Modern Fiction and its Phantoms

The fiction of the turn of the twentieth century is driven by the nonhuman. Characters and narrators alike are ousted by things, animals, environments, and all manner of inhuman otherness. Modern Fiction and its Phantoms reads the novels of Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Richardson alongside ghost stories by M. R. James, Vernon Lee, and others, in order to explore how this autonomous world creeps close to the self. We recall the kitchen table Lily fails to picture when she is "not there" in To The Lighthouse. Lily can only summon a table which is as much entangled with her imagination as with a pear tree. A beyond-human reality is imperceptible, un-writeable. Yet I wish to highlight a notable aspect of such characteristic modern apophasis: that radical alterity is frequently illegible not because it is inaccessible to signs but because it is in league with signs. Alterity dwells in, and usurps us through, the processes and structures of fiction. It is lively; coalescing in the voice, the momentum, the meaning-making devices of fiction. It arises, disconcertingly, out of all that seems most human about narrative. The conspiratorial collusion between the nonhuman and the symbolic is something we should all recognise from the ghost story. Indeed, metaleptic horror stories about documents coming to life peaked as the nineteenth century edged into the twentieth. But that phantasmal relationship is also distinctly present in domestic, modernist novels. These are narratives in which signifiers share an eerie proximity with signifieds and symbolic worlds collapse into real worlds. On the one hand, this is a form of extreme mimeticism (the realist tradition is visible here, as it was inherited and distorted). But it can also be understood as a particular strain of modern abstraction, in which literary style is understood as a stronghold of otherness, and in which the individual is not so much alienated by an inhospitable world but rather, through this aesthetic intimacy, brought into sudden contact with it. The fiction of the turn of the twentieth century in Britain was haunted by a relentless realism

Shakespeare and Company Project Dataset: Lending Library Members

All data is related to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library opened and operated by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1919–1962.The Shakespeare and Company Project: Lending Library Members dataset includes information about approximately 5,700 members of Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company lending library.Princeton University Center for Digital Humanities, Office of the Dean for Research, Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities, Humanities Council, David A. Gardner '69 Magic Grants, Office of the Dean of Faculty, and the University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences.1.

Shakespeare and Company Project Dataset: Lending Library Books

All data is related to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library opened and operated by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1919–1962.This dataset includes information about approximately 6,000 books and other items with bibliographic data as well as summary information about when the item circulated in the Shakespeare and Company lending library and the number of times an item was borrowed or purchased.The Shakespeare and Company Project has received support from Princeton University’s Center for Digital Humanities; Humanities Council and the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project Fund; University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Dean’s Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities; the Bain-Swiggett Fund, Department of English; and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities.1.

Shakespeare and Company Project Dataset: Lending Library Members, Books, Events

All data is related to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library opened and operated by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1919–1962.The Shakespeare and Company Project makes three datasets available to download in CSV and JSON formats. The datasets provide information about lending library members; the books that circulated in the lending library; and lending library events, including borrows, purchases, memberships, and renewals. The datasets may be used individually or in combination site URLs are consistent identifiers across all three. The DOIs for each dataset are as follows: Members (https://doi.org/10.34770/ht30-g395); Books (https://doi.org/10.34770/g467-3w07); Events (https://doi.org/10.34770/2r93-0t85).The Shakespeare and Company Project has received support from Princeton University’s Center for Digital Humanities; Humanities Council and the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project Fund; University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Dean’s Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities; the Bain-Swiggett Fund, Department of English; and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities.1.

Shakespeare and Company Project Dataset: Lending Library Events

All data is related to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library opened and operated by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1919–1962.The events dataset includes information about approximately 33,700 lending library events including membership activities such as subscriptions, renewals and reimbursements and book-related activities such as borrowing and purchasing. For events related to lending library cards that are available as digital surrogates, IIIF links are provided.The Shakespeare and Company Project has received support from Princeton University’s Center for Digital Humanities; Humanities Council and the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project Fund; University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Dean’s Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities; the Bain-Swiggett Fund, Department of English; and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities.1.

Shakespeare and Company Project Dataset: Lending Library Members

All data is related to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library opened and operated by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1919–1962. Version 1.1 adds 859 addresses and reduces the total number of members from 5726 to 5601 by merging records that belonged to the same member and removing mistaken records. This update includes other corrections, including VIAF links for some members. See ScoData_members_v1.1_changelog.txt for more information.The Shakespeare and Company Project: Lending Library Members dataset includes information about approximately 5,600 members of Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company lending library.The Shakespeare and Company Project has received support from Princeton University’s Center for Digital Humanities; Humanities Council and the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project Fund; University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Dean’s Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities; the Bain-Swiggett Fund, Department of English; and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities.1.

Shakespeare and Company Project Dataset: Lending Library Books

All data is related to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library opened and operated by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1919–1962. Version 1.1 adds seven books and 230 ebook_url entries, and inaccurate publication dates have been corrected. See also ScoData_books_v1.1_changelog.txt.This dataset includes information about approximately 6,000 books and other items with bibliographic data as well as summary information about when the item circulated in the Shakespeare and Company lending library and the number of times an item was borrowed or purchased.The Shakespeare and Company Project has received support from Princeton University’s Center for Digital Humanities; Humanities Council and the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project Fund; University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Dean’s Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities; the Bain-Swiggett Fund, Department of English; and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities.1.

Shakespeare and Company Project Dataset: Lending Library Events

All data is related to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library opened and operated by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1919–1962. Version 1.1 adds two new fields and 1,290 events. Mistakes have been corrected and missing dates have been added. The two new fields provide the duration of borrowing events in days (when possible) and the source type or types of every event: lending library cards, logbooks, address books. To represent events that have multiple sources, three fields are now multivalued: source_citation, source_manifest, source_image. See ScoData_events_v1.1_changelog.txt for more information.The Shakespeare and Company Project: Lending Library Events dataset includes information about approximately 35,000 lending library events including membership activities such as subscriptions, renewals and reimbursements and book-related activities such as borrowing and purchasing. For events related to lending library cards that are available as digital surrogates, IIIF links are provided.The Shakespeare and Company Project has received support from Princeton University’s Center for Digital Humanities; Humanities Council and the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project Fund; University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Dean’s Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities; the Bain-Swiggett Fund, Department of English; and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities.1.

Shakespeare and Company Project Dataset: Lending Library Members, Books, Events

All data is related to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library opened and operated by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1919–1962. For version 1.1 of the Shakespeare and Company datasets, we augmented and refined our data, and added two new fields to the events dataset. We added 859 addresses to the members dataset, seven books and 230 eBook links to the books dataset, and 1,290 events to the events dataset. We also reduced the number of members in the members dataset from 5726 to 5601 by merging records that belonged to the same member and removing mistaken records. In all three datasets, we corrected mistakes—for example, publication dates of books, VIAF links for members—and added missing dates. The two new fields in the events dataset provide the duration of borrowing events in days (when possible) and the source type or types of every subscription and borrowing event: lending library cards, logbooks, address books. To represent events that have multiple sources, we made three fields in the events dataset multivalued: source_citation, source_manifest, source_image. For more specific information, see change logs included with the individual datasets.The Shakespeare and Company Project makes three datasets available to download in CSV and JSON formats. The datasets provide information about lending library members; the books that circulated in the lending library; and lending library events, including borrows, purchases, memberships, and renewals. The datasets may be used individually or in combination site URLs are consistent identifiers across all three. The DOIs for each dataset are as follows: Members (https://doi.org/10.34770/nsa4-3t76); Books (https://doi.org/10.34770/079z-h206); Events (https://doi.org/10.34770/rtbp-kv40).The Shakespeare and Company Project has received support from Princeton University’s Center for Digital Humanities; Humanities Council and the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project Fund; University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Dean’s Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities; the Bain-Swiggett Fund, Department of English; and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities.1.

Shakespeare and Company Project Dataset: Lending Library Members

All data is related to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library opened and operated by Sylvia Beach in Paris, 1919–1962. For version 1.2 adds 162 addresses, 126 VIAF numbers, and decreases the total number of members from 5,601 to 5,235 by matching previously unmatched accounts. See ScoData_members_v1.2_changelog.txt for more information.The Shakespeare and Company Project: Lending Library Members dataset includes information about approximately 5,200 members of Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company lending library.The Shakespeare and Company Project has received support from Princeton University’s Center for Digital Humanities; Humanities Council and the David A. Gardner ’69 Magic Project Fund; University Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences; the Dean’s Innovation Fund for New Ideas in the Humanities; the Bain-Swiggett Fund, Department of English; and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities.SCoData_members_v1.2_2022-01_README.txt SCoData_members_v1.2_2022-01.csv SCoData_members_v1.2_2022-01.json ScoData_members_v1.2_changelog.txt SCoData_members_v1.2_removed.csv SCoData_members_v1.2_2022-01_datapackage.jso