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Palgrave Macmillan

The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds

A Critical Edition

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Editors:
  1. Amber K. Regis

    1. School of English, University of Sheffield School of English, Sheffield, United Kingdom

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  • Reproduces the full text of John Addington Symonds’s Memoirs for the first time
  • Uncovers the manuscript’s fascinating history from Symonds’s death to its first publication
  • Reveals the emendations and eccentricities of the original manuscript through extensive notes

Part of the book series: Genders and Sexualities in History (GSX)

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Table of contents (20 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xx
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Amber K. Regis
    Pages 1-56

  3. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 57-57
      Download chapter PDF

    2. Preface

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 59-61

    3. Chapter 1: Childhood—No. 7 Berkeley Square, Bristol—From the Year 1840 to the Year 1851

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 63-98

    4. Chapter 2: Containing Material Which None But Students of Psychology and Ethics Need Peruse

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 99-104

    5. Chapter 3: First Period of Boyhood—Clifton Hill House—From the Year 1851 to the Year 1854

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 105-132

    6. Chapter 4: Second Period of Boyhood—Harrow on the Hill—From the Year 1854 to the Year 1858

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 133-145

    7. Chapter 5: Painful Circumstances Connected with the Last Year of My Life at Harrow

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 147-168

    8. Chapter 6: Adolescence. Life at Oxford, and the Painful Incidents of My First Year There

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 169-191

    9. Chapter 7: An Important Episode in My Oxford Life. Alfred Brooke

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 193-207

    10. Chapter 8: End of My Oxford Life. Wanderings in Switzerland. Rosa Engel and Catherine North. Italy

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 209-254

    11. Chapter 9: Life in London. Marriage. First Attack of Lung Disease

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 255-286

    12. Chapter 10: Early Years of Marriage. A Tour in Normandy. Peregrinations of All Sorts. Interrupted Literary Labour

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 287-331

    13. Chapter 11: Peregrinations Continued. Switzerland, Provence, the Riviera. Settlement at Clifton in the Autumn of 1868

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 333-359

    14. Chapter 12: Emotional Development

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 361-377

    15. Chapter 13: Norman

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 379-413

    16. Chapter 14: Intellectual and Literary Evolution

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 415-462

    17. Chapter 15: Religious Development

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 463-476

    18. Chapter 16: Life at Clifton Hill House, 1870–77

      • Amber K. Regis
      Pages 477-487
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Keywords

About this book

This edition is the first to reproduce John Addington Symonds's Memoirs in its entirety. It offers a panoramic view of middle-class Victorian life, shedding light upon sexual cultures and life histories too often hidden from history. Symonds (1840-93) began writing his Memoirs in 1889. It was, he confessed, 'a foolish thing to do.' Symonds was a respected man of letters, an historian, translator, essayist and poet; he was also married with children. But rather than unfold a simple tale of public and private achievement, the Memoirs record his struggle to reconcile his homosexuality with these professional and familial identities. His autobiography offers a confessional account of relationships beyond the accepted bounds of nineteenth-century social mores, presenting an alternative case study that contests the legal and medical authorities that would label his desires a crime or disease. Yet being so eloquent on matters of heterodox sexuality, the Memoirs were suppressed. The manuscriptsurvives because Symonds recognised its import, however 'foolish': he instructed his literary executor to preserve the text, a duty ultimately discharged by placing the manuscript under embargo in the care of the London Library.

Editors and Affiliations

  • School of English, University of Sheffield School of English, Sheffield, United Kingdom

    Amber K. Regis

About the editor

Amber K. Regis is Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Sheffield, UK. She has published essays and reviews in Life Writing, Journal of Victorian Culture, and the Times Literary Supplement.

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