This standout edition of The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque redefines traditional expectations for an edition and its editors while advancing new forms of possibility and best practices for emerging scholar-practitioners.
The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque
Winner of the 2023-4 Modern Language Association Prize for a Scholarly Edition
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Today, Jane Austen’s characters are household names: Mr. Darcy, Emma Woodhouse, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. During the 1810s, however, the decade during which Austen published her novels, they were all eclipsed by Doctor Syntax. The scrawny clergyman astride his rawboned nag, traipsing around England in search of picturesque sights, delighted readers the country over, including Austen herself. Indeed, she may have had a special appreciation for the poem. Many of the central themes of this forgotten bestseller, from the plight of poor clergy to the aesthetic theory known as the picturesque, were ones she was exploring in her own work.
This edition offers an array of critical resources that put The Tour of Doctor Syntax and its most famous reader in conversation. These include a Biographical Essay on William Combe, a Contextual Essay on the picturesque, and abundant notes on the text, many of which draw direct connections between the poem and Austen’s life and work. All thirty-one of Thomas Rowlandson’s celebrated aquatints are included in this volume as well.
Author(s)
William Combe
Editor(s)
Aidan Bekendam, Annika Ross, April Wen, Ben Wiebracht, Edithe Lam, Ethan Yun, Ferris Haukom, Isabella Romagnoli, Jacob Bryant, Jiayun Zhang, Madeline Ayer, Mayuko Karakawa, Nicolás Zepeda, Noelle Wu, Rathan Muruganantham, Sabine Mazzeo, Silas Wesner
Reviews
Now, thanks to this beautifully edited and lavishly annotated and illustrated reader’s edition produced by Ben Wiebracht and his students at Stanford Online High School, everyone may enjoy Doctor Syntax. [...] Wiebracht and his fellow editors carefully gloss now-obscure references with two sets of in-text notes to help readers pick up the Georgian jokes: One set elucidates Combe’s text, while the other illuminates specific connections to Austen and her works. Helpful biographies, maps, and chronologies also guide any reader unfamiliar with the contexts. The result is a delightfully readable text.