Scope and content:

This series contains material from twenty-four of J. Hillis Miller's longer works. It includes preparatory notes, handwritten manuscripts, annotated and edited drafts, galley proofs, correspondence with publishers and editors, as well as other publication and printing information. Three of Miller's books, The Lessons of Paul de Man, On Literature, and Reading for Our Time: Adam Bede and Middlemarch Revisited are not represented in this collection. Because many of Miller's essays and lectures were later reworked into book chapters, or vice versa, some titles appear in both the books and articles, lectures, and reviews subseries. Preparatory notes, outlines, and manuscripts for some of Miller's books are also in his journals in the notes series.

Charles Dickens: the World of His Novels, Miller's first book, contains material from his unpublished doctoral thesis. In many places, pages from the original thesis have been inserted into chapter drafts for the book. This work was given three different working titles: The Mental Universe of Dickens, The Imagination of Dickens, and The Symbolic Imagery of Charles Dickens.

Materials for The Survey of British Literature were to be part of a textbook anthology commissioned by publishers Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, for which Northrop Frye served as general editor. Other editors for the project, including Miller, were to prepare introductions on certain periods in English literature and various authors. Miller's contribution focuses on Victorian literature and authors. This anthology was never published.

Victorian Subjects, Tropes, Parables, Performatives, and Theory Now and Then are books of collected essays spanning J. Hillis Miller's career. Many of the materials date from the original publication of articles rather than their reprint date as part of a larger work. All three volumes were contracted at the same time with the same publisher.

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