Helpful answers to frequently asked questions about the leading trade fair automatica are available here.
When and where does automatica take place?
automatica, the Leading Trade Fair for Smart Automation and Robotics, takes place in Munich every two years.
What are automatica's opening hours?
automatica is opened for visitors from Tuesday to Thursday, 09:00 to 18:00, Friday from 09:00 to 17:00, for exhibitors daily from 07:00 to 19:00.
What sectors and topics are the focus of automatica?
automatica is the leading marketplace for automated production. The trade fair brings together the world's largest range of industrial and service robotics, assembly solutions, machine-vision systems and components. Companies from all branches of industry profit from innovations, know-how and trends with a great deal of business relevance at automatica.
Does automatica have a supporting program and how can I use it?
automatica has a first-rate supporting program. Many of its events are reliable sources of orientation in the age of the digital transformation. They give you a valuable know-how edge in both theory and practice. Your automatica ticket allows you to attend most events free of charge. Tip: Go to our website shortly before the fair and gather information about the events that interest you and whether or not you may need a ticket.
How can I subscribe to the automatica Newsletter?
automatica sends out a free newsletter on a regular basis that features information about the latest industry developments, important topics and everything that you need to know about the fair.
automatica Matchmaking is your digital networking platform. It is a tool that promotes targeted networking with suitable partners. You can look forward to valuable new business contacts and expedient appointments.
Where can I find information about getting to automatica?
Whether you travel to the trade fair by plane, train or automobile, we have put together comprehensive information about how to get to the fair and help you plan your trip.
How do I get to the Messe München trade-fair center using my navigation system?
Depending on your navigation system, you will find Messe München under the categories "event centers" or "exhibition grounds" or under the key word "trade fair".
Some navigation systems allow you to select between the center's East, West, and North entrances. To reach automatica, please use the East Entrance. Alternatively, you can also enter the address "Am Messeturm 4" for the East Entrance.
Does my admission ticket entitle me to use public transportation?
No. Your ticket to the fair does not entitle you to use public transportation services provided by MVV (Munich Transport and Tariff Association) free of charge. Please purchase a valid ticket.
Where can we find information pertaining to our stand in Munich?
Are you looking for a hotel, a private room or an apartment? Please refer to our information about hotels and accommodation.
Do I need a visa, and if so, how can I apply for one?
Generally speaking, citizens and/or visitors from the EU do not need a visa to enter the Federal Republic of Germany. All other participants are generally required to get a visa. Your admission ticket does not replace a visa invitation letter. Detailed information about applying for a visa is available from our visa service for exhibitors and for visitors.
If you have questions about visas, please contact our foreign representatives. They would also be pleased to help you with your travel arrangements.
Where can I check my coat or luggage?
The East and West Entrances at Messe München have a coat check where you can check your coat or luggage for a fee of EUR 2 per item.
Is the Messe München trade-fair center equipped for handicapped visitors?
The Messe München trade-fair center was designed and built to accommodate the needs of the handicapped. Tip: Please contact us by telephone or e-mail to inquire about special admission prices and parking alternatives. These offers may vary, depending on the event in question.
Wheel chairs are available at the entrances to Messe München. We recommend calling Veranstaltungsdienst Paul Mayr GmbH & Co.KG to make a reservation.
Can I use WiFi at the Messe München trade-fair center?
Free WiFi is available in the halls and on the grounds of the entire trade-fair center. Bandwidth is up to 1.5 Mbit/sec and download volume is limited to 50 MB per user per day. You only need to register for WiFi once during the entire event.
Given the above limitations, we definitely recommend that exhibitors order a LAN connection for their stands.
Am I allowed to take photos at the trade-fair center?
Photos may only be taken at the trade-fair center with the prior permission of Messe München.
Am I allowed to bring my dog onto the grounds of the Messe München trade-fair center?
No, according to Messe München's house and user rules, bringing animals onto the grounds of the trade fair center is not permitted, with the exception of guide dogs and other assistance dogs.
What are the participation fees for automatica 2020?
What stand types are available at automatica?
How can we apply to participate in automatica as an exhibitor?
To participate in automatica 2020 you can apply directly online. Based on your responses, we will decide whether your company can be admitted as an exhibitor.
How can we register our exhibition stand?
You need to send us a completed application form that has been signed and bears your company stamp. Once we receive your application, we will send you a registration confirmation by e-mail. Once allocation of stand space is complete, we will send you a stand proposal in the autumn of 2019 (by e-mail including a hall diagram). Please confirm your stand proposal in writing within the prescribed period.
If you do not accept your stand proposal, you may request an alternative stand location or withdraw your application free of charge. Once you have confirmed your stand location, cancellation is only possible against payment of a stipulated cancellation fee. Additional information is available under Item "A 2 Admission" in the General Terms of Participation.
When will we receive our stand proposal?
As an exhibitor registered for automatica 2020, you will receive a stand proposal including stand location and stand number in the autumn of 2019. Exhibitors who register later will be sent their stand proposals successively and depending on the availability of space.
Until when can we cancel my application free of charge, and as of when are cancellations subject to cancellation fees and how high are those fees?
You may cancel free of charge if you send us your cancellation before you confirm your stand proposal in writing. Cancellation fees are incurred if you want to withdraw after confirming your stand proposal in writing. Please note: Cancellations must be submitted in writing.
What services are included if our application is approved?
Your application covers actual stand space. That automatically includes the communication fee (mandatory entry in the Exhibitor Directory—online and in the catalog), the AUMA (Association of the German Trade Fair Industry) fee, and waste disposal at the trade fair center during the trade fair. Your advance payment for services is also invoiced with your registration.
You can also conveniently order additional services such as stand construction, details regarding equipment/furnishings (such as partitions, carpets and electricity) as well as advertising materials at the online Exhibitor Shop. We will inform you as soon as the Exhibitor Shop is available.
What does the mandatory communication fee include?
What is the AUMA fee?
The Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (AUMA) represents the interests of exhibitors, event organizers and visitors at trade fairs and checks and certifies all the fairs' key statistics. For this, AUMA charges a fee that is invoiced by Messe München GmbH and transferred directly to the AUMA.
What dies the fixed waste disposal fee include?
The fixed waste disposal fee covers the disposal of waste produced at the exhibitor's stand during set-up and dismantling during the entire fair. During the exhibition, gray garbage bags (60 l each) will be distributed to the stands for all normal waste generated at the stand. Please place filled bags near the aisle where they can easily be seen before 20:00 each evening.
What is the down payment for services?
As part of your admission invoice, you will be charged a down payment fee for services (e.g. power and water connections, Internet access, telecommunications, additional exhibitor passes, etc.). After the fair, this down payment will be applied to your final invoice for services that were actually ordered.
What additional services can exhibitors order?
A wide variety of services are available, from stand construction to specific market measures and exhibitor passes. You can conveniently order any services you require online at the automatica Exhibitor Shop.
How many exhibitor passes will we receive?
Each exhibitor receives a specific quantity of free exhibitor passes, depending on the size of their stand.
Additional exhibitor passes will be available for a fee of EUR 44 as of February 2020 and may be ordered online at our Exhibitor Shop. Exhibitor passes are only intended for stand personnel. They must be personalized and may not be passed on to third parties. Messe München reserves the right to confiscate exhibitor passes if they are misused.
Please note: Including co-exhibitors or additionally represented companies at your stand does not increase the number of free exhibitor passes. If necessary, co-exhibitors may order exhibitor passes for a fee at the Exhibitor Shop. Exhibitor passes do not entitle the holder to use public transportation services provided by MVV (Munich Transport and Tariff Authority) free of charge.
What are vouchers/online vouchers for one-day tickets?
A voucher or online voucher for a one-day ticket is a free admission voucher for your customers. You may order these vouchers online at the Exhibitor Shop free of charge. Optimize your invitation and contact management activities: Vouchers are an attractive incentive to visit your exhibition stand.
An unlimited number of free vouchers or online vouchers for one-day tickets are available to exhibitors, co-exhibitors and companies at joint exhibition stands. All redeemed vouchers and online vouchers for one-day tickets are included in your participation fee and will not be invoiced separately.
A co-exhibitor is a company or organization whose employees present its products and services at a main exhibitor's stand. That includes the main exhibitor's group companies and subsidiaries.
Can co-exhibitors exhibit at our stand and how can they be registered?
As a main exhibitors, you must register co-exhibitors at your stand. Please use our Online Application form for co-exhibitors to do so. The application fee for each co-exhibitor is EUR 560, and it will be charged to the main exhibitor.
Like the main exhibitor, all co-exhibitors are listed as independent exhibitors in the exhibition catalog and in the online exhibitor directory. They also receive their own account for the automatica Exhibitor Shop.
Until when can we apply to exhibit at the fair?
We begin assigning stand space for automatica 2020 on May 13, 2019. Naturally, applications received after that will also be accepted. Please note: The earlier you apply, the easier it is for us to meet your stand requests. If you would like to submit a last-minute application (as of the spring of 2019), please contact the automatica team.
Can we express a preference for stand location?
When you apply, you may indicate a preferred stand location. When assigning stand space, we do our best to take the stand preferences of all registered companies into account. However, please understand that we cannot always satisfy all requests. That is why we always recommend that you submit your application before we begin assigning stand space on May 13, 2019.
What is the name of the publisher responsible for official automatica media?
Please note: The deadline for entries and logo orders for automatica 2020 is mid-April 2020.
Where and how will our company be publicized?
When you register, you receive a basic entry in the official printed exhibition catalog (company name, hall and stand numbers), in the online exhibitor database and in the Visitor Guide. When the time comes, our media-services provider NEUREUTER FAIR MEDIA GmbH will notify you about additional entry options such as your address, a company profile, your company logo, etc., which are available for a fee.
What are the most important regulations regarding stand construction at automatica?
Maximum height: The maximum stand height is 7.5 meters. This applies both to single and double-story designs and to the upper edge of advertising media.
Open stand design: To maintain automatica's character as a communication and working exhibition, an open stand design is mandatory. Messe München GmbH is authorized to stipulate changes to stand designs as it sees fit. Stand plans can only be approved if the open sides of the stand are designed to be completely open.
Side walls: The use of closed walls is permitted if they take up no more than 70 percent of the stand side in question, and continuous walls may be no more than 6 meters long. Closed walls that are 6 meters in length must be followed by a gap of at least 2 meters. This rule does not apply if a distance of at least 2 meters from the edge of the stand is maintained.
Rear wall: If the rear wall of the stand is more than 2.5 meters high, it must be neutral, white and clean. In this case, only opaque materials that do not let through light may be used (no textiles). We recommend that all exhibitors build a 2.5-meter-high partition along their rear border to neighboring stands.
Advertising mounts: If advertising extends beyond the walls of the stand, please maintain a distance of at least two meters to adjacent stands. Separating walls and panels can be ordered online at the Exhibitor Shop. Advertising panels may not be equipped with flashing or blinking lights.
Aisles: Nothing may be built on or over the aisles.
Flying objects: The use of balloons, airships and other flying objects such as drones in the halls or on the exhibition grounds is strictly forbidden. Exemptions to this rule require the prior written consent of the Messe München Exhibitor Technical Services Division. Only firmly anchored balloons qualify for authorization. If authorization is granted, balloons may only be filled with non-combustible and non-toxic gases. The exhibitor must guarantee that the balloons remain within the boundaries of the stand and maintain a clearance of 2 meters from all stand sides and a maximum height of 7.5 meters at all times.
Under what circumstances do we need to have our stand design approved by Messe München?
If that is the case, please submit your stand design for approval to Messe München GmbH, Exhibitor Technical Services, together with scale stand design plans (floor plan, elevation and cross-section drawings) at least six weeks prior to the official beginning of the fair.
Where can we find stand-building and technical guidelines and information about building materials and fire-resistance classifications?
Stand-building guidelines and information about stand safety such as fire protection for automatica can be found in the Technical Guidelines of Messe München GmbH.
What are the setup and dismantling times for automatica?
Who can answer questions of a technical nature regarding stand construction, setup and dismantling?
If you have questions of a technical nature, please contact our Exhibitor Technical Services Department.
Can vehicles access the trade-fair center during the actual fair?
During the entire fair, vehicles may only enter the grounds of the trade-fair center for a period of 1 hour and against a deposit of EUR 100. Please note: Only until 12:00 on Friday, June 20, 2020.
If the 1-hour limit is exceeded, the deposit will be forfeited and the vehicle will be towed away at the owner's expense. Additional information will be available in our online Traffic Guide approximately six weeks prior to the beginning of the fair.
How can we book advertising and sponsorship offers for automatica 2020?
Advertising and sponsorship offers at and in the vicinity of the trade-fair center are available exclusively to exhibitors, co-exhibitors and companies at joint exhibition stands.
Can we carry out promotional activities outside our own exhibition stand at the trade-fair center?
As a rule, promotion teams are not permitted. You may not use stationary or mobile electronic sales and advertising aids, carry or drive around with advertising media or distribute printed materials, stickers or samples outside the area of your rented stand.
Exhibitors are welcome to book advertising space and sponsorship offers through our Media Sales department.
What are automatica's most important dates and deadlines?
What is our delivery address for automatica 2020?
Please keep in mind that employees of Messe München are not authorized to accept delivery of goods that are intended for exhibitors' stands or third parties.
Whom can we contact if we have questions that are not answered here?
Where can I purchase a visitor ticket, and what do tickets cost?
You may purchase your visitor ticket online starting in February 2018. Admission prices for automatica 2018 will be posted online as of mid-2017.
What are the advantages of purchasing an admission ticket or redeeming a voucher online?
You receive an attractive discount if you purchase your ticket online.
You can enter the trade fair directly without having to wait in line.
You can view your orders at any time and, if necessary, print out your online ticket again.
You can print out a receipt or invoice.
You can edit your personal details yourself.
How do I redeem my online voucher for a one-day ticket to the trade fair?
Online vouchers or online voucher numbers can only be redeemed online at our ticket portal, which will be available starting at the end of 2017. You will need your 23-digit online voucher number to do so. You will then receive your personal Print@home ticket, which you can print out yourself.
Print@home Tickets are free of charge for invited guests. There is no need to inform the ticket service or cancel your ticket if you do not use your ticket.
Why do I need to register and enter my e-mail address to purchase an online ticket or redeem an voucher online?
To maintain our comprehensive service and security standards when it comes to ordering and using online tickets, all Print@home tickets are personalized. That is why registration is required. We also want to refine automatica and develop it further in keeping with your wishes and interests. The answers that you provide during registration allow us to tailor the event more closely to your needs.
You must enter your personal e-mail address because both your Print@home Ticket and your customer login will be sent to you by e-mail. Your ticket will be sent only to the e-mail address that you provided during registration.
Can I change my mind about a ticket purchase and/or cancel my ticket?
Please note that ticket purchases cannot be canceled. Please refer to the General Terms and Conditions of Messe München, which are made available to you during the booking process.
Can I purchase online tickets or redeem vouchers for other people?
No. Due to data protection regulations, everyone must purchase their own ticket or redeem their voucher themselves.
Why does my name appear on each of the tickets that I ordered?
Each person needs to register personally to order tickets. If multiple vouchers for one-day tickets are used to order tickets, the name of the person placing the order appears on all the tickets.
If various people want to use vouchers for 1-day tickets, each person must register separately. If you accidently use the same name for multiple tickets, please contact us by e-mail: registrierung@messe-muenchen.de.
Please note: Print@home Tickets are only valid for specific individuals and are not transferrable, so you may be asked to present an official photo ID at the fair.
How will I receive my Print@home-Ticket?
Once you finish ordering your Print@home Ticket online, you can download and save it in PDF format. A Print@home Ticket will also be sent to the e-mail address that you provided. Please keep an eye out for an e-mail sent by: registrierung@messe-muenchen.de.
In exceptional cases, e.g. if the server is busy, it may take up to 24 hours to send your ticket. Please print out your Print@home-Ticket and bring it with you to the fair. That way you can pass through the turnstiles without waiting.
You may also have made a mistake when you entered the e-mail address in your customer profile. If so, please contact the automatica ticket service: registrierung@messe-muenchen.de.
Yes, you need a printout of your Print@home Ticket to attend the fair because the readers at the turnstiles can only read clearly legible barcodes on printed Print@home Tickets.
For each order, you will receive an e-mail with a Print@home Ticket in PDF format as well as an online link to your ticket.
Please print out your ticket on a black-and-white printer using standard-size paper. If you do not have a printer, you can forward the Print@home Ticket PDF to someone whom you trust and have them print out the ticket for you.
No, the readers at the turnstiles only recognize the barcode if the Print@home Ticket is printed on paper.
On which days of the fair can I use my ticket/multiple-day ticket to attend the fair?
What does the message "Maintenance work on server" mean?
At the end of the ordering process, you did not click on "Order now," which completes the order.
You used the Back/Forward button in the browser during the ordering process. To move to the previous or the next page, please only use the Back or Forward button on the order form.
Is my ticket also valid for the partner exhibitions The smarter E?
Your automatica ticket entitles you to free admission to The smarter E which includes the exhibitions Intersolar Europe, ees Europe, EM-Power and Power2Drive Europe. Please keep in mind that some events may begin or end on different days.
What payment options are available if I purchase my ticket at the fair?
Tickets purchased at the venue can be paid for in cash, with your EC card or with the following credit cards: Visa Card, MasterCard and American Express. Cash payment must be in euros.
No, tickets with personal particulars are not generally transferrable.
Please note: Because online tickets are only valid for a specific individual and are not transferrable, you may be asked to present an official photo ID at the fair.
Yes, your ticket order is binding. If the customer is a consumer as defined by Section 13 of the German Civil Code (BGB), the customer may cancel the transaction in text form (e.g. letter, fax, e-mail) without providing a reason within 2 weeks. Cancellation within the cancellation deadline is only possible until the point in time that the ticket loses its validity.
How can I get an invoice/receipt?
When you place your order, your Print@home Ticket will be sent to the e-mail address that you provided. This e-mail contains the activation link for your customer profile/account. To call up and print out your invoice/receipt, click on the "Tickets" tab.
The e-mail that contained your ticket in a PDF enclosure also contains a link to your customer profile. Please activate your customer profile using the login and password that were sent to you. You can use your customer account to make address changes and to call up and print out invoices/receipts.
It contains a link to invoices/receipts for any tickets that you purchase.
Who can I contact if I am unable to find answers to my questions here?
Please contact our service hotline for visitors or your local contact at one of our representatives' offices abroad.


text:
Célérifère, deutsch ein Celerifer, bezeichnet einen französischem Eilwagen (Schnellkutsche) und nicht etwa ein nicht-lenkbares von Menschenkraft betriebenes Zweirad, das vom falschen Grafen de Sivrac entwickelt und im Juni 1791 der Pariser Öffentlichkeit präsentiert worden sei. Der auf ihr sitzende Fahrer stoße sich und das Fahrzeug  mit den Füßen gegen den Boden vorwärts. Der falsche Célérifère soll vor dem Hintergrund und im  Geist der Französischen Revolution entwickelt worden sein. Die Verwechslung des Celerifers mit dem Zweirad gilt seit Jacques Seray auf der International Cycling History Conference (ICHC) als Fälschung. Angeblich bereits in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts in der Gegend von Nürnberg hergestellte Zweiräder waren eine deutsche Gegenfälschung.

Hörensagen-Mutmaßungen
Diese oft mit Tierköpfen versehenen Zweiräder, angeblich ab 1793 auch als Vélocifère bezeichnet, sollen einen festen Platz in der Pariser Gesellschaft mit in Klubs zusammengeschlossenen begeisterten Anhängern eingenommen haben. 1802 berichtet eine Pariser Zeitung erstmals von Rennen zwischen aristokratischen Vélocifère-Fahrern, die auf der Rue Royale und den Champs-Élysées stattfanden - mit viel Peitschenknallen, also auf Pferdegespannen!
Mit ihnen als Requisiten soll eine Operette mit dem Titel Les Vélocifères von Emmanuel Dupaty am 19. März 1804  im Théâtre du Vaudeville uraufgeführt worden sein. "1808 kam dieses Ding förmlich in Mode".

Von Joseph Nicéphore Niépce wird berichtet, dass er angeblich noch bis 1816 ein lenkungsloses Zweirad im Jardin du Luxembourg gefahren habe. Erst 1818 besaß er ein lenkbares Laufrad; mit der Erfindung der lenkbaren Draisine seien die ungelenkten Célérifères verschwunden. All dies gilt als auf der International Cycling-History Conference widerlegt.

Legende
Die Existenz der einen falschen Célérifère verbreitenden Sekundärliteratur bezieht sich weitestgehend auf eine 1891 erschienene Schrift von Louis Baudry de Saunier. Dass diese aber die Existenz "einer Célérifère" nicht beweise, sprach erstmals Jacques Seray (1977) aus. Für Hans-Erhard Lessing ist aufgrund von Serays Recherchen der falsche Célérifère eine "französische Legende" gegen die Erfindung der Laufmaschine durch den Deutschen Karl von Drais. Celerifere oder Velozifere waren vierrädrige Fahrzeuge in einem  "zeitgenössischen Eilwagendienst", und es war ein gewisser "Jean-Henry Sievrac" aus Toulouse, der "britische Eilwagen 1817" importierte. Ein kanadischer Linguist habe in seiner Dissertation von 1950 auf die Falschübersetzung des Wortes hingewiesen. Baudry de Saunier datierte nach Lessing "den Schwindel auf 1791, damit sein Buch zum Hundertjährigen [Jubiläum der Célérifère] erscheine". Die "de-Sivrac-Legende" sollte nach Lessing "die Erfindungshöhe der Laufmaschine [durch Drais] auf Null" drücken. Eine andere Kritik lautet: Frühe Fahrradhistoriker – wie Saunier – hätten den Ursprung des Fahrrads bewusst in die Vergangenheit gelegt um den Anteil der eigenen Nation möglichst hoch anzusiedeln.

Literatur
 Joseph Firth Bottomley: The Velocipede: Its Past, Its Present, and Its Future. London 1869.
 Ludwig Croon: Das Fahrrad und seine Entwicklung. Deutsches Museum, Abhandlungen und Berichte. VDI-Verlag, Berlin 1939.
 Anton Daul: Illustrierte Geschichte der Erfindung des Fahrrades und der Entwickelung des Motorfahrradwesens. Verlag Creutz, Dresden 1906.
 Anne-Katrin Ebert: Radelnde Nationen. Die Geschichte des Fahrrads in Deutschland und den Niederlanden bis 1940. Campus Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-593-39158-8.
 Franz Maria Feldhaus: Die Technik. Ein Lexikon der Vorzeit, der geschichtlichen Zeit und der Naturvölker. Engelmann, Leipzig/ Berlin 1914.
 Tony Hadland und Hans-Erhard Lessing: Bicycle Design - An Illustrated History. MIT Press, Cambridge, CA 2015, ISBN 978-0-262-02675-8
 Max J. B. Rauck, Gerd Volke, Felix R. Paturi: Mit dem Rad durch zwei Jahrhunderte. Das Fahrrad und seine Geschichte. 4. Auflage. AT Verlag, Aarau u. a. 1988, ISBN 3-85502-038-8.
 Andrew Ritchie: King of the Road. Wildwood House, London 1975, ISBN 0-913668-42-7.
 Louis Baudry de Saunier: Le cyclisme théorique et pratique. P. Ollendorff, Paris 1891.
 Heinz Schmitt: Karl Friedrich Drais von Sauerbronn: 1785–1851; ein badischer Erfinder; Ausstellung zu seinem 200. Geburtstag. Stadtarchiv Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe 1985.
 Peter Schneider: Das Zweirad im Wandel der Zeit. Deutsches Zweirad-Museum Neckarsulm, 1980.
 Jacques Seray: No, Monsieur Baudry de Saunier! The True Origins of the Bicycle. In: The Boneshaker. Volume 10, Number 85, 1977, S. 9–17.
 Wilhelm Wolf: Fahrrad und Radfahrer. Leipzig, 1890. (3. Neuauflage. Dortmund 1988)
 John Woodeford: The Story of the Bicycle. Routledge & Kegan, London 1970, ISBN 0-7100-6816-6.

Anmerkungen

Einzelnachweise

Rollfahrzeug mit Muskelkraftantrieb
Technikgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit
Technikgeschichte (19. Jahrhundert)
Fahrradgeschichte
Technikgeschichte (Frankreich)
Pferd in der Geschichte
1791

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Fake News: Family Didn't 'Flee Town' over Breitbart Story That Doesn't Mention Them
MJ Kim/Getty Images
Ezra Dulis
If you read through the world of left-wing clickbait Thursday afternoon, you may have seen a shocking story about a Jewish family chased out of town by anti-Semitic Breitbart readers because our site blamed them for shutting down a school's Christmas play.
Scary stuff — except that version of the story is 100% fake news.
On Sunday, Katherine Rodriguez of Breitbart News wrote a balanced and, frankly, placid report about an elementary school in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County that cancelled a production of A Christmas Carol, drawing from local reports and one from Fox News. The story represented two claims about the reason for the cancellation: the school district's statement said that the play — in which participation was mandatory — was taking up too much class time, whereas some parents told Fox News they believed a pair of parents complained about the famous line by "Tiny Tim," "God bless us, everyone."
In a report published Thursday morning at local outlet LancasterOnline, reporter Heather Stauffer wrote that a Jewish family had left the county "in fear after being blamed" for the cancellation. The headline on the story's social shares blamed Fox News and Breitbart for their flight: "Jewish family flees Lancaster County after FOX, Breitbart blames them for canceled elementary school Christmas play." As of this writing, the claim has been amplified as an established fact by PennLive, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mediaite, Slate, Crooks and Liars, Raw Story, Media Matters, TalkingPointsMemo, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, and the Forward.
However, a fact check of this story has proven it false — and every one of these sites got scooped by the Anti-Defamation League, which is not a news outlet:
ADL investigated, and found that in actuality, the family left on vacation for winter break.
"News reports alleging that a Jewish family has 'fled' Lancaster County are untrue and damaging," said Nancy Baron-Baer, ADL Regional Director. "We spoke with the family, who explained that they went on a previously-planned vacation for the holidays. Stories like this can sow fear in the Jewish community and beyond, and it is important to stop the spread of misinformation."
The weakness of this story would have been immediately evident to a slightly critical editor at any of these publications. Rodriguez did not name the parents alleged to have made the complaint. She did not claim or in any way insinuate that those parents were Jewish.
According to the parents speaking to LancasterOnline, the parents only asked to excuse their child from participating. There is no apparent connection between their request and the alleged complaint that we reported. Who would conclude that a family objecting to the words "God bless" is Jewish rather than atheist?
By any plain reading, we gave absolutely no information that singled out this particular family — or any identifiable family — as the reason for the cancelled play. And we did not provide any information that could be used to identify them or facilitate any harassment.
Now, how can we have "blamed" a family we did not know of — or write about? The fake news crowd did not take a single second to consider that question, judging by their breathless outrage.
The supposed evidence of our misdeed is a single comment, out of over 1,200, which said someone should publish the address of the family responsible. We do not allow doxing in our comment section and delete such messages as we become aware of them, but again, there is no reason this particular family should have taken that comment as a threat against them.
Yet the outraged left-wing authors pushing the fake narrative have only this flimsy argument of guilt by association. Mark Joseph Stern of Slate makes his case by juxtaposing the aforementioned comment and others, as though they add up to a threat toward or identification of the family who spoke to LancasterOnline: "Several commenters posted the address of the school, and a self-professed white nationalist urged others to 'take action.'"
The larger narrative behind these stories is "The Trump Effect" — the idea that minorities are under threat as President-Elect Donald Trump has emboldened nasty people to carry out acts of racism and hate. Since the election, stories of hate crimes by Trump supporters have made national headlines, without being caveated as claims — only later to be debunked as hoaxes. Over and over and over and over and over again. Yet left-wing reporters continue to promote this fear and paranoia, regardless of the facts.
EducationMediaanti-defamation leagueanti-semitismBreitbart NewsSlate

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Come out and support the ODU Fishing Club Chipotle Fundraiser! You will need to show your flyer to the cashier either from your phone or a hard copy. Please forward this flyer to everyone you know and help get the word out!
Hey ODUFC, we are having our first Spring 2018 semester meeting this Thursday (01/25/2018). It will be held in Constant Hall room 1009 at 12:30 to 1:30. There will be a free raffle for anyone that attends. We will be talking about upcoming events and taking new club t-shirt orders (bring $20 if you are interested). Dues are $25 and will be accepted this meeting. I hope to see y'all there!!!
Come stop by the Information Table and show your support tomorrow.
ODU Fishing Club's big event! Come out and see the club. We will have both our boats on campus fully loaded with gear. We will have a casting and a cast net throwing competition so come show your skills. There will also be other sponsors with us so stop by or help out if you can. See you then!
This will be the first official club meeting of the semester. We will be discussing upcoming trips and progress within the club.
This will be this first club meeting of the Spring Semester. We will be discussing and planning the semester's events. Please bring ideas and any potential new members.
This will be an officers meeting only. We will discuss the upcoming events that will be held in the upcoming year. We will discuss details of the Involvement Fair along with other upcoming on campus events.


The Serpents and the Wolf expands Gale Force Nine's Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery with two new Houses, and adds new cunning Schemes, deadly Gladiators and the vicious spectacle of team combat in the arena during the Primus! Two new Houses; the respected praetor, Varinius and the arrogant noble, Seppius, dramatically change the game's Intrigues. Varinius imposes his will on the noble Houses while the meddling Seppius twists the plots of others to his own nefarious ends. Shrewd new Schemes and frantic Reactions will cause more treacherous assaults and desperate alliances between the Houses than ever before! Houses bid for new Slaves who add to the fortunes of their Dominus with new skills and talents. Combatants learn new brutal fighting techniques as new weapons and armor become available. Powerful new Gladiators stand among the other champions of Capua, ready to make their mark in the arena and earn glory and Influence for their Dominus. Teams of Gladiators battle each other in a grand spectacle of blood and strategy with the addition of the Primus. Two Gladiators are matched against another team of two. Bitter rivals may find themselves fighting side-by-side, seeking favor and reward during these brutal contests. While most Gladiators battle with honor and purpose, beware treacherous fighters who many turn on their teammate when the opportunity arises! Spartacus: The Serpents and the Wolf adds more bloodshed and betrayal to the game in the spirit of the groundbreaking STARZ Original Series.


We can also deliver turnkey automated test and measurement systems.
For highest reliability we use standard hardware and software platforms from National Instruments like for example PXI(e), CompactRIO, DAQ, Motion and Vision whenever possible. And ofcourse LabVIEW and / or TestStand. We take responsibility for all aspects of the project, from the gathering and documenting of requirements and design to implementation, testing and delivery.
We strive for a very high quality, so we offer a standard one year warranty for the developed software.
Don't hessitate to contact us to see what we can do for you.


text:
GrobberNET
The Official Website of Les Grobstein
Bulls again fail to match up with Blazers, lose 91-74
Posted on March 29, 2014 by grobber
The Portland Trail Blazers had dropped three straight games and appeared in danger of losing considerable playoff ground in the tough Western Conference before LaMarcus Aldridge returned to the lineup on Thursday.Two games later, the Blazers seemed to have turned things following a pair of comfortable wins, the latest a 91-74 victory over the Bulls on Friday night.Is the turnaround as easily explained as the return of an All-Star performer? Well, yeah, the Blazers say.Mo Williams scored 18 points to lead five Blazers in double figures. Lillard had 16 points, Nicolas Batum and Robin Lopez each had 13, Wesley Matthews had 11 and Thomas Robinson added 10.The Blazers got past the Bulls easily, despite a quiet night from Aldridge, who was playing just his second game after missing two weeks with a back injury. He had five points and 13 rebounds in 29 minutes after having 25 points and 16 rebounds in Atlanta.
"He is a load down there; a great player," Joakim Noah said. "You can tell when he is on the court, whether he scores or not. He changes their team. He is one of the best in the game."
Carlos Boozer had 16 points and 12 rebounds in 24 minutes to lead the Bulls. D.J. Augustin had 15, Taj Gibson 13 and Noah added 11 points and 10 rebounds.The Bulls, who had a chance to clinch a playoff spot with a win, lost both games of the season series and have dropped 11 of 13 overall against Portland, including five of seven at the United Center.Before Friday, the Bulls had been 10-3 in their last 13 home games, averaging 96.8 points on 44.5 percent shooting during that span. But it was apparent early that they wouldn't approach either of those marks in this one.
"We were flat," Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said. "They had something to do with that."
Getting off to fast starts was one reason behind the Bulls' recent home success, but they were cold at the start, going 8-of-23 (34.8 percent) from the field in scoring 16 points in the first quarter. Minus Boozer's 10 points on 5-of-10 shooting, the rest of the team managed just six points on 3-of-13 shooting.The Blazers had a 47-36 halftime lead and then took charge at the start of the third quarter, beginning the second half with a dunk by Lopez and a 3-pointer by Batum to make it 52-36. In all, Portland stretched the run to 15-2 for a 62-38 lead.The Bulls ended the third quarter on a mini-spurt — including a three-point play on a dunk and foul by Gibson — to trim the deficit to 73-58 entering the fourth quarter.The Bulls got the ball first in the final quarter and had a couple of inside looks on that initial possession, but came up empty. Lillard then essentially dashed any hopes of a huge rally with a 3-pointer at the other end to make it 76-58.The Bulls failed to score 80 points for the 11th time this season and are 0-11 in those games.
NOTES—Derrick Rose, out for the season with a torn right meniscus, suffered the injury in the first game against the Blazers on Nov. 22 and had surgery three days later. … Thibodeau was asked if he was taking part in the Bulls' NCAA pool. "I didn't get a chance to participate," the coach said. "I was looking at that Quicken Loans one. I think I would have won that." That was the contest in which Warren Buffett offered $1 billion to anyone who could fill out a perfect bracket. No one made it through the third day without at least one game wrong. … Portland entered with a 20-18 road record but was 2-7 in last nine.
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We are offering the following opportunities for education professionals to be a part of the team in leading & building this progressive new program.
Locations include: The Backbone Mountain Youth Center (Garrett County), Meadow Mountain Youth Center (Garrett County), Green Ridge Regional Youth Center (Allegany County), & Savage Mountain Youth Center (Garrett County), Alfred D. Noyes Children's Center (Montgomery County). The Thomas J. S. Waxter Children's Center (Anne Arundel County), The Cheltenham Youth Facility (Prince Georges County) - The J. Deweese Carter Center in Chestertown, MD - The Victor Cullen Center in Sabillasville, MD (North Frederick County) - the Lower Eastern Shore Children's Center in Salisbury, MD -AND- the Western Maryland Children's Center in Hagerstown, MD as well as continuing oppportunities at the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, and Charles Hickey School in Cub Hill, MD. Please click here for detailed school & program information.
Click here for our Employment Application For School Staff (MSWord) or PDF Version and the Teacher Application Addendum.
The Charles H. Hickey, Jr. School, located in Baltimore County, Maryland is a State-owned facility operated The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). We have been given the responsibility of developing and implementing the educational programs for the Charles H. Hickey. Jr. School, the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, as well as, other facilities throughout Maryland.
All Juvenile Facilities are secure facilities that serve three separate populations of youthful male offenders ages 12 through 18. Youth in the Detained Program are awaiting trial and are housed in a secure area of the campus. The Impact Program is for adjudicated youth confined for 30 to 90 days. They occupy a minimum-security campus-like setting for academic and transition services. The Enhanced Security Program is for adjudicated youth confined for 9-18 months. The enhanced security area includes housing units providing students access to educational services within a secure environment.
The Education Programs include Middle and High School academic instruction, pre-GED and GED preparation, intensive instruction in reading and mathematics, Special Education instruction and services, career exploration and occupational education, a Transition/Life skills program, and media center services.
Applicants should complete a Teacher Application Addendum for each position you apply -OR- complete the School Psychologist Certification Course Checklist when applying for the School Psychologist position(s). For information about TEACHER CERTIFICATION please use the link provided. Also for specific questions or to obtain materials for becoming a certified educator in the State of Maryland please call 410-767-0412.
Resumes and other employment inquiries may be sent to jobs.msde@maryland.gov. To apply for any of the positions at MSDE, applicants must include their resume and complete a Maryland State Department of Education Application for Employment indicating the position or positions for which they wish to apply. The Application, resume, and any support documentation must clearly demonstrate that the applicant satisfies the prerequisite Minimum Qualifications and possesses the Essential Requirements for the position. Completed Applications must be directed to the Human Resource Management Branch.


text:
Q: Can I put an anonymous function or code as an attribute in directive? Can I do something like:

!!!! I do not want to set height only but things more complicated like watching a CSS style of  an element and set style of this element with some offsets, calculations or more.
I will have a link function inside directive and function out will be called at some places to make my directive much more flexible
How can I bind an anonymous function not Controller function or some JavaScript code as an attribute in directive?

A: In your markup I would do this:

And in your directive use this attribute to set the height of the element to the height of the selector that you have passed in.
In your directive's link function you can do something like this (syntax not verified)
element.css('height', $(attr.setHeightTo).height());

A: With Class.js, I can flexibly extend any directives.
(function (define) {
    "use strict";
    define([
        'BaseClass/BaseDirective',
        'BaseClass/Component'
    ], function (BaseDirective, Component) {
        var AnimateWhenHover = BaseDirective.extend({
            $animate: null,
            init: function ($animate, scope, element, attr) {
                this.$animate = $animate;
                this._super(scope, element, attr);
            },
            defineScope: function () {
                var data = this.$scope.$eval(this.$attr.animateWhenHover);

                this.$scope.selector = data.show;
                this.$scope.overAnimation = data.over || "l2r";
                this.$scope.outAnimation = data.out || "l2r";
            },
            defineListeners: function () {
                this.$element.hover(this.in.bind(this), this.out.bind(this));
            },
            in: function () {
                this.$element.css({"width": "auto"});
                this.$animate.addClass($(this.$scope.selector), this.$scope.overAnimation);
            },
            out: function () {
                this.$element.css({"width": "50px"});
                this.$animate.removeClass($(this.$scope.selector), this.$scope.outAnimation);
            }
        });

        return new Component("animateWhenHover", ["$animate", function ($animate) {
            return {
                scope: '@',
                restrict: 'A',
                link: function (scope, element, attr) {
                    new AnimateWhenHover($animate, scope, element, attr)
                }
            }
        }
        ]);
    });
}
(define));

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Wilkie Collins Society
The Wilkie Collins Society
Reprints and pamphlets
Newsletter supplements
Editorial and Advisory Board
Wilkie Collins: Scholarship and Criticism: Past, Present, and Future
Following his death in 1889 until the third quarter of the last century, Wilkie Collins' critical fortunes were largely at a low ebb. Today, Collins is in vogue, and interest in his work is undergoing its most fertile period ever. He is acknowledged as the pioneer of the detective story, of mysteries, of fiction encompassing the dispossessed, with the fallen leaves of life, those on its fringes as well as so many other areas, including being a pioneer of the post-colonial novel. In an age given to eclectic criticism his large oeuvre provides fertile ground for critical exposition. This paper examines some reasons for the reversal of scholarly and critical fortune. It examines past critical and scholarly investigation and suggests avenues for subsequent scholarly and critical exploration.
We begin with assumptions concerning Collins's "work." It was, for instance, assumed until very recently that his earliest published work was "The Last Stage Coachman," appearing in the Illuminated Magazine in August 1843. However, Daniel Hack's recovery of "Volpurno – Or the Student: A Forgotten Tale of Madness by Wilkie Collins" appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, January 2, 2009 (14-15). This story was published in at least three periodicals in the United States before August 1843, and we don't know when it first appeared. This possibly is the tip of the iceberg, and a trawl through online databases of nineteenth-century periodicals is expected to reveal more. Similarly, Antonina; Or The Fall of Rome. A Romance of the Fifth Century was regarded as Collins's first published novel. However, Ira Nadel's excellent 1999 Princeton UP edition contains Ioláni; or Tahiti As It Was: A Romance, probably written during 1844-45 period, which would predate his first known work, his Memoir of the Life of William Collins Esq. RA. That was published by Longman in 1848. So it wouldn't surprise me if further additions to the Collins canon emerge.
Two research areas that need to be explored are a comparison of various editions of printed texts. For instance, the editions that appeared under the Tauchnitz "Collection of British Authors" series published, as Andrew Gasson notes in his highly informative Wilkie Collins: An Illustrated Guide, "altogether….twenty-eight titles under Collins's name in exactly fifty volumes, plus two collaborations with Dickens." A warning though: "the volumes were frequently reprinted but invariably retain the date of publication on the title-page" (144). These editions need to be compared with the initial serial version, with the three decker (if the novel appeared in that format). Then, there are the instances of American pirated editions. There were many: Canadian ones with British ones, Colonial editions and so on.
The other fertile textual research area involves examining the extent of Collins's collaborations. This refers not only to the extent of his work with Dickens, which has been well covered in Lillian Nayder's excellent study Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, & Victorian Authorship. It is sometimes forgotten that Collins's "final" novel, the serialized Blind Love published a year after his death, was completed by Walter Besant. Apparently, Collins completed forty eight chapters, and Besant needed sixteen more. Further research is needed here.
There is, of course, a need for a complete scholarly edition and the need for a bibliographical history. A start could be made using the Morris L Parrish Collection at Princeton, a great repository of Collins's manuscripts and first editions. Wilkie Collins and Charles Reade: First Editions described with Notes by M L Parrish with the assistance of Elizabeth V Miller, first published in 1940 and reprinted by Burt Franklin in 1968, needs to be supplemented with a detailed account of collections in private hands to form a proper bibliographical history. This would include data on the number of copies printed of individual works, notes on textual variants, publication and compositional history, manuscript locations and so on. Why, after all, should Wilkie Collins lag behind what exists for the Brontës , Dickens, Hardy, George Eliot, and Anthony Trollope, to name but five of his contemporaries for whom such work exists?
Let's now turn to the biographical research areas.
Incredible as it may sound, the first biography of Collins that I can locate is not in English but by a German admirer, Ernst von Wolzogen, whose critical Wilkie Collins: Ein Biographisch-Kritischer Versuch was published in Leipzig in 1885. Apparently, it is based upon information that Collins gave the biographer. Of particular interest is information about Collins's apparent initial sexual contact with women. Collins boasted that at the age of twelve or thirteen, when in Rome on a visit with his parents that he was seduced by a married woman. To use the language of his latest biographer Andrew Lycett, who has a way with words, the seducer was "at least three times his age and [Collins remembered] how he had been consumed with jealousy whenever her husband was nearby." Lycett adds that "it is not difficult to imagine Wilkie venturing into the city one night, accompanied by [his friend Charles] Ward, and meeting a voluptuous Roman lady who helped him lose his virginity" (36). This affair apparently launched him upon a lifetime of pleasure and fascination with the opposite sex.
Such, of, course is the stuff of biography. There is here though a point to be made and that is that interest in Collins has, since the very beginning, not been confined to the English-speaking world. His work has been translated into many languages: Italian, French, German, and Dutch are but four languages that come to mind, and the non-English reception of his work is an area that needs examining. His translators need investigation, the translations need studying, so do the audiences reading him overseas, and their critical reception.
The first biography of Collins in the twentieth century was also in German. Hans Sehlbach's Untersuchungen über der Romankunst von Wilkie Collins was published in Jena in 1931. Kirk H. Beetz in his most useful Wilkie Collins: An Annotated Bibliography, 1889-1976 dismisses this biography as "not very useful" (p.71). Not one but two biographies were published in the immediate post-war years. The first was by a Labour MP and minor cabinet minister the late Kenneth Robinson, whose Wilkie Collins: A Biography appeared in 1951. Robinson had access to unpublished letters from, for instance, the Lehmann and Archer families. He drew upon the great collection of Collins's materials at the Princeton University Libraries and also had some access to letters in possession of A. P. Watt, Collins's literary agent and literary executor. It should be added that the main bulk of the Collins letters in the possession of the Watt family subsequently disappeared for over 35 years. Catherine Peters in her magisterial The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins, published in 1991, was granted access to some of them and paraphrased and cited from those letters she was allowed to read. All these letters are crucial for any biographical assessment of their subject. I will return to this issue later on in this talk.
A year after Robinson's biography, the American Robert Ashley's Wilkie Collins appeared. It, too, drew upon unpublished materials and attempts to, in the words of its opening pages, "rehabilitate Collins the novelist…. revitalize Collins the man and to present unknown biographical facts." For Ashley, Collins has been "the victim of more misrepresentation and slipshod scholarship than any other English novelist of comparable stature," the reason being that "until recently no one had made him the object of a major investigation" (5).
It was not until the last twenty years of the twentieth century that a more complete picture of Collins emerged. For this, credit should be given to two outstanding biographers and biographies. These are William M. Clarke's The Secret Life of Wilkie Collins and the Catherine Peters' biography. Clarke, a distinguished journalist and former financial editor of the Financial Times and of major books on the city of London and, to mention one other, Hidden Treasures of the Romanovs: Saving the Royal Jewels, was a real professional, the most generous and helpful of people. The husband of Collins's great-granddaughter Faith Dawson, William Clarke drew upon family knowledge, manuscripts, and family records. Their house is a monument to the Collins family. In it may be found wonderful paintings by Collins's father and by his brother Charles; Collins's writing table; and numerous other mementos, including many first and subsequent editions. Clarke's biography is important because it is the first to reveal in detail the hitherto hidden Collins ménage a trois of many years, and his relationship with Martha Rudd, with whom he adopted the surname Dawson and had three children.
There are many other revelations in Clarke's biography, including Collins's late infatuated correspondence with the young 12-year-old Nannie Wynne, the daughter of the widowed Mrs. Henry Wynne. Clarke's biography brings to the forefront a central question of any Collins biography: why he never married, or did he contract an early marriage that he lived to regret and kept secret? There is such a marriage fictionally described in his 1852 novel Basil: A Story of Modern Life. It is, I think, not without significance that the novel is dedicated to Collins's close friend Charles Ward, whose brother Ned secretly married in 1848 Henrietta (Ward – no relation), who became a very distinguished artist in her own right. They became engaged when she was fourteen-and-a-half and, in spite of parental opposition, they married when she was sixteen. The two had six children. Ned Ward suffered from depression and committed suicide. Was there in fact in Collins's own life an early secret marriage that prevented him subsequently from marrying?
Catherine Peters, in her 1991 biography and also in her Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry, published in 2004, draws upon unpublished materials. Her depiction of Collins is that of one haunted by a second self and determined on an unconventional life. Peters is also interested in Collins as a journalist, a dramatist — an area only now beginning to be fully explored — and of course as a novelist.
Since the year 2000 – unless I have miscounted – there have been five biographies. The first appeared in 2005, the same year as a four-volume collected letters edited by myself, Andrew Gasson, Graham Law, and Paul Lewis. I talk about this later on and draw attention to the annual updates. The first is by Lyn Pykett in the Oxford World's Classics "Authors in Context" series. This is well written and stresses its subject's exclusion from "polite society." Pykett writes that Collins "was neither an insider nor an outsider" (2). However, Pykett fails to make use of the two-volume The Letters of Wilkie Collins, edited by William M Clarke and myself and published in 1999. The same cannot be said of Graham Law's and Andrew Maunder's detailed Wilkie Collins: A Literary Life published in 2008. In addition to drawing upon the letters, the emphasis is on Collins's professional relationships, his writing life, and the serialization of his work, an area until then largely neglected.
Three years later, Melissa Klimaszewski's Wilkie Collins appeared in the Hespurus Press "Brief Lives" series. It must be confessed that I find this biography to be excellent and the finest short biography on the subject to appear to date. In her "Introduction," the author frankly discusses the difficulties involved in writing a "brief biography of a man whose life was hardly short…. Which events are the most significant? Which friendships merit the lengthiest examination? How deeply to contemplate each literary work and the culture of which it formed a part?" She "attempt[s] to balance attention to these matters as [she] reconstruct[s] the sense of Collins' personal character, discussing his life's work in a manner that encourages further inquiry." She pays attention not to the "frequently studied works… The Woman in White and The Moonstone" but "endeavors not only to provide a substantial amount of information about Collins but also to offer fresh insights into his work and to serve as a valuable starting point for additional studies of his life, his writing and the era in which he lived" (7-8). Ambitious as this may sound in just 145 pages, I think she succeeded brilliantly.
Peter Ackroyd's slightly longer Wilkie Collins biography was published last year; my sense is that it is been somewhat unfairly treated. It acknowledges its sources and is professionally very well written. Its opening paragraph conveys some of its flavour:
The peculiar appearance of Mr. Wilkie Collins made him stand out in an 'omni,' as the London bus was frequently called. At five feet and six inches he was relatively short even for the 1850s and 1860s. His head was too large for his body; his arms and his legs were a little too short, while his hands and feet were too small and considered to be 'rather like a woman's.' There was a large bump on his right temple as a result of a gynecological accident; it was sometimes called 'a swelling of the frontal bone.' (1)
This bump is prominently displayed in a painting painted by Andrew Geddes in 1833, when Collins was nine and with his brother Charles then five. This is now in private hands after having been for over a century in the possession of the Pym family – Horatio Noble Pym, being a close friend of Collins and his circle. It is partially reproduced in Lycett facing p. 142. Ackroyd's next paragraph opens: "He was always aware of his oddity and declared that nature had in his case been 'a bad artist'; he believed that his high shoulders, and his generally broad body, were 'quite out of all proportion' to his large and intellectual head" (1).
Andrew Lycett's recently published biography throws light upon those who were close to Collins, such as Dr. Frank Carr Beard many of whose patients were writers. Beard didn't apparently hesitate to supply laudanum to his patients. The closeness of the Beard-Collins relationship is reflected in the fact that he served as a trustee for Collins's will. Lycett also throws light upon Edward Antrobus, the tea broker and Collins's first employer who cast a blind eye on his writing activities at work. There is in Lycett's book too much useful information on Nina Chambers, one of the many correspondents with whom Collins flirted. She was the wife of his close friend Frederick Lehmann. Another figure close to Collins, Edward Smyth Piggot from Weston-super-Mare, with whom Wilkie went sailing — indeed yachting was a favorite pastime — is also accorded fresh light. However, the biography misses the opportunity to say more about Collins's obsession with the married Jane Bigelow, wife of an American diplomat. She and Bigelow had six children. It should be stressed that Lycett writes superbly well and, to use Paul Lewis's words, his "book has excellent short summaries of Wilkie's books and stories and Lycett's analysis of Wilkie's later works – often dismissed by other biographers – is masterful. The summary of his life in the last few pages is as good as anything I have read" (1-2).
At this point, one should mention more specialized biographical studies such as Susan R Hanes' Wilkie Collins's American Tour 1873-4 (2008) . "The intention of [Hanes's] study is to provide a sense of the America that Collins encountered and, in so doing, contribute to an understanding of the challenges and successes of celebrities who came to America in the second half of the nineteenth century" (p.1). Hanes performs this task admirably and also throws considerable biographical light upon the personalities Collins met on his trip. My own A Wilkie Collins Chronology, published in the previous year (2007), consists of a more or less daily account of his activities.
Largely ignored by other studies is Alexander Grinstein's Wilkie Collins: Man of Mystery and Imagination (2003). Mention of this work serves as a bridge to a consideration of Collins's letters, other approaches to him, including general ones and discussions of individual writings and editions. Grinstein's is not a biography or explanation of his art. Grinstein writes that his "goal has been to provide some added insight into this man's personality or into some of the underlying problems with which he struggled" (2). Grinstein served as a professor of psychiatry and president of the Freud archives in New York. These days, Freud is out of fashion; however, one should keep an open mind and not dismiss a work written from a Freudian perspective. Grinstein has interesting things to say especially on neglected stories, such as the late tale "Mrs Zant and the Ghost" and Collins's relationship to Nannie Wynne. Further, Grinstein provides one of the few discussions of The Black Robe (1880-1881), a late novel the plot of which "revolves around the machinations of Fr. Benwell, a Jesuit priest" (204ff). Also, Grinstein's study is one that not only discusses many of the short stories but reveals their significance and what, according to Grinstein, they reveal about their author.
Let me now turn to Collins's letters and the latest state of play. According to Paul Lewis's wonderfully informative website www.wilkiecollins.com, more than 200 additional letters have been discovered since the publication in 2005 of the four-volume The Public Face of Wilkie Collins, edited by myself, Andrew Gasson, Paul Lewis, and Graham Law. These four volumes contain 2,987 letters, most appearing for the first time, as well as letters in my and Bill Clark's two-volume Letters of Wilkie Collins, published in 1999. More than 200 newly discovered letters have appeared annually as "Addenda-Corrigenda" to the Wilkie Collins Society Journal, 2005, 2006 and 2007. From 2005 to 2011, they were published as a separate pamphlet by the Wilkie Collins Society. Ongoing, they are part of the preparation for a publicly available database of Collins's collected letters. Images of some of these letters may be found at Paul Lewis's website.
I believe what needs to be done is a graphological analysis of Collins's different kinds of handwriting. His hand is sometimes almost illegible – another possible reason why no edition of his letters was attempted until recently. The question arises whether there is a relation between the state of his hand and the state of his health. There are remarkable differences in his writing over differing periods of his life: indeed the whole area of the relationship between health and hand-writing needs exploring.
Collins used an amanuensis, often his stepdaughter "Carrie" –Harriet Elizabeth Graves (who became Bartley) (1851-1905). She was the dedicatee of The Legacy of Cain (1888). From the evidence of Collins's letters, he and Carrie were extremely close. Her mother, Caroline, was the dedicatee of The Fallen Leaves (1879). The title applies to "the people who have drawn blanks in the lottery of life … the friendless and the lonely, the wounded and the lost," words, of course, applicable to the dedicatee whom Collins had rescued when, so the tale goes, she was being chased by a man with a red hot poker. An examination of Collins's later manuscripts reveals the presence of Carrie's hand which is also present in some of his letters.
If possible, the nature of the role which she played in his writing of his compositional methodology needs to be more thoroughly examined. He wrote to deadlines, especially when his work was serialized, as a great deal of it was. An examination of his manuscripts reveals a maze, a patchwork quilt of additions and deletions. I sometimes wonder with amazement how the compositors at, for instance, All the Year Round, to mention just one of the many journals and newspapers Collins wrote for, managed to read his texts, to decipher them, and to make sense from them. Indeed with some notable exceptions, very little has been done on Victorian printing house practices, on the work of proofreaders and so on. No reliable edition of Collins's works, of his novels, of his journalism, of the short stories, and so on exists. Many, although not all, are available as e-texts (see Paul Lewis's web site) but the texts are not necessarily reliable and lack annotations.
There are fine editions of individual novels: for example, the Broadview edition edited by Steve Farmer of The Moonstone and John Sutherland's Penguin edition of Armadale and his World's Classics The Moonstone. Matthew Sweet has produced
an excellent edition of The Woman in White and the lesser known novels such as Blind Love, Heart and Science and The Evil Genius have been well served by Broadview editions. Yet much more needs be done with Collins's texts and made available.
Collins wrote a least 15 plays. His main motive in doing so was to make money. A successful run in the west end of London could make a fortune, as indeed is the case today. With the exception of the doctoral dissertation by R. L. Brannan at Cornell University in 1961 and B. A. Brashear's Case Western University 1972 dissertation, Collins's dramas have until recently been neglected. This year, 2013, witnessed not one but two editions of almost the same play. The distinguished novelist P.D. James in her "Foreword" to Andrew Gasson and Caroline Radcliffe's edition of Collins's first play, The Lighthouse, observes that it "has never before appeared in print. This distinguished volume, contains not only the play, but a wealth of contemporary and fascinating information about the genesis of the piece, Wilkie Collins's own account of how he came to write [it], and reviews of the performances, both in private houses and in the public theatre"(3). This illustrated edition "has been produced for the Wilkie Collins Society in a hard back limited to 250 copies" (vi).
Whereas Gasson and Radcliffe's text is that of the manuscript now at the British Library, Robert C. Hanna's "The Storm at the Lighthouse by Wilkie Collins, with an Introduction, Textual Notes, and Appendix" is largely based on "the earliest manuscript of [the] play held by the V and A," the National Art Library (p.304). The title was subsequently shortened. There are also fragments in manuscript form of parts of the play held at other locations. For instance, a prologue and concluding couplet are held at the Beinecke at Yale, and there is another form of the drama at the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library that contains different stage directions. This information and much more may be found in Hanna's illuminating illustrated essay appearing in Dickens Studies Annual 44 (2013): 289-364.
It can only be hoped that these will be the first of subsequent editions of Collins's plays. He devoted much time and energy to them. They took up much of his creative energies and reveal a great deal about his conception of plotting, character, setting, thematic preoccupations and use of other materials in addition to a lifelong fascination with the theatre and those involved with it.
My Wilkie Collins's Library: A Reconstruction was published by Greenwood in 2002. It is based upon M.L Bennett's Caxton Head Catalogue 198: Books from the Library of the late Wilkie Collins. This invaluable catalogue appeared in London in February 1890. I am very much indebted to Catherine Peters who sent me a copy — just one of many acts of generosity experienced whilst labouring in the vineyard of Collins studies. I will return to this subject subsequently.
Faith and Bill Clarke sent me the auctioneers' marked-up copy of 20 January 1890 Puttick & Simpson's Library of the Late Wilkie Collins Esq. His books and other objects, such as paintings, were sold off at this auction and the main buyer seems indeed to have been M.L. Bennett, who one month later attempted to sell the books bought at considerably higher prices. The books owned by Collins are a revelatory source of knowledge on the man himself. He "was a book man. He lived amongst books, and wrote to maintain himself and more than one family. The volumes in his Library reveal much about the man, the writer, his friendships, his associations, and the sources for his creative inspiration" (66).
This audience may not be aware of Bernadette A. Meyler's "Transparency and Textuality: Wilkie Collins's Law Books." This appeared in 2007 as one of the Cornell Law School Legal Studies Research Paper series. It focuses upon an 1882 trial of Jessie Billings for the murder of his wife. Collins possessed a copy of a volume containing the arguments of the Albany prosecutor, Nathaniel Moak. This became one of the chief sources for Collins's short story "John Jago's Ghost; Or, The Dead Alive, An American Story," which was subsequently reprinted in book form under the title The Dead Alive.
Incidentally, this seems to have a particular fascination for eminent lawyers as the text forms the foundation for Rob Warden's Wilkie Collins's The Dead Alive. The Novel, The Case, and Wrongful Convictions, published by the Northwestern University Press (2005). At the time, Warden was the executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University School of Law. There is a "Foreword" by the eminent lawyer and novelist Scott Turow. He writes that The Dead Alive is "gracefully written and artfully suspenseful, it is an early example of the popular novel as we know it now and an eerily prescient forerunner of much of the fiction about the legal process now so widely read in United States and around the world." Turow adds, "More tellingly, its observations remain disturbingly accurate about the factors that can lead the criminal justice system to the wrong conclusions and to the ultimate moral mishap of condemning the innocent to death" (x).
Such comments lead into consideration of Collins criticism, the final segment of my talk today. I'd like to start by drawing your attention to three specific collections:
Kirk H. Beetz' Wilkie Collins: An Annotated Bibliography 1889 – 1976 (1978) provides a comprehensive annotated listing of general and of individual responses to novels published during that period of time.
Norman Page's Wilkie Collins: The Critical Heritage ( 1974) provides illustrations of the reception given to Collins by his contemporaries and near contemporaries, as does
Baker and Gasson's Wilkie Collins in the 2007 Pickering and Chatto volume Lives of Victorian Literary Figures,2.
In the "Introduction" to this work, we wrote that "the remarkable transformation in Wilkie Collins's reputation" from being relegated to the third division of writers to his present status towards the top of the Premier league "may be seen in a comparison of Thomas Seccombe's entry on Collins in the supplement to the Dictionary of National Biography and Catherine Peters much more extensive piece in the 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography." It should be said that "there has always been a constant interest in Wilkie Collins amongst both contemporary and modern creative writers. In addition to [Anthony] Trollope and … Hall Caine, James Payne and Edmund Yates, other contemporaries appreciative of Collins include Swinburne, Andrew Lang and Rider Haggard." In the twentieth century, those who admired Collins and acknowledged his influence "in addition to T.S. Eliot… Include the classical scholar and poet A. E. Housman, Walter de la Mare, Hugh Walpole, Dorothy Sayers and, later in the century Eudora Welty and P. D. James." Collins became "the 'gold standard' to which modern critics compare their novels of crime or mystery." For example, a Scotsman review of Charles Palliser's 1989 novel The Quincaux remarked that its plot "is of an intimacy that Wilkie Collins himself might have envied" (xiv-xvi).
During the last two decades of the twentieth century and beginnings of the present century, extensive analysis of various facets of Collins's work appeared. Kirk H.Beetz's "Wilkie Collins Studies, 1972-1983" is arranged under consideration of editions, biographies, bibliographies and then criticism .This is divided into general criticism and then discussions of the individual novels: in this instance, confined to The Woman In White, The Moonstone and Armadale, plus No Name. There is some discussion too of subjects such as detection mystery and other critical topics.
Lillian Nayder's "Wilkie Collins Studies: 1983 – 1999" also appears in the Dickens Studies Annual and is organized in a similar manner. Nayder lays greater emphasis upon topics such as "Collins and the Police," "Collins, and Gothic, and Sensation Fiction," "Collins and Gender," "Collins and Empire," "Collins, Narrative Structure and Narrative Strategies." Studies of individual works are listed rather than separately discussed with The Woman in White and The Moonstone containing by far the longest entries. Nayder's topical arrangement reveals the nature of the interest in Wilkie Collins and the critical turn from being in Charles Dickens's shadow.
There are also four critical anthologies containing new essays that should be mentioned:
Nelson Smith and RC Terry edited Wilkie Collins to the Forefront: Some Reassessments. This is based on the Wilkie Collins Centennial Conference held at the University of Victoria British Columbia in 1989. The papers are a mixture of biographical revelations and criticism, Collins's friendships, his relationship to the sensation novel, Masonic symbolism in his work and influences, for example, of Sir Walter Scott on No Name and Armadale. The volume exhibits an interest in his other critically neglected novels such as The New Magdalen and Heart and Science .
Maria K. Bachman's and Don R. Cox's Reality's Dark Light: the Sensational Wilkie Collins (2003). This contains thirteen essays and an introduction on subjects of considerable interest. The range includes essays on "Disabled Women's Sexuality," "Exoticism, Toxicology, and the Female Poisoner in Armadale and The Legacy of Cain," "Bearded Ladies, Hermaphrodites, and Intersexual Collage in The Woman in White." Novels discussed, in addition to The Woman in White and The Moonstone, include Poor Miss Finch, The Law and the Lady, Jezebel's Daughter, The Evil Genius and The Guilty River.
A similar diversity is reflected in Jenny Bourne Taylor's The Cambridge Companion to Wilkie Collins (2006). It, too, contains essays on "The Later Novels" and is thematically divided. There are essays on the "Shorter Fiction," "The Sensation Novel," "Collins and Empire," "Disability and Difference," "Wilkie Collins and the Theatre." The final contribution, "The afterlife of Wilkie Collins" is by Rachel Malik and contains a section on early cinematic adaptations of Collins's work. Apparently between 1909 and 1916, there were at least 11 adaptations with The Woman in White as the favourite; it has remained so cinematically. There was a 1910 version of The New Magdalen, clearly a subject worthy of further investigation.
Andrew Mangham's Wilkie Collins: Interdisciplinary Essays (2007) is based on a 2005 conference held at the University of Sheffield. It is divided into five parts and yet again reflects the current diversity of Collins's studies. The first part is concerned with "Collins in Context." Following a useful "Introduction" it opens with Anne-Marie Beller's "'Too Absurdly Repulsive': Generic Indeterminacy and the Failure of The Fallen Leaves." The second part focuses upon "Collins and Art," the third with "Collins and Medicine," the fourth with "Collins and the Law," and the fifth and final part with "Collins, Theatre and Film." There is a most welcome essay in the third section by Andrew Mangham on Collins's first published novel, Antonina; or the Fall of Rome: A Romance of the Fifth Century (1850). The "Collins and the Law" section is especially noteworthy for its treatment of critically neglected novels such as The Law and the Lady, Man and Wife and The Haunted Hotel. There is even room for a welcome consideration of two essays on the question of international copyright: his 1870 essay "A National Wrong" and his "Considerations" from a decade later. Collins suffered particularly from piracy of his work, especially in North America. In the final section, there are essays on cinematic adaptations of The Moonstone, The Woman in White with a consideration of the 1997 BBC, Carlton and WGBH Boston version of the latter. In a judicious "Afterword," Janice M. Allan writes, "Looking forward to the future, the proliferation of meaning within Collins's texts will continue to generate a proliferation of readings." Further "a multiplication of scholarly interest … will place Collins at the forefront of nineteenth-century studies" (p.258). Sentiments which I heartily endorse.
My lecture, in addition to reviewing Collins scholarship and criticism, has indicated areas that need further exploration. For instance, "texts." If we are to use online sources to examine our author's word clusters, his punctuation usage, his favorite word formations, his narrative first person interventions, and so on, then reliable electronic texts need to be established. My comments have been accompanied by bibliographical details of the works I have mentioned. These will be included in the published form of this lecture. I'd like to complement this by a listing compiled for me by Brahma Chaudhuri of Vancouver, Canada. He is the editor of the indispensable Victorian database volumes, the LITIR database found at www.victoriandatabase and various cumulative bibliographies of Victorian Studies from 1945 onwards. The statistics in the listing should only be regarded as a guide and not as definitive.
Finally, as I have indicated in this talk, Collins studies are the most collaborative, friendly of fields. My involvement with Collins has led to life-long friendships and fellowship. For these I am truly grateful, deeply appreciative. In short, Collins is back.
← Authenticism and Post-Authenticism: Wilkie Collins's Armadale and Michael Cox's The Meaning of Night: A Confession Wilkie Collins: Scholarship and Criticism: Past, Present, and Future – Bibliography →
The Wilkie Collins Journal
'There is nothing either of Wilkie or Collins about it': Naming and Signing in Wilkie Collins's 'Memoirs of the Life of William Collins' and 'Blind Love'
Wilkie Collins's Legacies: 'The Moonstone' in Boris Akunin's 'Murder on the Leviathan' and 'Children's Book'
Opening up the Secret Theatre of Home: Wilkie Collins's 'The Woman in White' on the Victorian Stage
Ugo Foscolo's 'Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis' and Wilkie Collins's 'The Woman in White': A Case for Possible Influence
The Decomposing Past and the Challenges to Modernity: Corporeal and Architectural Decay in Wilkie Collins
© Wilkie Collins Society 1998-2017


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Question: Is it necessary to read The Book of Zohar again and again? Every time I read it I feel that I am delving into a new stratum of sensations.
Answer: Yes. I read The Book of Zohar from beginning to end dozens of times, including when I was working on adapting the text for, The Zohar for the People. Every time we study The Book of Zohar, the text is felt in a completely different manner.


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