‘The Colonial Children Cry’: Jo the Crossing-Sweep Goes to the Colonies

In this article I explore the affective power of Charles Dickens's character Jo, the crossing-sweep from his novel Bleak House, and his broader cultural significance. Contemporary audiences were deeply moved by Jo's tragic death, sparking a vast popular, and especially visual, culture around the homeless white child. Yet, by establishing an affective and moral opposition between white waif and black ‘heathen’, in a relationship Dickens termed ‘telescopic philanthropy’, audiences were directed to care about the white poor with the inference that black people were not a proper object of compassion. Jo's touching story circulated widely across the colonies of Australia and New Zealand, and was put to work in transmitting inherited British values and making sense of local political and social circumstances. By the late nineteenth century the emotional regime symbolized by Jo the crossing-sweep effectively consolidated racial exclusions.     

‘The Standard Work in English on the League’ and Its Authorship: Charles Howard Ellis,an Unlikely Australian Internationalist

Charles Howard (‘Dick’) Ellis, born in Sydney in 1895 and a Great War veteran, was working as a journalist in Vienna and Geneva when he wrote one of the most comprehensive books of the time on the League: The Origin, Structure and Working of the League of Nations (1928). Dedicated to the progressive literary figures of the era and showing a particular debt to the writings of the British Labour left, Ellis argued that the internationalism of the age marked a necessary rejection of the anarchic conditions that brought forth the Great War. The League and its associated institutions constituted ‘the first step toward a world society’ that would facilitate the suppression and ultimate removal of the causes of conflict. A remarkable work in itself, this progressive volume was written by a member of British intelligence who had already made a reputation in this sphere and was to go on to hold very senior positions in the 1940s. The question is considered whether the ideas expressed were a product of Ellis's genuine beliefs, or whether they were a mask for his substantive professional role. The circumstances around the writing of this book are also reviewed in an attempt to answer this question, especially given the hitherto accepted scholarly view that Konni Zilliacus of the League Secretariat was the actual author.     

Redefining the Republic of Letters: The Literary Public and Mudie’s Circulating Library

In late 1860, Charles Mudie’s plans to expand his circulating library inspired his detractors and competitors to challenge the validity of his ‘right to selection’ – the process by which he chose which texts he would loan from his library. Over the next few months, prominent periodicals featured correspondence and editorials that decried or supported Mudie’s ostensible monopoly over literary exchange. While the initial argument was economic, the dispute extended beyond economics to religion, literary quality and culture. To connect these disparate fields, writers turned to the politics of interpretation: that is, whether specialists should define literary culture, or if a public comprised of individual, ‘common’ readers should determine their own standards for books. Mudie’s opponents advocated for individual readers’ right to read what they liked, how they liked. His supporters argued that the public needed specialists to guide their literary tastes. The resulting exchange about what I call the ‘literary public’ amplified conversations integral to the burgeoning field of literary studies as it was emerging in the London colleges through the 1850s and 1860s. The contributing authors, publishers and critics justified or refuted ideas foundational to the establishment of English literature as an academic study for the common reader. As part of the mid-century confrontation between popular literary consumption and academic culture, the Mudie debate helped to politicize the reception and circulation of English literature.     

意大利战争与欧洲国家体系的初步形成

1494—1559年的意大利战争是欧洲由中世纪向近代转型时期发生的最重大的历史事件,它直接导致意大利城邦国家体系的覆灭并融入正在形成中的欧洲国家体系。意大利战争的起源、过程和结果表明,战争为正在兴起的欧洲主要大国西班牙、法国、英国、奥地利等提供了竞技场,进而促成了欧洲国际关系中心由地中海向大西洋的转移,为1648年建立的欧洲国家体系——威斯特伐利亚体系——奠定了必要的基础。     

A Biographical Note on James Maxwell,Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod

This note seeks to clarify the course of the career of James Maxwell, gentleman usher of the black rod in several earlier Stuart parliaments. Maxwell was a Scot who followed James I south in 1603, serving in his household and that of Charles I, first as a gentleman usher daily waiter, and from 1619 as a groom of the bedchamber. In 1620 he secured the office of black rod. In 1642 he failed to follow the king to Oxford but remained with the parliament at Westminster, although largely delegating his duties as black rod to his associate, Alexander Thayne. In 1647, he was allowed by parliament to attend the king at Holdenby House. He died in 1650 as earl of Dirletoun in Scotland, although the circumstances in which he acquired this title are obscure.