Your homework assignment is...

I quite possibly have a publisher for Book Two.  This is a good thing.  However, as is always the case with publishing--unless you have hitherto unascertained magical powers, or something--the end is only the beginning.  (Should I add "young padawan" after that?) To reach the desired goal, one must satisfy the readers.  In this case, satisfying the readers involves the following:

• One new chapter (on Sir Walter Scott; some of this material currently exists in another chapter, from which it will be summarily yanked)
• Splitting what is currently chapter one into two separate chapters (which means adding some more material to each)
• New conclusion (on George Eliot)
• Some rearranging of various paragraphs to clarify chronology
• Historical context as appropriate
• Answering various questions raised by the readers
• Dealing with what one of my professors used to call "minor stylistic points"

Thinking back to the dawn of time, or at least to around 2002-03, this is pretty much the same revision workload that I had with Book One.  In any event, one of the outcomes will be more authors whom people will, you know, be able to recognize (although, ironically, probably not the first novels that will jump to anyone's mind--the Scott chapter is The Abbot and The Monastery, and the Eliot conclusion is Romola).  Matters are slightly complicated by an article I have due in November, so it's time for rigorous self-scheduling.