NEWS

Robbins’ fifth edited book published

Oct 12, 2011 | General News, Liberal Arts

Louisiana Tech English professor Dr. Dorothy Dodge Robbins has recently had her fifth edited book, “Critical Insights: Mrs. Dalloway,” published  by Salem Press.
The 360-page work contains seven original chapters, including one from the “Paris Review” prepared exclusively for this volume.  In addition, 10 previously published works are included based on their contributions to Woolf studies in this area.  Finally, a detailed bibliography of recent “Mrs. Dalloway” scholarship is provided to direct readers to additional sources of study.
Along with editing the volume and writing its introduction, Robbins contributed the article “About Mrs. Dalloway,” an overview of Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel that includes information about the work’s origins and composition.  Robbins said she considers Woolf’s rejection of Victorian realism and the novelist’s efforts to create a new form for the novel appropriate for a new age.  Robbins asserts that while “Mrs. Dalloway” breaks with Victorian realism, it pays homage to an earlier group of writers, the Romantics.  Poet John Keats and his aesthetic theory are discussed as an important, but often neglected, influence upon “Mrs. Dalloway.”  Finally, she evaluates the novel’s legacy in terms of its numerous literary and cultural offspring.
“The purpose behind this volume is three-fold: to enhance readers’ understanding of this work; to facilitate research and new writing about Mrs. Dalloway; and to foster greater appreciation of Woolf’s acclaimed novel,” Robbins said.
In its review of the “Critical Insights” series, “Library Journal” noted, “This series makes a valuable addition to academic libraries supporting literature students both at undergraduate and at graduate levels as it presents different views and more in-depth articles than those found in such series as ‘Bloom,’ ‘Literary Criticism’ and ‘Contemporary Literary Criticism.’”
The book is available at Salempress.com, Amazon.com and other national book retailers.  Prior to editing “Critical Insights: Mrs. Dalloway,” Robbins co-edited, with colleague and husband Dr. Kenneth Robbins, four previous books: the award-winning “Christmas Stories from Ohio” (Kent State University Press, 2010); “Christmas Stories from Georgia” (University Press of Mississippi, 2005); “Christmas on the Great Plains” (University of Iowa Press, 2003); and “Christmas Stories from Louisiana” (University Press of Mississippi, 2003).