Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), “The Lord Chancellor Copies from Memory,” illustration for Bleak House (1853) I've been thinking about the Bleak House illustrations a lot recently, mostly due to my Victorian literature and visual culture seminar.  I'd like to thank my students for helping me articulate a connection between Esther and the creepy doll … Continue reading Re-Visioning Dickens: Phiz and the Bleak House Illustrations

A confession: no, I have not seen the recent film version of Jane Eyre.  Or the one before it.  Or any of them, come to think of it.  This might be interpreted as a carryover from an intense graduate school qualifying exam paranoia—a fear that, if I allowed myself to luxuriate in film adaptations while … Continue reading On Visualizing—Not Viewing—Nineteenth-Century Novels

In anticipation of the bicentenary one week from today, a little quiz. I will not be disclosing my abysmal score.  Ahem.

Check this out.

I have assigned my Victorian Literature and Visual Culture class the task of analyzing a Bleak House illustration, so I've been thinking about my own illustration.  My mother gave me an original 1853 copy of "A New Meaning in the Roman": I was elated; I had requested it as part of my acquisition-of-old-things campaign.  Now … Continue reading On the Phiz Illustrations

I am Assistant Professor of English at Southern New Hampshire University, where I teach composition and eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century British literature.  I hold a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an M.A. and B.A. in English from Boston College.  Before moving to Manchester in 2011, I taught at Bemidji … Continue reading About Me