Professor Keith Hanley
After twenty-eight years as European co-editor of Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Keith Hanley retired from the role in 2022. At the end of summer term in 2023, Keith also retired from his role as Professor of English Literature in the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, his home institution for almost forty years. In June of this year, a day-long symposium, “Nineteenth-Century Literature and a Sense of Place: A Symposium in Honour of Keith Hanley,” organised by Keith's longstanding colleagues Professor Sally Bushell and Lindsey Walker, was held at Lancaster Castle. Three leading nineteenth-century studies scholars gave papers at the symposium: Professor Philip Shaw (University of Leicester) spoke on “‘Drunk with the beauty of this world’: Wordsworth After War,” Professor Michael Hurley (University of Cambridge) on “The Charge of God: Chesterton, Wordsworth, Hopkins,” and Professor Dinah Birch (University of Liverpool) on “Anthony Trollope in Ireland.” The editors are delighted to include Dinah's paper, with the kind permission of Oxford University Press,Footnote1 in this tribute to Keith. The symposium was brought to a close by a shared reading of Wordsworth's Two-Part Prelude, followed by a farewell to Keith. Here, in addition to Dinah's paper, the editors present reflective pieces authored by several of Keith's former colleagues at Nineteenth-Century Contexts, Professor Greg Kucich (University of Notre Dame), Professor Barbara Black (Skidmore College), and Professor David Thomas (University of Notre Dame). While their contributions should, of course, be allowed to speak for themselves, they make it abundantly clear just how respected and loved Keith was, and is, as a colleague and friend. The present editors of Nineteenth-Century Contexts will, and do, miss working with Keith, who, as well as being a wise and discerning editor, was a generous, patient, and ever-genial presence at the journal. We are deeply grateful to Keith for making, in large measure, Nineteenth-Century Contexts what it is today, and offer the following contributions to Keith and our readers with heartfelt thanks.
Notes
1 A version of Dinah Birch's paper will appear in her Anthony Trollope: A Very Short Introduction (forthcoming from Oxford University Press).