This Last Seven Weeks' Acquisitions
- David Pae, Mary Paterson; Or, the Fatal Error, ed. Caroline McCracken-Flesher (Association for Scottish Literature, 2015). Scholarly edition of an 1864-65 Scottish sensation novel about the Burke and Hare murders (the poor heroine is one of their victims). (Amazon)
- Elizabeth Strutt, The Curate and the Rector: A Domestic Story (British Library, n.d.). Facsimile reprint of a novel first published in 1859. Involves romance in high life, parish politics, silly young men and women, etc. (Amazon)
- [Matilda Anne Mackarness], A Ray of Light to Brighten Cottage Homes (Robert Carter, 1857). US reprint of a British novel about thirty-year-old Millicent Ray, an exemplary Christian who sets a moral standard for the poor around her. (eBay)
- Stephanie-Felicite de Genlis, Belisarius, 2 vols. in 1 (Mallory & Co., 1810). US edition of this moralizing historical novel set in sixth-century Byzantium. (This will probably qualify as my most antiquarian purchase this year.) (eBay)
- Francis J. Finn, S.J., Tom Playfair; Or, Making a Start (Benziger, n.d.). Popular late-Victorian Catholic school tale, about various boys who have to learn the errors of their ways. Features prison, death, and all the usual good things. (eBay)
- Joseph Spillman. S.J., The Little Martyr of Prague (Art and Book Company, 1892). An example of late-Victorian fictionalized blood libel (Spillman references Simon of Trent in his preface). (AbeBooks)
- Henry Digby Beste, Poverty, and the Baronet's Family: A Catholic Story (T. Jones, 1846). On a less repulsive note, a novel about aristocratic domestic misery and anti-Irish prejudice, all neatly vanquished in the end by true love. Posthumously published. (AbeBooks)
- Margaret S. Comrie, Miss Monteith's Riddle (RTS, n.d.). Reprint of a novel originally issued as Over against Her House. A young woman determines to become a doctor and go on to a career as a medical missionary. (eBay)
- Mrs. Carey Brock, Church Echoes: A Tale Illustrative of the Sacramental and Special Services of the Book of Common Prayer (Dutton, 1888). Various goings-on around a new church are used to...well, read the subtitle. (Amazon [secondhand])
- Kate Auspitz, Wallis's War: A Novel of Diplomacy and Intrigue (University of Chicago, 2010). Historical novel-cum-alternate history about Wallis Simpson deliberately wrecking Edward VIII's reign. (Amazon)
- Simon Clark, ed., The Mammoth Book of Sherlock Holmes Abroad (Running Press, 2015). As the title suggests, a collection of short stories in which Holmes and Watson do their thing in various locales other than the UK. (Amazon)
- Innes M. Keighren, Charles W. J. Withers, and Bill Bell, Travels into Print: Exploration, Writing, and Publishing with John Murray, 1773-1859 (University of Chicago, 2015). Uses travel narratives as a case study in Victorian publishing history. (Amazon)
- Timothy Larsen, Friends of Religious Equality: Nonconformist Politics in Mid-Victorian England (Paternoster, 1999). Analyzes how Dissenters advocated for civil rights for all those outside the Church of England. (Amazon)
- Edward Copeland, The Silver Fork Novel: Fashionable Fiction in the Age of Reform (Cambridge, 2012). Study of the early-Victorian vogue for novels set amongst aristocratic circles and its political implications. (Amazon)