Calvin Olsen and Dr. Susan Howe, English

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Mary Anne Evans, who wrote under the pen name George Eliot, was a novelist in Victorian England. Like other women writers of the time, she used a pseudonym so that her work would be taken seriously. She is most widely recognized for her novels, but she also wrote non-fiction geared toward academic audiences of the time. In 1852 she took over as editor for the Westminster Review, a journal interested in becoming “an instrument for the development and guidance of earnest thought on Politics, Social Philosophy, Religion, and General Literature.” The Westminster Review had recently assimilated the smaller Foreign Quarterly Review, so Eliot was working behind the scenes as one of the editors, more than likely simultaneously submitting her own written opinion for publication. Queen Victoria had been on the throne for roughly fifteen years and England was quickly becoming an educated, highly industrialized country with a thirst for literary enlightenment.

Near the beginning of Eliot’s editorship, the Westminster Review published an article entitled “The Restoration of Belief.” This article was to be the main focus of my research. My mentor, Dr. Susan Howe, had found the name of this article in a biography about Eliot written by Frederick Karl. We believed that this article would lead us to another article produced by Eliot specifically treating a new upstart religion nicknamed the “Mormons.” There was no copy of “The Restoration of Belief” in the United States, but Dr. Howe and I were both scheduled to participate in a study abroad course in London, and we resolved to find the article written about Mormons and analyze its sources, after which I would write a paper that Dr. Howe would integrate into an article of her own.

Most of my research was done at the British Library in London. The British Library’s archives are some of the best in the world, and the system requires a reading card in order to access the rooms where documents and manuscripts can be requested for viewing. After obtaining a reading card, I spent two or three afternoons a week in the Humanities reading room. Eventually I got my hands on copies of the Westminster Review, one of which contained an 1853 article entitled “History and Ideas of the Mormons.”

This article was an interesting read, and Eliot’s bibliography was varied to say the least. She consulted the Book of Mormon and had also examined other official church publications which would have given her firsthand information about the Church. However, I found that she had also been through a good deal of anti-Mormon literature, much of which was used in the article from the Westminster Review, including John Bennett’s The History of the Saints: an Exposé of Joe Smith.

During my time researching at the British Library, I was also doing research on other works by Victorian writers that deal specifically with outlying religious groups. The works that provided the most material were Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, in which one of the antagonists is a Jew (many of Dickens’ works included anti-Semitic tendencies); John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, a collection of essays including a few paragraphs defending the right of the Mormons to be left alone in the Salt Lake Valley; and Eliot’s own Adam Bede, a novel whose main characters are sympathetic toward or actual practicing Methodists. Each of these and other sources gave me a notion of religious views in Victorian England, and allowed me to compare and contrast these accepted cultural attitudes to Eliot’s Westminster Review article about the Mormons.

After my research was complete I spent the last two weeks of the semester writing a paper on my findings entitled “Ministers and Mormons: George Eliot and Outlying Religious Groups in Victorian England.” I have given the final draft (15 pages) to Dr. Howe and she will expand it, using my research as a starting point for her own. She wishes to locate Eliot within Victorian culture: Was Eliot more tolerant and understanding when it came to these marginalized religious groups or did she display attitudes similar to those held by the majority? She plans to be finished with the final, journal-length paper (25-30 pages) in January 2011, which we will then submit as co-authors to refereed journals that publish work on the subject (i.e. Journal of Victorian Culture, Nineteenth Century Contexts, Victorian Periodicals Review, etc).

The most difficult aspect of my research was getting my hands on the necessary articles. The British Library’s system is immense, sometimes making it difficult to obtain manuscripts. It took some time just to figure out if the library carried physical copies of the Westminster Review. Then I had to find the necessary volumes online, request them through the catalogue system, go through the articles looking for references to Mormons, return the volumes before being allowed to request more, wait for the next manuscript, and then repeat. There were also certain days when volumes weren’t available for viewing (this happened with the volume containing the Mormon article a handful of times) so I couldn’t work chronologically. This study abroad program included extensive travel, and I was working as Dr. Howe’s teaching assistant while simultaneously taking two graduate courses. So between my schedule and the fact that the British Library closes around 5pm made it difficult to spend the necessary hours in the reading rooms. But once I learned to navigate the system I was able to find the correct publications and trace my way to the necessary article.

This semester’s research has been an incredible opportunity for me. With an unfamiliar environment and so much material at my hands it was easy to feel lost in the research, and I’ll admit to being frustrated more than once. However, having accomplished my goal (and then some), I feel that my research on marginalized religious groups in Victorian England helps to clarify postulations still held by society about outlying religions, one of which I happen to call my own.

References

• “Prospectus of the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review.” Westminster Review (January 1852): iii-vi.
• January 1853, Pages 196-230