Dear Professor McGann,

George Landow suggested I write to you for some advice that he's not in a position to offer himself. Last year, I applied to the NEH for a Scholarly Editions Grant to complete the "Early Ruskin Manuscripts," a collaborative project that I've developed with the Ruskin Programme at Lancaster University in the UK, my own university, and other Ruskin scholars. We did very well, but fell just short of funding. The six "specialist" reviewers unanimously gave us the highest marks, and the NEH panel downgraded us just one notch or a half-notch--but their reasons for doing so are critical. So we're trying to improve the project for reapplication in November. When I asked George for advice, it turned out that he was on the NEH panel and so could not discuss the process, and suggested I contact you, IATH at Virginia, or STG at Brown. I'm starting with you, because I would be grateful to begin with an experienced perspective on a number of issues that need addressing simultaneously.

I'll make this brief as I can, and then I can supply you with further material, such as the narrative I wrote for the NEH application, or the NEH judges' responses, if you should want to see those in a follow-up. Or simply fill in details you may need.

I am primarily a Ruskin scholar, and for many years I've worked on studying and editing the early Ruskin, supported by numerous grants, ranging from NEH, BSA, and other travel and summer study grants to a Beinecke Fellowship. I've reached the point where virtually all the materials have been collected, and a significant amount of the editing has been completed. I have formed a partnership with the Ruskin Programme at Lancaster, with the idea of pairing "Early Ruskin Manuscripts" with Lancaster's edition of "Modern Painters I"--thus making available all of Ruskin, from the beginnings through the first major book. Lancaster contributes its electronic editing team, a graduate student (to whom I've given the project of editing "Poetry of Architecture"), and Keith Hanley's oversight on scholarly and editorial issues (Keith is the director of the Programme). I had also involved a graduate student at Oxford, who was doing interesting work on the geology, under Dinah Birch's supervision, but that student has left the field for law school. Dinah is pleased to stay on, however, as an advisor/reader.

My own university contributes technical assistance. We're not Virginia, but we have a lively master's-level graduate program, with concentrations respectively in traditional literary studies and in "professional writing." My project, it is hoped, will help bridge the gap between those concentrations.

We got high marks from the "specialist" evaluators because the justification, editing, and preparation are in very good shape. The panel downgraded us because we had not convincingly laid out the electronic product--and I agree. I had been relying too much on the Lancaster team, whereas they had been relying on me. I need to take the initiative in this area, and that's where I'd be very grateful for your advice. I got back from Lancaster just recently, where I talked over these issues with the team. (We're moving on this rather late in the summer, by the way, because NEH was so late with results: final decisions weren't made until late June, just before I left on my research trip.)

The NEH panel wants to see more assurance that we can measure up to best practices in electronic editing. Keith Hanley also wants to see a new member or consultant brought on the team, who would provide the expertise in editorial theory with an electronic emphasis. The graduate student at Lancaster was supposed to fill that role, but he has run into deep personal problems the last several months and will have to scale back. The editor of the completed "Modern Painters" edition, Lawrence Woof, has left Lancaster--and, indeed, left academe altogether. The mastermind behind making "Modern Painters" work, Roger Garside in the Lancaster Computing Department, is not really an editor, though he has been doing good work with the Venice notebooks.

Nor can I convincingly fill that role myself: the NEH 3-year grant was supposed to give me time to come more up to speed in that respect. (I should explain that I'm stretched thin here. At SLU, we teach 4 courses per semester, from which I have a release of only 1 course per semester to edit a journal of significant reputation, "Nineteenth Century Studies." I'm something of a one-man show here, which I don't raise as a complaint, but as an explanation why I can't drop everything and read in textual scholarship and hypertext for several months.) Consulting, education, and partnership respecting the electronic product form the crucial missing element in the project. At the same time, if I'm going to be project director, I do need the opportunity to educate myself--not so much in editorial theory (that I can do by myself, given time), but in skills like TEI markup. I can do html, but that's about the extent of my experience.

I see that STG and IATH both offer consulting, and the latter is able to extend services beyond its home institution to a certain extent. Perhaps that would be enough, though Keith I think has the idea of some person becoming more deeply committed to the project--working with me to become steeped in the nitty gritty of the scholarship. I don't know whether that's a realistic proposition. Neither Keith nor Dinah has anyone like that in their pipelines (Dinah in fact is moving to Liverpool), whereas going out and finding someone reminds me of the joke in Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" about advertising in the newspapers for a hermit to occupy the rustic garden hermitage (rustic indeed, in Hammond, Louisiana). Would there be such a creature?

Connected with the need for expert consultation on the electronic product is a fundamental question of designing the project. All the specialist reviewers bought the idea of a complete Ruskin, an edition, with its usefulness extended to historians of childhood, travel, etc. But I think I'm being too conservative in conceptualizing the edition mainly as a Ruskin edition per se. Without sacrificing that purpose, I think it could work in more interesting ways--say, as a site about Victorian childhood and education.

At this point, I'm risking taking up too much of your time. If what I've written is enough for you to go on, I'd appreciate your thoughts about how to proceed and whom to contact. If you need more, I'll be happy to supply whatever further information you require.

thanks very much,
David Hanson