Dorothy Richardson Scholarly Editions

Dorothy Richardson was one of a select group of twentieth-century writers who changed the rules of prose fiction. With James Joyce, Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf, Richardson invented a new form of writing. Alongside Proust and Joyce, Richardson would have been at the forefront of a revolution in literature. However, although Dorothy Richardson was a key figure in the emergence of modernist prose, there are no scholarly editions of her collected correspondence or her fiction. This is in part explained by the initial neglect of women writers in modernist studies. However, with the Cambridge scholarly edition of Virginia Woolf now nearly complete and editions of other women modernists being planned, editions of Richardson's work are long overdue. This project will redress the current imbalance in literary studies, which has meant that almost all the focus has supported scholarly editions of male authors. The planned Richardson editions will be informed by the most up-to-date standards of critical and textual editing. They will become the standard reading and research editions for scholars and the general reader, making a vital contribution to public awareness of Britain's cultural heritage and of the contribution of women writers to modernism. In addition, the editions will make a vital contribution to textual scholarship in modernist studies. The edition of the Letters will contribute to our understanding of the importance of epistolary networks in the emergence of modernist cultural formations, identifying those who played facilitating roles in these networks, such as patrons, agents, publishers, and translators. The edition of 'Pilgrimage' will allow us to reconstruct Richardson's writing process, contributing to genetic studies of modernist texts.

The editions will be edited by a team of leading Richardson experts, who have worked together for several years. They founded the Richardson Society in 2007, and have organised the biennial international Richardson conferences, and set up the online Richardson journal. The PI has compiled the resources available on the Richardson website and edits the journal. Laura Marcus is an expert on the relationship between Richardson's work and early film. Deborah Longworth is an expert on modernism and the city and has published on Richardson as a theorist of the modernist novel. Joanne Winning has pioneered the reinterpretation of Pilgrimage as an example of Sapphic modernism and is an expert on lesbian modernist networks. The project builds on the work and support of eminent Richardson scholars, who have lent their research materials and advice to the editorial team. Before the founding of the Richardson Society, the key Richardson scholars worked at a distance. Since 2007, research on Richardson has had a renewed focus. The editorial team will bring to the project the advantages of a carefully planned collaboration, which combines the best of Richardson scholarship.

Three additional scholars, Howard Finn, Bryony Randall and Claire Drewery each with particular expertise on 'Pilgrimage' will contribute to the work of particular volumes. Two PDRAs will work on the project for a period of 30 months each: one on the Letters and one on the Fiction. An integrated PhD project will examine how modernist epistolary networks operated to support women involved in modernist literary production. The second integrated PhD project will be a genetic study of 'Pilgrimage', which will use the correspondence, notes, manuscripts, typescripts, editions and their paratexts and epitexts to examine the writing process that produced its various parts and editions. There will be a conference in 2016 at Keele University on 'Gender and Textual Scholarship in Modernist Studies'. The project's collection of Richardson materials will be used to create a small touring exhibition and form the basis of a digitised virtual exhibition, to be hosted on the project's webpages.

Accessibility:
The project will make Richardson's life and work more accessible to the general public, enhancing understanding of Britain's cultural, and specifically its literary, heritage. Currently, Dorothy Richardson's letters are scattered over more than 30 libraries and archives, most of which are in North America, and her fiction is difficult to get hold of. The Virago edition is only available as print on demand. The scholarly editions of the Collected Letters, Pilgrimage, and the Short Stories will make all Richardson's letters and fictional work available to the public in print and (through Oxford Scholarly Editions Online) electronic editions. The editions will enable a better public understanding of an important moment in the cultural history of the twentieth century and will create opportunities for public engagement with that history. The Richardson Society is committed to open access. The Richardson website hosts a detailed, up-to-date Richardson bibliography. The Richardson journal is online and all articles can be downloaded without charge at www.dorothyrichardson.org/PJDRS.

Opportunities for Public Engagement:
The project's website will be hosted as part of the Dorothy Richardson Society (www.dorothyrichardson.org). The project will engage with the public through a blog and social networking media such as Twitter (https://twitter.com/DorothyMR) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/DorothyRichardsonSociety). Regular blog posts will be used as the basis for press releases to broadsheets as well as specialist publications such as the Times Higher Education,Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books. BBC news programmes with an arts brief and specialist arts programmes and podcasts will provide opportunities for wider public dissemination. Examples might include: Radio 4, 'In our Time' and the Guardian Books Podcast. The project's unrivalled collection of Richardson documents and materials will be used to create a small exhibition, which will form the basis of a digitised virtual exhibition. The exhibition will be displayed initially in the Keele University Art Gallery and then taken on tour to places either associated with Richardson's life (e.g. her birthplace in Abingdon, Oxfordshire; Bloomsbury, London; Cornwall) or literary events, both academic (e.g. conferences) and non-academic (e.g. literary festivals such as the Hay Festival).The virtual exhibition will be hosted on the project's webpages.

Economic and Policy Impacts:
The Oxford University Press editions will contribute to the important role high-quality publishing has in maintaining Britain's reputation as a centre for intellectual and cultural production. The Editions will increase public knowledge and understanding of Britain's rich literary heritage nationally and internationally, informing and inspiring current practitioners. A better historical understanding of women's role in key cultural movements of the twentieth century enables better informed policy debates about gender equality in all areas of British society. While the existence of scholarly editions will not have a direct impact on the implementation of policies for gender equality, they do at least provide concrete evidence of feminism's rich history in the twentieth century.

Evaluation
Impact will be evaluated through copies of the editions sold; hits on the Oxford Scholarly Editions Online site; hits on our social media sites such as the website and twitter; visitors to the exhibition; and through media and marketing interest.