Research update: on the pitfalls of serial publication

Observant readers will notice that the Chapter numbering of Eliza Ogilvy's commonplace book is missing has suddenly leapt from 5 to 9. Here's why:

One of the hazards of serial publication is that authorship runs in parallel with but sometimes ahead of research, and as a consequence there might be a need to change one’s mind about the structure and substance of writing already published — not just what’s unwritten or in draft.

Ever since starting the book and planning out its structure I have shied away from an absolutely chronological approach and in particular in respect of the disconnect between war and the peaceful lives of non-combatants, which follow a different clock. War is a very chronological act, one battle and its consequences resolutely following on from another. Meanwhile, however, in parallel, people go on living their lives, making work and forming their opinions in haphazard ways. Eliza’s trip to India in 1838-41 was a pivotal event in her life from which two outcomes unfolded, each requiring their own separate but interconnected telling over a period of 20 years: one strand is Eliza’s return to Scotland, her marriage, her emergence as a writer and participation in the network of ex-patriate poets in Florence; the other is British imperialism’s rage across Asia in Java, Burma, China, Afghanistan, Scind, Gwalior, Punjab, Oude, Crimea; then the convulsive Indian uprising of 1857-59; and the return to China in 1858-61.

Eliza’s close and extended family was involved in every one of these wars, most small and in the background, some looming large in the imagination and with lasting effects on political outlook and artistic practice.

I thought I could deal with the story of imperial aggression within the space of a single chapter, but the Sikh war (and Robert Dick’s death and its consequences) took its own; and so did Crimea and the uprising (and the deaths of Robert Hunter and John MacNabb); as too did the Second Opium War and the activities in China of Eliza’s brother and his regiment, the 16th Bengal Lancers, in Beijing in 1860. This has meant that the important domestic, commercial and analytical parts of the story were put to one side for too long. These I will squeeze in as three new chapters between 5 and 6 (both already published, so 6 becomes 9 — in the style of Jimi Hendrix).

So now we have 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, with a gap to 9 and 10. Chapter 11, on the looting and burning of the Yuanmingyuan, is finished and ready to publish, but I might hold off until 6, 7 and 8 are ready. Decisions! They are all part-written, but 6 needs a week or so of work, so I think I’m going to publish 11 in the next couple of days to keep the momentum up. Alternatively, there are two of Eliza’s unpublished poems I’m keen to post. We’ll see!