Stephen Railton, Professor of English at the University of Virginia and editor of the recently published Broadview Edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, sat down for an interview with UVa’s College of Arts and Sciences to discuss his uncensored presentation of Twain’s original 1885 manuscript and the ongoing controversy over the novel’s depiction of race in 19th-century America.
Many Broadview Editions are of works from the 1910s or earlier, so a feature of a newly published edition was unusual for us: appendix material related to a contemporary film adaptation. The novel, also the subject of a popular 1924 film, is Gertrude Atherton’s Black Oxen (1923), edited for Broadview by Melanie Dawson. The story of a beautiful and mysterious woman in her late fifties whose uncannily youthful appearance is the result of an experimental “rejuvenation” treatment, Black Oxen was a natural fit for a film adaptation. The 1924 First National film, starring Corinne Griffith and featuring Clara Bow in a minor part, was both a popular hit and critically acclaimed:
Evening World: “‘Black Oxen’ is a novel chock full of dramatics and hence has, in the capable hands of Frank Lloyd, blossomed forth as a fine stalwart bit of picture making.”
Sun Globe: “‘Black Oxen’ seems to us a fantastic, brilliant story, fully as good as any of Edith Wharton’s novels of society.
The picture follows the book operation for operation, one might say, and it is one of the photoplays that ought not to be missed.”Motion Picture: “The gowns and furs, as well as jewels worn by Miss Griffith constitute a veritable fashion parade which moves throughout the picture. The production itself is an elaborate one. The settings, especially the interiors are the last word in artistic lavishness.”
In a bizarre echo of the novel and film’s plot, the film’s star, Corinne Griffith, later claimed, in her seventies, to be her own much younger sister.
Don LePan, President and CEO of Broadview Press, introduces The Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Take a look and find out why academics are calling BABL “the new standard” of British Literature anthologies!
For more information, please visit www.broadviewpress.com/babl.
A review of Todd Dufresne and Gregory C. Richter’s edition of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle has just appeared in Metapsychology. See the review here and take a look at their second collaboration for the series, an edition of The Future of an Illusion that was just published this month!
On the last page of the 2010 Broadview edition of Cranford appears an “FSC” logo and a little notice informing the reader that using 941 pounds of recycled paper to print the book—rather than 941 pounds of paper from pulp taken from newly felled timber—saved 8 trees. We are told as well that it had a positive effect in reducing the book’s “ecological footprint” so far as water consumption and air emissions are concerned. It’s all pretty modest, of course—but when you remember that this is only one printing of one of Broadview’s roughly 500 titles, it’s not trivial either; the total number of trees saved per year because the company follows such practices is just over 1,000.
We at Broadview are very excited to announce that over 250 Broadview titles are now available as eBooks for sale through Google.
All titles are available as high quality PDFs, and many are also available as ePubs. The latter are marked as being available in the “flowing text” format. Google eBooks are stored in the digital cloud so you can read them wherever you go using a computer, smartphone, tablet, or dedicated e-reading device. You can easily switch from one reading device to another without losing your place. Once titles have been downloaded you may also read them offline.
These books are currently available in the United States and Canada through what was formerly known as the Google eBookstore; it rebranded yesterday as Google Play Books. To view the full list of Broadview titles that are available please visit our eBooks page. If you have any questions about our eBook offerings please contact us at ebooks@broadviewpress.com.
As publishers, we always enjoy reading correspondence between great authors and their publishers, and, happily, many of our editions include such correspondence in the appendices. In our new edition of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, edited by Allan Ingram, letters between Swift and his publisher, Benjamin Motte, Jr., appear in an appendix on the novel’s contemporary reception. Swift wrote to Alexander Pope that the manuscript would need a publisher “brave enough to venture his Eares,” as the cutting off of ears was a common punishment for publishing offensive material, and the novel contained satirical references to British policies in Ireland.
Tanya Caldwell’s anthology Popular Plays by Women in the Restoration and Eighteenth Century, published in 2011, includes a selection of lively criticism by women dramatists along with four plays by Aphra Behn, Hannah Cowley, Catherine Clive, and Susanna Centlivre. Aphra Behn’s “Epistle to the Reader,” from her play The Dutch Lover, is a humorous but powerful defense of women playwrights. Not incidentally, it contains this hilariously scathing description of a theatregoer who questions women’s abilities as dramatists:
In a recent article in The Times Literary Supplement John Sutherland discusses the complex composition history of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, in particular why “the line between ‘influence’ and ‘plagiarism’ is never easy to trace.”
In the recently published Broadview Edition of this classic adventure story, Sutherland expands on his discussion of Stevenson’s “plundering” of other writers; he also touches on the author’s writer’s block, and the surprisingly disturbing and complex nature of what was meant to be a children’s story.
The following excerpt from the introduction to Sutherland’s edition of Treasure Island cheekily inquires into the geographic whereabouts of the island:
Broadview will be attending the following conferences this season.
We hope to see you there!
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FEBRUARY:
American Philosophical Association, Central Division meeting
February 15-18 in Chicago, IL
MARCH:
Northeast Modern Language Association meeting
March 15-18 in Rochester, NY
The Conference on College Composition and Communication
March 21-24 in St. Louis, MO
APRIL:
American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division meeting
April 4-7 in Seattle, WA
The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists
April 12-15 in Berkeley, CA
The Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada meeting
April 26-28 in Victoria, BC
MAY:
International Congress on Medieval Studies
May 10-13 in Kalamazoo, MI
The Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences
May 26-June 2 in Waterloo, ON