brideoffrankenstein | Party Like It's 1899

I promised research posts here sometimes - it'll probably mean my supervisor stays happy with me, impact and engagement and all that uk-government bullshit - so I figured I'd get myself into the swing of it by introducing my research and the kinds of things I'm interested in, what stuff might crop up in this series, things like that.

First off, my research is on someone called William Sharp, who was a Big Writer in the late-victorian period, pals with Rossetti, went walking with Walter Pater, emailed Swinburne and his bf on a regular basis, stuff like that. (Supervisor, if you're reading this, I promise I'll be more professional in the actual writing...) He was a reviewer, a prolific one, and by his own admission didn't make many friends doing that. So when his poetry and prose didn't get quite the reception he wanted, he took on the name Fiona Macleod and started publishing under her name, which was far more popular.

Cool interesting things happen when you look a bit closer. Sharp texted a friend once* that he was "sometimes more woman than a man", and his wife suggests that his death was caused by "the strain of his dual nature". He kept the identity of Fiona very close to his chest, going so far as having his sister write Fiona's letters so they'd be in a feminine hand (whatever that meant in 1894). Repeatedly, he shows a ""fascination"" with women and the feminine, and it's suggested in several places, including by Sharp himself, that William and Fiona are two distinct people. Once, he mentions "leaving [this letter] for Fiona to read when she wakes up" and feeling as if he can hear Fiona's footsteps elsewhere in the house. Whether Fiona is a straight-up pseudonym, an alter, or whether Sharp was trans, we don't know and can't definitively know. As that's not actually my research topic and just an introduction to why Sharp, I think it's not too terribly unprofessional for me to say that I'd be highly surprised if Sharp appeared to me and told me it was the former and he wasn't genderqueer in the least.*

Other cool interesting things Sharp did:

Publish a magazine where he wrote all the contributions under pseudonyms, then had a funeral for it in his garden when it failed
Get snarkily yelled at by Oscar Wilde for publishing a book on Rossetti after R died
Get into a big fight with his Good Pal Hall Caine over said publication (because Hall Caine was writing one too)
Edit what seems like every book in Victorian non-fiction, unless it was edited by Havelock Ellis or Ernest Rhys
Burst in on Ernest Rhys while ER was having a bath, just to tell him he should do an edition of Thomas de Quincey
Have hair like a Disney Villain

So after all that what on earth am I doing.

The thing is, William Sharp knew everyone. Anyone he didn't know, he knew someone who did. He had a finger in every single literary pie going around at the time, and several that weren't.

What I'm doing is that: the network, Sharp as networker, Sharp as influencer and Sharp as lens through which to see the angles and nuances of the Victiorian Literary Market. Does setting himself up as a Friend of Rossetti's help his poetry get published? Does bursting in on Ernest Rhys in the bath mean he gets Fiona published in the Savoy magazine? What kind of network is he using to prop up Fiona's career and what are the differences in expectations of female and male writing? What does his periodical-construction suggest about the periodical industry itself?

That is what I'm doing. I know it sounds dry and niche and terrible but honestly? I can look at anything through that lens because Sharp did everything.

I'm even considering comparing his magazine to a magazine like the Pearl (pornography) because of their similarities in materiality and design - did people not buy his magazine because it looked as cheap as cheap porn?

Which! leads me into my other interests, which might get a look in here - I'm big on Victorian sex culture, especially but not exclusively queer, especially but not exclusively its representation in fiction. I also do gothic - I still like the victorian period best there but my MA was on inter-war gothics so I'm a bit wider on that. Queerness in the late victorian to inter-war is also hugely of interest and I'll probably talk about that soon because I want to do an article on queer masculinity in Rebecca soon.

A couple quick things before I go - these will all be put under the party like it's 1899 banner, just for simplicity's sake, and I'll tag them "work aesthetic tag" because that's what I used on tumblr and I'd like to keep it all navigable.

*yes he did don't @ me
*occam's razor seems to suggest to me that Fiona is a trans woman, or transfeminine nonbinary - both the latter options lead to that answer where only the former shouts "cis!". There's also more evidence in favour of both those options than I've listed here.