Nicola Wilson

Archive Fever: The Publishers’ Archive and the History of the Novel

Many recent commentators have noted a ‘new empiricism’ in the humanities, a turning away from theory to a newly informed sense of history and materiality.1 Archives and their contents are at the centre of this refashioning. For literary studies, research in the archive allows us to ground our analysis in a sense of the material world and to ask new questions about literature and the dynamics of textual production and authorship that are not available purely from a reading of the text. For this reason the publishers’ archive — long the preserve of biographers and cultural historians — has in recent years become increasingly important to literary scholarship. A number of studies have looked across the surviving materials in publishers’ records to reveal, for instance, the gendered, racial and class-based prejudices that have shaped the history of the novel.2 Important monographs by Joseph McAleer, William St Clair and Mary Hammond have made prominent use of publishers’, book trade and related archives to bring new perspectives to literary history which focus on distribution, libraries and popular reading pat-terns.3 St Clair’s The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (2004) has been particularly challenging in this respect. Offering a history of reading and literature based on ‘quantified information on the production, prices, edition sizes, sales and circulation of books and other print’ (14), St Clair sets out to debunk what he sees as the ‘main tradition of literary and cultural history’ in which ‘the texts of those authors whose works have subsequently been regarded as the best or the most innovative’ are lined up as a ‘parade of great names’ based on chronological order of first publication (2).

Reflections on Collaboration

This chapter reflects on our experiences in deciding to forge a collaborative team in the context of an individualistic culture in the humanities at large, both historically and in terms of contemporary protocols in hiring, promotion, and tenure. We offer some insights into both sides of the question–to DH or not to DH?–while highlighting what MAPP has given us. We speak to the opportunities and challenges of this new kind of academic work and list some practical tips for those who decide to embrace it.

What is MAPP

This chapter outlines the goals of MAPP and introduces the archival and special collections materials that will be included in the resource. For scholars working in print culture, there are major obstacles to research: the scope of material is often vast; disciplinary boundaries limit methodological and material exploration which constrains interpretation; and archives and library resources are dispersed geographically. MAPP aims to challenge these constraints by using digital technology to create an aggregated collection of publishing histories that can model theories in book history and literary sociology. Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press offers an ideal pilot study. MAPP is supported in its pilot phase by a two-year (2013-2015) Insight Development Grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada with supplemental funds (2016) from The Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA), Stanford University. http://www.modernistarchives.com/

Digital Humanities in the Classroom

In this chapter we explore how DH offers instructors and students an opportunity to think about new approaches to the humanities. We look briefly at theoretical work on DH pedagogy before offering a review of a number of existing projects, many of them in the field of modernism, that have been important in our own teaching and DH work. Next we outline our own diverse experiences teaching with MAPP. We close the chapter with student responses.

Building a Critical Digital Archive

In this chapter we discuss the theoretical and practical considerations behind the technical components of MAPP. We review scholarship on digital archives and digital textuality, examine existing high profile projects that inhabit a similar space as MAPP, and detail the data model and software choices that resulted from this research. This chapter also provides a brief introduction to Drupal, a highly customizable Content Management System, and how we configured it to meet our desired scholarly outcomes. We conclude with plans for future development that will enable greater interoperability and reuse of our archive.

The book world

In this wide-ranging collection, the impact of distribution and the institutions and practices of reading are explored to open up new perspectives on the British book trade and the production, circulation and consumption of literature in the early twentieth century.