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No Name 2014 Supplemental Info for Our Group Read
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Annotations from my Penquin Classics edition. Comments in {} are my own.DEDICATION
1. - "Francis Carr Beard" - Beard became Collins's doctor during the composition of No Name. He treated Collins for 'rheumatic gout', mainly with laudanum {a mixture of opium and alcohol}. It is generally thought that Collins's addiction to opium dates from this period.
THE FIRST SCENE
Chapter One
1. - "eighteen hundred and forty-six" - Like Collin's other major novels of the 1860's, "No Name" is set in the 1840's. Collins was especially meticulous about chronology in the planning of "No Name". A perceptive reviewer had pointed out an error in the timing of events in "The Woman in White" (which Collins was able to correct in the second edition), and he was anxious not to slip up again. During the writing of "No Name" he repeatedly requested information about dates, postage times and shipping times from his banker friend, Charles Ward. See Catherine Peters's "The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins (London, 1991) pp. 242-3 for further details.
2. - "mournful ideas of penitence and seclusion" - See Luke, 7:38 and following.
3. - "Men ... at heart a rake" - Alexander Pope, "Epistle to a Lady" (1735), lines 215 - 216.
Chapter Two
1. - "the mixed train" - Train carrying different classes of passengers.
Chapter Four
1. - "Horace ... Rochefoucault" - Horace (68 - 5 BC), Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744), Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679), Voltaire (1694 - 1778), Diogenes (4th Century BC), the Duc de la Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680) are all admired by Mr. Clare for their satirical views on society. {Rochefoucauld is the correct spelling}
2 - "a well-reputed grammar-school" - A grammar school subsidized by private endowments.
3. - "The Rivals by the famous what's-his-name" - Richard Sheridan (1751 - 1816). "The Rivals" was first performed in 1775.
Chapter Five
1. - "Argus" - Creature from Greek myth with numerous eyes, famed for his watchfulness.
Chapter Eight
1. - "parliamentary train" - A slow, cheap train. All railway companies were obliged to run one such service each day by Act of Parliament.
Chapter Thirteen
1. - "Major Kirke" - In the serial version the superior officer who helped Andrew Vanstone is anonymous.
BETWEEN THE SCENES
1. - "she and her sister had No Name" - Collins had enormous difficulty deciding on the book's title. On the first page of the manuscript he labels it simply "Wilkie Collins's Story", and a note in the top left-hand corner runs: 'The title was not determined on when the first page was written.' So matters stayed right up until weeks before serialization was due to begin on March 15. On January 24, Dickens wrote in answer to a plea for suggestion with twenty-seven possible titles, most of a staggering banality. On February 4, Collins sent his mother a short-list of eight possibilities, on which "No Name" does not appear. Collins added this reference, and another in Magdalen's following letter, after finally hitting on the book's title some time in February. They do not appear in the manuscript. For further details, see Virginia Blain's 'The Naming of "No Name"', Wilkie Collins Society Journal, 4 (1984), pp 25-29.
2. - "the country theatres are in a bad way" - Provincial theatres were in general decline in England during the nineteenth century.
THE SECOND SCENE
Chapter One
1. - "the railway mania of that famous year" - 1846 witnessed an enormous boom in investment in railway stocks and shares. In 1847 came the crash, in which many small investors, like Wragge, lost savings.
2. - "a rope-walk" - A piece of open ground where ropes are made.
Chapter Two
1. - "mendicity officers" - Professional investigators who inquired into the validity of paupers' claims for relief. They were employed by the Society for the Suppression of Mendicity, founded in 1818.
2. - "Rothschild or Baring" - Famous bankers.
Chapter Three
1. - "your benefit in a London theatre" - Performance from which the profits went directly to a particular actor. The system of paying performers through benefits had more of less died out by the 1840's.
BETWEEN THE SCENES
1. - "the late inimitable Charles Mathews, comedian" - Mathews (1776 - 1835) was a performer famous for his 'At Homes', during the course of which he assumed a large variety of different characters.
THE THIRD SCENE
Chapter One
1. - "Belshazzar ... the Writing on the Wall" - Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar. His demise was predicted in words written by a mysterious hand on the wall of his palace (Daniel, 5).
2. - "the deserted dead body of Vauxhall Gardens" - A famous pleasure spot for over a hundred and fifty years, Vauxhall Gardens was more or less derelict by the 1840's, and was closed in 1859.
BETWEEN THE SCENES
1. - "Joyce's Scientific Dialogues" - Published in 1807, it was reprinted many times thereafter. All of Wragge's scientific facts are borrowed straight from this book.
2. - "Verbum Sap" - Abbreviation of 'Verbum satis sapiente': a word to the wise is enough.
3. - "Esto Perpetua" - Be you everlasting
THE FOURTH SCENE
Chapter One
1. - "Aldborough" - Collins visited Aldburgh, as it is usually spelt, in the summer of 1861 to scout locations for this section of the book.
2. - "The German Ocean" - Now called the North Sea.
3. - "The poet Crabbe" - George Crabbe (1754 - 1832) wrote mainly narrative poetry set in this part of Suffolk. Collins was a great admirer of his work.
4. - "Ars longa ... vita brevis" - Art is long, life is short
Chapter Six
1. - "sauviter in modo, fortiter in re" - Gentle in manner, resolute in deed.
Chapter Eight
1. - "whether I shall press him or not on the subject of settlements" - It was customary for fathers or guardians to draw up legal settlements stipulating separate provisions for their daughters on marriage. Without such settlements, all a married woman's property legally belonged to her husband.
2. - "Figaro" - Epitome of a clever rogue. Figaro is a barber in Beaumarchais's "Le Barbier de Seville" (1775), and the valet in its sequel, "Le Mariage de Figaro (1784).
Chapter Nine
1. - "the date" - the postmark
Chapter Thirteen
1. - "the Spud" - The iron head or blade fixed to a handle and used for cleaning parts of a plough.
THE FIFTH SCENE
Chapter Two
1. - "threw the laudanum out of the window, and the empty bottle after it" - It was Dickens who counselled the destruction of the laudanum bottle: 'I think Mrs. Lecount should break it before Noel Vanstone's eyes. Otherwise, while he is impressed with the danger he supposed himself to have escaped, he repeated it, on a smaller scale, by giving Mrs. Lecount an inducement to kill him, and leaving the means at hand' (Letter of October 14, 1862).
Chapter Three
1. - "Anything that publicly assumed to be a marriage, was a marriage ... in Scotland" - In Scotland, long-term cohabitation constitutes a legal marriage.
THE SEVENTH SCENE
Chapter One
1. - "made-dishes" - Stews or casseroles
Chapter Three
1. - "the revolution which expelled Louis Philippe from the throne of France" - The revolution of 1848. Louis Philippe escaped to England in February of that year.
Chapter Four
1. - "Jezabel" - An epitome of the lascivious, unprincipled woman (2 Kings, 9:30). {should be spelled Jezebel}
2. - "carneying" - Sly, flattering talk
THE LAST SCENE
Chapter One
1. - "a surgeon in general practice" - Although surgeons in general practice had a lower social status than physicians, they took pride in their greater reliability and competence in practical medicine.
2. - "Lady Day" - The feast of the Annunciation (March 25), and one of the quarter days on which rents are due.
3. - "tan" - Fragments of bark left over from the tanning of hides.
Chapter Two
1. - "Dum vivimus, vivamus!" - While we live, let us live!
2. - "Aloes, Scammony and Gambage" - Potent purgatives
Teresa, this is so great -- and will certainly help in clarifying the language as we go along. We are off to a good start thanks to you and the other interested Vics!
I believe I have noticed some additional within my edition, I will check later and I will add those as we get started -- any particular ones that seem helpful. Thank you so much for adding all of these. Wonderful!
Thanks SarchC and Teresa for adding this most useful piece which to me is invaluable. The book I have has nothing like this. Make it a great day.
In number 15 of the Explanatory Notes in my edition it states and I quote......'Magdalen; probably pronounced as it was sometimes spelt, 'Madlin' from the French form, Madeline. The name Magdalen is identified with the sinner of Luke 7:37.'In the Bible she is just described as 'a sinner'.
I am also slightly disadvantaged in that I am also exposed to it being pronounced as 'Maudlyn' as in how they pronounce it in 'Magdalen College Cambridge'.....and this is how I found myself pronouncing her name.
Thanks, Theresa, for all these notes! As a not native-english speaker (and reader) I sometimes skip words (too lazy to look them up in a dictionary) when I think they are not important for the story. So it is really nice to have some things explained! I like the bit about the name for the book. He couldn't decide what name to give it, so he gave it 'no name'. And it suits the story.
This was an interesting blog post regarding the Scene structure of No Name.http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot...
I'm thinking that the name of Magdalene may have come from Mr Vanstone's Puritan parents. I'm working on a timeline. Puritans tended to give their kids Biblical names (some are very odd) and if Mr V is 52 when he dies, and is the you gets of the children, and his brother is 70, that might be right.
SarahC I found the blog very interesting. It made look at the novel with new eyes. I love everybody's comments. It enriches the whole reading process.
Susibharathi wrote: "SarahC I found the blog very interesting. It made look at the novel with new eyes. I love everybody's comments. It enriches the whole reading process."I agree with you. I learn a lot from all these comments. And it is great to hear what others think of the book!
Teresa wrote: "I'm thinking that the name of Magdalene may have come from Mr Vanstone's Puritan parents. I'm working on a timeline. Puritans tended to give their kids Biblical names (some are very odd) and if M..."Teresa, could you expand on what you were saying? It was very interesting, but I didn't quite understand. I am always very interested in the origins of names within families -- real and fictional! Please share more.
Bharathi wrote: "SarahC I found the blog very interesting. It made look at the novel with new eyes. I love everybody's comments. It enriches the whole reading process."Thank you, I am getting behind, but hope to find more to post. I found some articles, but one was through log-in with Jstor. So many interesting articles about Collins and his work.
This thread is a great idea and certainly very helpful. As I am planning to post comments on No Name shortly, I feel my feet planted more firmly on the ground.
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/A...This is a great resource: a dictionary to look up words and phrases commonly found in many classic literature books.
The duties of a Victorian Parlour-maid are described on this page. I tried to paste it, but the character limit of the post was reached -- Parlour-maids are busy!http://www.victorianlondon.org/cassel...
For anyone interested in the play Magdalen and Frank act in, there is a good summary here:http://www.theatrehistory.com/irish/r...
and some extra information on Sheridan and his play in this article:
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2004...
As it was a popular play I assume Wilkie Collins' audience would have been mostly familiar with it.
It is interesting as an intertextual piece, as 'The Rivals' focuses on marrying for money, false identity and trickery.
An article about Collins' personal life and also referencing a film starring Tom Hollander. Has anyone seen it?http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...
Here's an article about Puritan names that I was thinking might apply to Magdalen's name. I thought that Andrew Vanstone's parent's might have named their child Magdalen as a way of making the female remember to be chaste. I think that the timing is off about a hundred years, though, the Puritans naming their kids would have died out around 1662 (per the article) and the oldest son (Michael) is 70 in 1846, meaning that he was born in 1776. In the book Magdalen is named for Andrew's sister, who would have been born between 1776 and 1806. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/...
Whimsical wrote: "Serialization of No Name by Wilkie Collins.."Two interesting things I took from that article.
First, I had no idea that Collins had written so many novels (19). If memory serves, that's a couple more than Dickens wrote.
Second, the comment on the cost of "the uniform publication of new novels in three volumes at the
prohibitive retail price of half a guinea a volume" reminds us that because books were still very expensive, home libraries at the time were a considerable luxury, and a large private library an indication of some wealth. Today, we think of books as relatively cheap (though in the past five or ten years new hardbacks are becoming less so), so almost any family who wants them can afford a well stuffed bookcase or two. It's hard for me to imagine living in a time when, unless I were one of the 1% or so,I would lucky to own more than a copy of the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress.
Everyman wrote: "First, I had no idea that Collins had written so many novels (19). If memory serves, that's a couple more than Dickens wrote. "Dickens wrote 15 novels, plus short stories, and a few non fiction pieces like 'American Notes'. As I understand it they did feel a certain level of competition with each other within their friendship.
As the discussion begins, any information you feel would serve better within the actual discussion threads, please add there.
I look forward to exploring this interesting novel with you all.