgh Review 113 (April 1861), pp. 501-505, 523.

    32. [Anonymous], ‘Mrs. Delany’, The Westminster Review 21 (April 1862), pp. 374-376.

    33. Louisa A. Merivale, ‘Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge. Edited by her Daughter’, The Edinburgh Review 39 (January 1874), pp. 44-47.

    Part 8. ‘Good’ Women

    Headnote

    34. Henry Chorley, ‘The Life of Charlotte Brontë’, The Athenaeum (4 April 1857),

    pp. 427, 428-429.

    35. Frances Power Cobbe, ‘Personal Recollections of Mrs. Somerville,’ The Quarterly Review 136 (January 1874), pp. 76-77, 96-103.

    36. ‘Memoir of Annie Keary. By her Sister,’ The Athenaeum (18 November 1882), pp. 654-655.

    37. Blanche Warre Cornish, ‘The Autobiography and Letters of Mrs. M.O.W. Oliphant’, The Quarterly Review 190 (July 1899), pp. 255-257.

    Part 9. Controversies

    Headnote

    38. H. J. Coleridge, ‘Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Suâ,’ The Dublin Review 3 (July

    1864), pp. 156-157, 165-166.

    39. Henry Reeve, ‘Autobiography. By John Stuart Mill’, The Edinburgh Review 139 (January 1874), pp. 91-95, pp. 117-119.

    40. [Anonymous], ‘Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography,’ The Athenaeum (17 March 1877), pp. 343-346.

    41. My Relations with Carlyle by James Anthony Froude (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1903), pp. 12-15, 21-22, 25-27.

    42. [Anonymous], ‘Christopher Kirkland’, The Spectator (3 October 1885), pp. 1316-1317.

    Part 10. Novelists

    Headnote

    43. Anthony Trollope, ‘Charles Dickens’, The Saint Paul’s Magazine 6 (July 1870), pp. 370-375.

    44. John Morley, ‘The Life of George Eliot’, Macmillan’s Magazine 51 (February

    1885), pp. 241-246, 255-256.

    45. Richard F. Littledale, ‘An Autobiography. By Anthony Trollope’, The Academy (27 October 1883), pp. 273-274.

    46. Margaret Oliphant, ‘Men and Women’ [John Addington Symonds, Maria Edgeworth, and Mrs Henry Wood] Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 157 (April 1895), pp. 620-621, 635-638, 640-643, 645-646.

    Part 11. Poets

    Headnote

    47. G. H. Lewes, ‘Life of Keats,’ The British Quarterly Review16 (November 1848),

    pp. 328-331, 332, 343.

    48.Theodore Watts, ‘The Truth about Rossetti,’ The Nineteenth Century 13 (March

    1883), pp. 404-406.

    49. George Dabbs, ‘Alfred, Lord Tennyson - A Memoir. By his Son’, The Quarterly Review 186 (October 1897), pp. 492-495, 525-528.

    Part 12. Collective Biography

    Headnote

    50. ‘Biographies of Good Women,’ The Saturday Review (26 April 1862), pp. 476-477.

    51. Harriet Martineau, ‘Preface’ to the Second Edition of Biographical Sketches 1852-1868, Third Edition (London: Macmillan 1870), pp. v-vii.

    52. Leslie Stephen, ‘A New "Biographia Britannica",’ The Athenaeum (23 December 1882), p. 850.

    Part 13. Diaries and Letters

    Headnote

    53. F. T. P. [Francis Turner Palgrave], ‘On Royal and Other Diaries and Letters: A Letter to a Friend in Bombay’, Macmillan’s Magazine 17 (March 1868), pp. 379-387.

    54. Walter Bagehot, ‘Henry Crabb Robinson,’ The Fortnightly Review 6 (August 1869), pp. 179-182.

    55. Stephen Gwynn, ‘Discretion and Publicity’ (The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett: 1845-1846), The Edinburgh Review 189 (April 1899), pp. 420-428.

    Biography

    Valerie Sanders is Professor of English, University of Hull, UK