Victorian Celebrity Culture and Tennyson s Circle

Victorian Celebrity Culture and Tennyson s Circle

Also by Páraic Finnerty EMILY DICKINSON S SHAKESPEARE

Victorian Celebrity Culture and Tennyson s Circle By Charlotte Boyce Senior Lecturer in English and American Literature, University of Portsmouth, UK Páraic Finnerty Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Portsmouth, UK and Anne- Marie Millim Research Associate in Multilingual Literature, University of Luxembourg

Charlotte Boyce, Páraic Finnerty and Anne- Marie Millim, 2013 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-00793-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion 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, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-43540-1 ISBN 978-1-137-00794-0 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137007940 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements vi vii Introduction 1 Charlotte Boyce, Páraic Finnerty and Anne- Marie Millim 1 At Home with Tennyson: Virtual Literary Tourism and the Commodification of Celebrity in the Periodical Press 18 Charlotte Boyce 2 This Is the Sort of Fame for Which I Have Given My Life : G. F. Watts, Edward Lear and Portraits of Fame and Nonsense 53 Páraic Finnerty 3 She Shall Be Made Immortal : Julia Margaret Cameron s Photography and the Construction of Celebrity 97 Charlotte Boyce 4 Personal Museums: the Fan Diaries of Charles Dodgson and William Allingham 136 Anne- Marie Millim 5 Troops of Unrecording Friends : Vicarious Celebrity in the Memoir 164 Anne- Marie Millim 6 Much Honour and Much Fame Were Lost : Idylls of the King and Camelot s Celebrity Circle 191 Páraic Finnerty Bibliography 234 Index 252 v

List of Figures 1.1 W. Biscombe Gardner, Tennyson s Study at Farringford, in Grant Allen, Tennyson s Homes at Aldworth and Farringford, English Illustrated Magazine, 10 (1892), p. 149 36 1.2 [F. G. Kitton], Celebrities of the Day Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, The Graphic, 22 March 1884, n. p. 37 2.1 Edward Lear, There was an Old Lady of Chertsey, Nonsense Books (Boston: Little, Brown, 1888), p. 7 66 2.2 Edward Lear, There was an Old Man of Whitehaven, Nonsense Books (Boston: Little, Brown, 1888), p. 44 69 2.3 Edward Lear, There was an Old Man with a Nose, Nonsense Books (Boston: Little, Brown, 1888), p. 3 71 3.1 Julia Margaret Cameron, photograph of Alfred Tennyson ( The Dirty Monk ) (1865), TRC 11 104 3.2 Julia Margaret Cameron, photograph of Thomas Carlyle (1867), TRC 186 107 vi

Acknowledgements This book emerges out of a project on Tennyson s Celebrity Circle: Cultural Interactions of the Isle of Wight that was undertaken by the authors at the University of Portsmouth between 2010 and 2011 and supported by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). We are very grateful for the financial help we received from HEIF and, subsequently, from the Centre for Studies in Literature (CSL) at the University of Portsmouth. Our researches have taken us to a number of libraries, museums and archives across the UK and the assistance we ve received from the staff at these institutions has proved invaluable. Our special thanks go to the Tennyson Research Centre, Lincoln, and Grace Timmins, in particular; the Watts Gallery, Surrey; the National Portrait Gallery, particularly Bryony Millan; the Victoria and Albert Museum; the British Library; Glasgow University Library Special Collections; Portsmouth Central Library; Portsmouth University Library; the National Library of Wales, particularly Emyr Evans; and Cardiff University Library Special Collections, particularly Alison Harvey. This project has also involved a number of very enjoyable visits to the Isle of Wight and we d like to thank the many people there who welcomed us so warmly and supported our research. Special mention goes to the Isle of Wight Heritage Service, particularly Sheila Caws; Dimbola Museum and Galleries/the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust; the Freshwater Tennyson Society; Bob Cotton; Brian Hinton; John Holsburt; Elizabeth Hutchings; Rebecca Fitzgerald; Martin Beisly; and Verrall Dunlop. We would like to thank the National Portrait Gallery, London (G. F. Watts Archive) for permission to quote from Watts s correspondence and the Houghton Library, University of Harvard, for permission to quote from Edward Lear s diaries. Finally, huge thanks go to our friends and colleagues at the Universities of Portsmouth and Luxembourg, and to our partners and families, for their ongoing support. vii