NOSTALGIA AND RECOLLECTION IN VICTORIAN CULTURE

NOSTALGIA AND RECOLLECTION IN VICTORIAN CULTURE

Also by Ann C. Colley EDWARD LEAR AND THE CRITICS THE SEARCH FOR SYNTHESIS IN LITERATURE AND ART The Paradox of Space TENNYSON AND MADNESS

Nostalgia and Recollection in Victorian Culture Ann C. Colley

First published in Great Britain 1998 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-40620-3 DOI 10.1057 /9780230373112 ISBN 978-0-230-37311-2 (ebook) First published in the United States of America 1998 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Colley, Ann C. Nostalgia and recollection in Victorian culture I Ann C. Colley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-21664-1 (cloth) 1. English literature-19th century-history and criticism. 2. Nostalgia-Great Britain-History-19th century. 3. Great Britain-Histmy-Victoria, 1837-1901. 4. Great Britain -Civilization-19th century. 5. Autobiographical memory in literature. 6. Nostalgia in literature. 7. Memory in literature. I. Title. PR468.N64C65 1998 820.9'353-dc21 98-7211 CIP Ann C. Colley 1998 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1998 978-0-333-72813-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 07 06 05 ISBN 978-0-312-21664-1 7 6 5 04 03 02 4 3 01 00 2 99 1 98

For Constance Meta Cheetham

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Contents List of Plates Acknowledgments viii x Introduction 1 Part I: Voyages and Exile 13 1 Nostalgia and the Voyage of the Beagle 15 2 The Last of England and the Representation of Longing 32 3 R.L. Stevenson's Nationalism and the Dualities of Exile 54 4 The 'shaking, uncertain ground' of Elizabeth Gaskell's Narratives 73 Part II: Childhood Spaces 105 5 The Landscape of A Child's Garden of Verses 107 6 Rooms Without Mirrors: The Childhood Interiors of Ruskin, Pater, and Stevenson 124 Part III: The Idea of Recollection 155 7 R.L. Stevenson and the Idea of Recollection 157 8 From the Vignette to the Rectangular: Bergson, Turner, and Remembrance 192 Afterthoughts: Nostalgia and Recollection 209 Index 213 vii

List of Plates 1. Richard Redgrave, The Emigrants' Last Sight of Home, 1858, Tate Gallery, London/ Art Resource, NY 2. Frank Newbould, Your Britain - Fight for it Now, the South Downs, Imperial War Museum, London 3. Ford Madox Brown, The Last of England, 1855, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery 4. Ford Madox Brown, Cartoon for The Last of England, 1852, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery 5. Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Apollo and Daphne, National Gallery, London 6. Helen Allingham, Old Cottage at Pinner, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery 7. Robert Louis Stevenson, Game of Dibbs, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University 8. Robert Louis Stevenson, untitled, from an 1863 letter to his parents, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University 9. Robert Louis Stevenson, Sudden and Awful Catastrophe. Disappearance of Snooks, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University 10. Robert Louis Stevenson, Defeat of Napoleon on the afternoon of the 17th, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University 11. William Raymond Smith after J. M. W Turner, Long-Ships Lighthouse, Land's End from Picturesque Views in England and Wales, 1827-38, etching, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection 12. William Raymond Smith after J. M. W Turner, Long-Ships Lighthouse, Land's End from Picturesque Views in England and Wales, 1827-38, etching engraver's proof (a), Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection 13. J.M.W Turner, Shield's Lighthouse from the so-called Sequels to the Liber Studiorum, engraver's proof (b), mezzotint, Yale Center for British Art 14. John Ruskin, Turner's Earliest 'Nottingham' from Modern Painters, IV viii

List of Plates ix 15. John Ruskin, Turner's Latest 'Nottingham' from Modern Painters, IV 16. John Horsburgh after J.M. W Turner, Bell Rock Lighthouse from Stevenson's Account of the Bell Rock Lighthouses 1824, etching and engraving, first published state, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Acknowledgments Chapter 1 first appeared in The Centennial Review, XXV (winter, 1991); parts of Chapter 7 appeared in Victorian Literature and Culture, XXV, no. 2 (1997), and selections from Chapters 5 and 6 are to appear in Victorian Poetry and in Reading the Interior: Nineteenth Century Domestic Space, eds I. Bryden and J. Floyd (Manchester University Press). I should like to thank the library staff of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Cambridge University Library; the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; and the Yale Center for British Art. I am especially grateful for the assistance given me by Diana Slatin, Eric M. Lee of Yale University, Katharine Lochnan, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Marjorie Lord of the Butler Library at the State University College of New York at Buffalo. I should also like to thank the Research Foundation of New York and the UUP for their support. As the book progressed I was fortunate to have the opportunity to share parts of it with colleagues at the Northeast Victorian Studies Association meetings and at Gerhard Joseph's Victorian Studies Seminar held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Their insightful responses and their interest in the work were invaluable. In this respect, I wish to acknowledge my colleagues David Lampe and Anthony Lewis, who took the time to read and comment upon parts of the manuscript. I also cannot forget the support of my colleagues at the Institute of English Studies (University of Warsaw, Poland) during my Fulbright year there. I am particularly indebted to Ewa Luczek, whose work on memory has been and continues to be a companion to my own. My final and enduring thanks go to Irving, whose criticism is the most necessary, difficult, and demanding, and to Rachel, who in her kindness never turned away. And there is Gwen, the child of my own nostalgia. x