Editor’s Note

Abstract

Nearly ready to join the cast of the Alice books, perhaps, at a tea party celebrating fifty years of Victoria’s reign, John Tenniel’s British Lion appropriately preens on the cover of this, the golden jubilee volume of the Victorians Institute Journal. Inside are articles that approach Victorian and Edwardian literature, art, and culture from the disciplinary perspectives of literary studies, economic history, philosophy, cultural history, and periodical studies. Novels, short fiction, poetry, lectures, criminal trials, and international news stories all receive critical and, at times, pedagogical attention.Both the Texts and Digital Deliverables sections also return with exciting new material. The former features part 1 of a new English translation and accompanying illustrated critical introduction of a Danish-language travel narrative written by a female painter originally from Poland, with part 2 to come next year. The latter includes profiles of two mature digitization efforts in Victorian poetry, the Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry project and the Periodical Poetry Index. Rounding out the volume are eight reviews of recent publications in the field.If this robust and diverse set of contributions makes this milestone anniversary issue a cause for celebration, then it is also an occasion for somber memorialization. Late last year, VIJ’s longtime co-editor, Dr. Maria K. Bachman, passed away after a long illness. The author of over two dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and the recipient of Coastal Carolina University’s HTC Distinguished Teacher Scholar Lecturer Award (2012), George Mason University’s Distinguished Alumna of the Year Award (2012), and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching South Carolina Professor of the Year Award (2006), Maria was also a prolific and generous collaborator, co-editing three collections of essays and three scholarly editions, in addition to her work on the journal. In fact, the three final articles in VIJ 50 were submitted in her memory by former colleagues and collaborators, appropriately making this golden jubilee issue of the journal to which she gave so much of her energy and attention also a Gedenkschrift in her honor.