Mansfield Park by Jane Austen; John Wiltshire; Emma by Jane Austen; Richard Cronin; Dorothy Mcmillan Review by:

Kathryn Sutherland The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 57, No. 232 (Nov., 2006), pp. 833-838 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4501547 . Accessed: 23/04/2014 11:58
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REVIEWS

833

thenhowcan anyamount ofcollective break thecycle government regimes, re-imagining of calamity? withthe conundrum at wrestling is exploredfurther in Shelley'seffort offers a persuasive ofPrometheus Unbound. contextualizes 5, which Chapter reading Duffy in thefailed thepoem,begunin late-September and also in the 1818, Pentridge uprising, that immediate aftermath ofthesublime of Vesuvius. eruptions year volume is emphatically The focus of Duffy's on the importance of impressive and political dimensions of the poet's reconnecting Shelleystudieswiththe historical with oftheRomantic a non-Kantian discourse sublime. One relatively minor engagement in an otherwise bookis thatDuffy's excellent little shortfall sense investigation provides of how Shelley's readers themselves (few) contemporary responded-inequallyspecific terms-to the poet's self-historicizing work. historical Was Shelley'ssublimepolitical in his own age? I wouldalso havewelcomed or even recognized code acknowledged a as the of his current on the rhetoric (rejected byDuffy lying chapter beyond scope project), of sublimity-on This should not detract, Shelley'ssublimestyle, Shelleythe writer. from therealachievement ofDuffy's and intellectually though, provocative agilevolume.
Sublimerepresentsessential reading foranyonewho wishes to and theRevolutionary Shelley

morefully thehistorically embodied nature ofShelley's understand political imagination.

RICHARD MARGGRAF TURLEY University of Wales,Aberystwyth

doi:10.1093/res/hgll16

Mansfield Park. By JANEAUSTEN. Edited by JOHN WILTSHIRE. Pp. lxxxviii+ 738.

Press, 2005. Cloth, ?65.00. Emma. By JANEAUSTEN.Edited by RICHARD University CRONIN and DOROTHY MCMILLAN. Pp. lxxx+ 600. (The Cambridge Edition of the

(The CambridgeEdition of the Worksof Jane Austen)Cambridge:Cambridge

2005.Cloth, ofJane Works Press, Austen) Cambridge University ?65.00. Cambridge:

achievement of her careeras a mature Withthesetwonovels,the supreme writer, its new edition of theWorks ofJaneAusten. Press has launched University Cambridge in Context, editedby Janet is a volumeentitled Publishedsimultaneously JaneAusten A further six volumes(one each for Todd, GeneralEditorof the whole enterprise. and one forLaterManuscripts), one for fourcompleted the remaining novels, Juvenilia scheduledto appear by 2007,will completethe edition.It is a major and a timely whileits claims has never been greater, fiction thepopular appealofAusten's enterprise: first Now withthe twentyseem limitless. and reinvention to critical attention century everwider audiences. hernovelsare set to find of the1990sfilm continuation successes, and critical commercial Yet therehas been no seriouscatchup withthis flourishing of new scholarly text. Wherethe regular whenit comes to Austen's market appearance of thetexts robust to a similarly of Shakespeare's editions estimate, general playsattests re-examination. little such received have novels Austen's likethis:while for thisanomaly The defence go something (ifsuchit is) wouldprobably texts and Austenis comparable, statusof Shakespeare the cultural onlyShakespeare's new for reassessment and that of kinds the reinterpretation require problems present But even novelsoffer no such challenges. the textsof Austen's of readers; generations new are other reasons there ofAusten's theunproblematic why texts, identity supposing itself: listesteem them we might arecommissioned. ofauthors editions Among scholarly from a majoruniversity and North America issuedin Britain a scholarly edition, usually to the ongoing work's or a for an author's a benchmark remains significance press,still of an forits claim to the seriousattention lifeof a nationand, increasingly, cultural that an edited text is the fact that obvious Less is, international (complete, readership.

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emendations andannotations) is notin anysimple with critical sensefaithful to apparatus, a critical with butis itself that work. thework it presents follows It,therefore, engagement that no edition canpermanently serve either thework orreaders' Likeevery requirements. other critical editions willneedperiodically tobe overhauled orreplaced. The engagement, hereis notthat editions buthowslowly theexception go outofdate, (with intriguing thing ofShakespeare) they appearto do so. For example, R. W. Chapman's five-volume Clarendon editionof 1923, TheNovels of was thefirst to consider thefulltextual record of thenovels, JaneAusten, systematically and it has remained the standard eversince. it provides Withone exception, authority the basis forall laterBritisheditions, the Penguin edition including EnglishLibrary forthe 1963Dent/Everyman editionand issued in the1960s, MaryLascelles'srevisions issued as the JamesKinsley'sOxford EnglishNovels editionof 1970-1971, currently World's Classics edition.Chapman'seditionis also the basis for modernAmerican the Nortoncriticaleditions,the most recentof which,Claudia editions,including Park andSensibility Johnson's Mansfield (1998)and herSense (2002),arebothreconsidered of text. The is the revised edition ofthelate exception reprints Chapman's newly Penguin 1990s(resetin 2003),whichreturned forits texts to the first of all six novels. editions it is a longtimesince1923. Measured Yeta variety ofdiverse fashion, bycritical readings, have found purchase in includingrecent postcolonialand queer interpretations, Chapman'stext,withoutany voiced resistance by the makersor readersof these thathis text, based on nowoutmoded critical and interventions, readings assumptions will not supportthem.There are major reasons,then,forreconsidering Chapman's editorial rationale after a lapse of morethan80 years, and forgiving thetextual surface thekindofscrutiny ofhis edition that critics haveregularly assumed it has theauthority to bear. It is first worth what was specialaboutChapman's Austen edition. His concern asking to establish a correct after the carelessreprints of the laternineteenth text, century, a landmark in the acceptance of the novelas a form represented deserving scholarly and a levelof accurate reserved forpoetry and investigation representation previously drama texts. He believed, thecontemporary of editorial thatthemisplacing against grain, a commaor misreading of a wordmattered as muchin a novel, whosebulkand wide moreregularly critics of its less scrupulous form. To thisend he readership persuaded undertook thefirst fullcollation of thosenovels andSensibility and Mansfield (Sense Park) forwhichwe have morethan one editionoverseen in the author's by her published lifetime. It was not until the 1970sthat other major nineteenth-century novelists, Eliotand theBrontes, wouldbe given thefull Clarendon but Dickens, George treatment; Austenedition preparedthe way.His decision to establish Chapman'spioneering the second-edition textof Senseand Sensibility and Mansfield Parkas preferable in the matter ofbothwords and punctuation the whole and with it the decisively shaped project critical estimate of Austen.Changes,made on everypage, to the formal subsequent features of the second-edition textof Mansfield Park showedher to be painstaking inweighing therelative merits ofcomma andsemicolon andintightening thegrammatical and they thebasisfor ownjudicious poise ofthesentence; intrusion provided Chapman's to regularize theformal features of his modern edition. More significantly, they proved, to Chapmanand to almostevery critic armedwithhis authoritative twentieth-century and precisegrammarian. edition,thatAustenwas a fastidious text stylist Chapman's afterher death, upheld the claim, made by Austen'sbrother Henry immediately that'[e]very camefinished from herpen; foron all subjects she had ideas as clear thing as herexpressions were wellchosen'

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of a surpriseto manycriticalreadersthatthereare It still comes as something of Austen's or choicesto be made overthe texts novels;thatfarfrom '[e]very problems from her pen' thereis a distinction to be held in mindif not coming'finished thing' the genesisand production of the six published novels. in practice between verifiable forthesix,we mustturn to theworking evidence In theabsenceofsurviving manuscript works forsome clues as to where the boundary or unfinished of the abandoned drafts usefulin this respectis the discardedendingto Persuasion, mightlie. Particularly a holograph draft of the novel's final in the British whichcontains Library, preserved moreor less exactly as we have it, into print. much of whichfoundits way, chapter in mostcases are the words. 'More or less' is crucialhere,becausewhatare preserved of been readied for and thenature the text has and Between publication, holograph print an external that are the work of but the changesmakesit highly any improbable they The text has been mechanically a publisher's reader or a printer. hand, whether havebeen smoothed Austen's characteristic practices geneticor working paragraphed; have dashes and emphaseshave been strippedout, capitalizations away-rhetorical and considerable contractions been regularized, expanded,spellings house-styled went into Of course, when Persuasion care has been taken over repunctuation. the differences the is that formal But Austen was dead. important point production of the writing are so uncharacteristic and printare justthat:they between manuscript somefinal cannot be assumedto represent handthatthey genesisstageof thework's ifwe areto assignthemto Austen a fair herself, say-at which point, copiedmanuscript, in ways thatare evidently hermaterial or respelling she mustbe imagined repunctuating uncharacteristic. profoundly betweengenesis and These changes,it is reasonableto say,markthe boundary decisions not leastbecause production and it is an area of greatinterest, production, in we havetoo naively attributed their critics and as Austen havesemiotic agency import, for almost all thenovels ofmanuscript evidence Becauseoftheabsence one direction. only forms is uncertain, butit is no lessmeaningful written andprinted between thisboundary between first and second it at work is in the differences forthat.One wayof observing a features of earliest editions where the formal lifetime editions, represent stageofdevellatercorrected editions. the than but still closer from, to, manuscript away opment restsso firmly on the issue of style, on of no otherEnglishnovelist The reputation ofsentence andphrase most on thepoiseandweight formal expressively features, captured for a newedition ofAusten's novels to revisit in punctuation. This is why it is so important to whatwe in his we closer because editorial revisiting policy get policy, Chapman's ofwriting. knew we already (anddid not)Austen's way thought ofAusten's forundertaking a brand-new edition There are compelling reasons, then, It mustincorporate themanutasks. willaddress twomajoroutstanding one that fiction; it should do and did not in a this); way(Chapman systematic writings thoroughly script text basedon to establish a critical the 1990s edition thework continue Penguin begunby the1811 textof Sense and In practice thismeansprivileging witnesses. the earliest print Parkover that of 1816. over the 1813text,and the 1814textof Mansfield Sensibility ofPride and thesecondand third lifetime editions to treat havelongknown Editors warily tookno part Austen sold thecopyright, 1813 and 1817), which, having (October Prejudice whatherrolewas in preparing forthepress.But it is by no meanscertain in preparing to find It is, therefore, twonovelsfora secondedition. either of theother disappointing editorial so closely and uncritically editionfollowing the Cambridge preferChapman's havemade some to which of 'the latest edition ences in favour plausibly might [Austen] 'GeneralEditor's contribution' nothing by wayof (Todd, p. x).There is virtually preface', totheCambridge in thebrief Editor's attached 'General statement volumes, preface' policy

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thechoiceoftexts there is choiceto and in theabsenceofanyreasoned defence, (where indebted to Chapman's workin and hugely be made) can onlyappear old-fashioned How odd, in light of this, is the completeomissionof any reference particular. thegeneral to Chapman from preface. Yet we meetChapman's turnin John Wiltshire's editionof Mansfield ghostat every in is thedevotion of 80 pagesto printing Park.Most obvious, becauseit bulksso large, in Vows fullas appendixto the textof the novel,the GermanRomantic playLovers' Persuadedby J. ArthurPlatt, Professor of Greek Elizabeth Inchbald'sadaptation. of the playto a reading at University of the novel, CollegeLondon,of the importance the unusual decision to a full text of Lovers' Vows to his 1923 took edition, append Chapman it After of intertextual status. some 80 critical years changing thereby granting unique which readers have mined Park for fashion, Mansfield during literary, politicaland of topics,from and landscapegardening Evangelicalism topicalallusionson a variety it is surely timeto demote Lovers' Vows from itsposition as exclusive to the slavetrade, forall necessary intertext. Not onlyis theplaypretty wellexplained purposes privileged withinthe novel(and some pointedannotation wouldcoverany further obscurities), risks a twentyfirst reader anxious itsinclusion as essential complement alienating century to recover rather thanburyin the by-ways of literary Park's history Mansfield complex inclusion As Wiltshire himself notesin his critical introduction, 'Chapman's morality. of thefulltext ofLovers' work set theagendaformuchof the critical Vows... effectively on thenovel... throughout the1930s and40s' (p. lxiv). is thework ofprevious A moresubtleindebtedness, becauselargely unacknowledged, in shaping text. which is probably Wiltshire's The dust-jacket blurb(for Wiltshire editors time' declares thattheCambridge edition has 'fully collated forthefirst notresponsible) it seriously texts. Not onlyis thisa discourtesy towards earlier the1814 and 1816 editors, therehas been in Austen's textsover manydecades. the criticalinvestment distorts collation on which his text rests is among his papersin theBodleianLibrary, Chapman's forthe textof the newPenguin remains edition and the fullcollation Oxford; cheaply in print. The falsepioneering available and widely spiritassumedby the Cambridge the policyadoptedby Wiltshire, and by Richard Cronin editionappearsto determine McMillanin their edition ofEmma, to giveno indication oftheprovenance and Dorothy as theirown. Accordingly, are presented as fresh, of emendations proffered readings a longtradition ofAustenian whenthey are anything butthat. Thereis, on thecontrary, It stretches back to Thomas Babington emendation. Macaulayin the mid-nineteenth A. W.Verrall in the1890s, to theeccentric classicist and to R. Brimley century, Johnson, forthe Dent editionappearedin 1892.In the earlytwentieth whoseastutecollations therewas the survey 'The Textof JaneAusten's Novels'(1913),the workof century her collateraldescendants William and RichardArthurAusten-Leigh. All this lay as behind Chapman's and editors lie behind work, Chapman Wiltshire, subsequent Cronin andMcMillan. A brief of Wiltshire's 'Corrections and Emendations' to Volume 1 ofMansfield survey Park(p. 630) reveals their neartotalidentity with corrections madebyChapman: there is Most area matter ofadding or removing one exception. and theinseronly speechmarks tion of a missingletter to as 'accidentals', refers a term (whatWiltshire puzzlingly he incorrectly as 'inadvertent But not all fall into glosses typographical p. lxxxv). features', The emendation thiscategory. of 'daughter' to 'daughters' (p. 11,line18);of 'Miss Grant' to 'Mrs.Grant'(p. 90, line4); of 'her'to 'his'(p. 92,line30); of 'The storm' to 'To storm' (p. 156, line 1); and of 'an usual' to 'unusual' (p. 202, line 2); all these were made are responses to evenearlier by Chapmantoo,and in some cases Chapman's readings of emendation is recorded Something, thoughnot all, of this history suggestions.

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But Wiltshire no indication of these givesabsolutely by Chapmanin his 1923edition. the corrections of textual and the reader is misledintothinking accretive labour, layers ownemendation inVolume arenew. 1isWiltshire's ('since;he' is Onlyone recorded change insertion smooths to 'since he' p. 200, line 31),and its unannotated altered effectively at this on the text's unusual a little of comment punctuation point. history scholarly away but the removal thatthe semi-colon shouldbe removed, Wiltshire maywell be right in editors previous pointsto a majorflaw alongwithit of anysignthatit everworried so statuswhenits textual this edition.How can it claim seriousscholarly apparatus It is a flawwhichextends the history of the text's emendation? effectively suppresses to have to the otherwise helpful pleasingeleganceof the page design.It is extremely from the text at the foot of each but there is variant 1814 provided page; readings on page of those places wherethe texthas been corrected no equivalent indication Forthesewe mustrely on thelistat pp. 630-2and simply incursions. editorial byfurther the textagainstit. The page unit would not have lost its uncluttered keep checking are notso had been recorded and emendations pageby page(there appealifall variants in have and the edition would gained authority. many); at Croninand McMillan'stextof Emma. can be levelled Much the same criticisms In returning Mrs Elton's 'cara sposo' to its vital irregularity, they sensiblyresist a restore of the phrase(to 'caro sposo'),and probably Chapman's po-facedcorrection to the speaker's But thisis notthe to giveadded emphasis intended solecism vulgarity. it offered thattheirannotation fresh editorial implies(p. 577): StephenParrish insight in the Penguineditionof 1996. in his Nortoneditionin 1972,as did Fiona Stafford of the textualerror Elsewhere, they repeat Chapman'sdefence(unacknowledged) the text situation' 'Mrs. Suckling's correcting (p. 414 and note) ratherthan sensibly to 'charges' had done.Amongthe emendations as early editors 'changes' theydo make, in a scholarly butthelistat theback worth edition, recording history, (p. 221)has itslittle All their is not theirown happyinsight. of the book givesno hintthatthe correction thattheyshould This is notto imply edition. to Chapman's emendations can be traced text of their but rather thatthe authority of the text, havecome up withnew readings make in their the if had substantiated benefited have Introduction, point they they might toR.W.Chapman's novels oweseverything Austen's 'theestablishing ofthetext that ofJane of theiredition; the authority To do so wouldnot haveundermined edition'(p. xxix). of the text's critical as a repository it wouldhavegivenit greater history. weight rather, also editionmight theCambridge its debtto Chapman, moreopenly For in registering in the matter have made clearerjust whereit departsfromhis policy(forexample, text. authoritative made the case fora newly and so better of intrusive regularization), a valuableopportunity editionhas forfeited the Cambridge In wishing to appearfresh to be scholarly. edition oftheCambridge therealcontribution ofthesetwovolumes, By theevidence and its very ample and helpfulannotation, lies in its well-judgedintroductions 'information' coursebetween steerthe difficult whichindeed does in most instances in theintroducvaluable it should(p. xi).Particularly as Todd suggests and 'speculation' which ofthenovels, to thereception attention tionsis theeven-handed provides history and errors I some small found level. the textual at denied thekindofcritical conspectus fora NewYorkedition thereis no evidence to Emma: in the introduction an omission after the novel's London publication(p. xxviii); George Saintsbury, immediately overa Harriet Smithdoes not dither not Kipling,coinedthe term (p. xxxii); 'Janeites' is thetitleofAnnaAusten's butat 'Ford's' at 'Ward's' (p. lix);and theomission purchase described novel('Which is the Heroine?'), by Croninand McMillan only cryptically named'(p. xxv).I supposeit is just possiblethatJaneAustenmayattract as 'properly

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andbuns' for them readers whoneedtohave 'biscuits defined Park, p.728note6). (Mansfield havetowaitfor a volume thisnewedition andpriceof?65.00 its But at a hefty may weight mostgrateful readers untilit is issuedin paperback.
KATHRYN SUTHERLAND Oxford StAnnes College,

doi:10.1093/res/hg1099

Palestine and the Question of The Holy Land in English Culture, 1799-1917:
Orientalism.

2005.Cloth, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?50.00.

By EITAN BAR-YOSEEPp. xiii+319

(Oxford English Monographs).

EitanBar-Yosef setsout to demonstrate In TheHolyLand inEnglish Culture, 1799-1917, between theEnglish tradition of internalising biblical therelationship images ('Jerusalem ofexploring, in England') and'theimperial and eventually representing, project conquerinJerusalem'). In thiswell-researched and convincing (p.4) ('England study, ingPalestine' of Englandas the Promised Land Bar-Yosef imagination arguesthatthe Bunyanesque remained a morepervasive of about Palestine than the way thinking imperial enterprise of bringing PalestineunderBritishcontrol. Bar-Yosef Furthermore, arguesthat the of biblical imagery and consciousness an easy notionof pervasiveness complicates in the Middle as the primary model of Britishinvolvement 'Orientalism' explanatory East. In fact, Bar-Yosef grounds his critique of secular Orientalist readings of inPalestine inEdward British interests in hisbelief Said'swriting) that an under(as found of 'vernacular biblical culture' is crucial. Bar-Yosef makes this standing argument fivechapters on texts from ThePilgrim's chronologically through by focussing Bunyan's thediaries, letters and memoirs ofsoldiers in Palestine stationed Progess through during World WarI. In thefirst 'Christian Walks toJerusalem: Protestant Culture and the chapter, English of Vernacular Bar-Yosef arguesthatBunyan began'the cultural Emergence Orientalism', thescriptural it in,or as, England' and re-imagining processof internalizing geography Bar-Yosef relates this internalisation to the connected notion thatarisesin the (p. 19). seventeenth that theEnglish 'God's chosennation' century peoplewere (p. 28),as wellas to Christian millenarian that advocatedthe restoration of the Jewsto the thinking his argument to theeighteenth Bar-Yosef the notion HolyLand. Taking century, rejects that vernacular Orientalism as that cultural what wasinitially an ['defined process whereby Oriental madeto become an integral ofEnglish paradigm...is internalized, localized, part and culture' self-fashioning, identity (p. 32)] was the a wayforthe middleclasses to havecontrol overthelower orders. Insteadof bourgeois Bar-Yosef sees the imperialism, enthusiasm and aspirations of the working class and theirpreoccupations withbiblical cultureas an influence on developing culture. In the finalsectionsof this bourgeois Bar-Yosef twodifferent to millenarianism expansive chapter, analyses 'prophetic' responses at the end of the eighteenth Southcott's of century: Joanna Bunyanesque interpretation Land and RichardBrothers' call forthe "'departure of the Englandas the Promised Hebrews from all nations, and their return toJerusalem'" (p. 52). The nexttwochapters,'The Land and theBooks: High Anglo-Palestine Orientalism and its Limits' and 'Popular Palestine: The HolyLand as Printed and Image,Spectacle, deal withtherepresentation of theHolyLand: theinfluences of academic Commodity' Orientalist discourse on highcultural texts visualartsand travel and (novels, writing) thenthetransformation of thisdiscourse in popularforms of nineteenth-century mass culture. Bar-Yosef in chapter 2 thathighbrow had limited influence on the argues genres culture becausetheir dissemination was limited to theeducated classeswhocouldafford

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