Submit a Book Review    

Wordcount Limits

• Monograph reviews: 1000 words
• Edited collection reviews: 1250 words
• Paired book reviews: 1500 words

Headnote Format

Please begin the review with a headnote, giving the full title and, if appropriate, the full subtitle of the book(s). Headnotes should be in the following form, in the order in which the books are discussed in the review:

Victorian Liberalism: Nineteenth-Century Political Thought and Practice, edited by Richard Bellamy; pp. vii + 215. London and New York: Routledge, 1990, £30.00, $55.00.

Conservatism and Collectivism, 1886-1914, by Matthew Forde; pp. ix + 222. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992, £27.50.

Contributor’s Note

At the end of the review, please give your name as you would like it to appear in the journal.include a third-person biographical note listing your current position and affiliation, major publication(s), and any current projects. If you wish, you may also include your pronouns. Please limit yourself to approximately 50-60 words; biographies exceeding this word limit will be edited by our staff. We’ve also been asked recently by IU Press to include contributors’ email addresses to encourage social networking. If you are not affiliated with a university or an institution, please provide the city and state (or province, district, and so forth) of your residence.

Style 

Victorian Studies generally follows the latest edition of the MLA Handbook; please consult it for matters concerning style.

• Dates and numbers
  • Please include the original year of publication after the first reference to a text (either critical texts or primary works, including paintings, performances, and so forth). Notable examples include Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy (1869), Mark Crinson’s Empire Building: Orientalism and Victorian Architecture (1996), and John Everett Millais’s The Vale of Rest (1858).
  • For dates, use the day, month, and year in that order, without commas: “15 October 1844.” When referring to decades, use either “1890s” or “the nineties.” Write out all numbers under 100.Dates and numbers

• Quotations
  • Please note that our book review format does not allow for footnotes or a works cited list, and we try to avoid indented extracts. When using a direct quotation from the book under review, please give the page number in parentheses. When directly quoting from any other publication, please mention the author; title of book or article; name and volume number of the journal; publication date; and page number of quotation. Quotations taken from diaries, manuscripts, letters, and so forth should also include citations.
  • Please use quotation marks only for direct quotations: we strongly discourage “scare quotes.”

• Nondiscriminating language
  • Our house style uses language that includes both sexes. We suggest the use of “humanity” or “humankind” for “mankind,” “workers,” for “workmen,” “compatriots,” for “countrymen,” “he or she” or “they” for “he,” and so forth. Another option, of course, is to use plurals such as “they” when appropriate. We realize, however, that in some historical contexts, gender-specific language cannot be avoided.

• First references
  • Please give the full name the first time you refer to a person. Later references should use last name only.

• Titles
  • Please italicize book titles.

• Ellipses
  • Please use three periods, with a space before each and a space after the last, to indicate any omission of text. When the ellipsis occurs between the end of one sentence and the beginning of a later sentence, insert a period (as usual) followed by the ellipsis. Three periods may indicate the omission of one or more sentences, or even of an entire paragraph or more; it may also signify a leap from the middle of one sentence to the middle of another. If the ellipsis is in the original source and not your own addition, please use the phrase “ellipsis in original” after the page number in the parenthetical citation.