& --- # 4 : > $ & # / ? + , 1 % # F % 1 # 8 # # , 1 % # ) 1 % # . ' D > E, 0 / Late Modern English, which was considered a period of comparatively little linguistic interest as late as the 1970s, has received increasing scholarly attention from the 1990s, with publications such as Bailey (1996), Nineteenth- Century English, Görlach (1999), English in Nineteenth-Century England: An Introduction, and Beal (2004), English in Modern Times, as well as conference proceedings. Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s book is a welcome addition to the existing textbooks, as it complements rather than duplicates their contents. It is divided into seven chapters, followed by a bibliography ( including an excellent section on weblinks) and an index. Each chapter ends with sections on “Research Questions” and “Further Reading”. The book’s focus is on language use rather than system, and it takes a sociolinguistic approach, with a special emphasis on the role of social networks in linguistic variation and change. Chapter 1 “English in the Late Modern Period” (1-15) introduces the most important factors regarding language use in late modern society (social aspiration, linguistic guidance, and education and teaching of literacy). Chapter 2 “Evidence of Pronunciation” (16-36) describes the evidence used by scholars to reconstruct Late Modern English pronunciation (transcripts of spoken language, rhyme in verse, comments by contemporaries, representation in literature, phonetic spelling in the writing of minimally schooled people) and the interpretation problems inherent in each of these methods. This chapter is the only one that draws more on research by others than on Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s own research. Chapter 3 “Spelling Systems” (37-52) is innovative in its differentiation between the spelling systems of an individual’s private writing, an individual’s public writing, and the writing system of printers. This chapter also describes how spelling was taught and how teaching methods influenced the spelling of individuals, as well as illustrating the adoption by individuals of the spellings of other writers. Chapter 4 “Writers and the Lexicon” (53-75) investigates vocabulary changes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, taking the Oxford English Dictionary as its source. Here Tieken-Boon van Ostade looks at vocabulary increase and loss, as well as at the contribution of individuals to the texts given for illustration in the OED. Those whose contributions are selected for investigation belong to two groups, one consisting primarily of novelists, and one consisting of the “Lunar Men”, predominantly people working in the areas of natural science and technology. In addition, the author studies the contribution of dictionary makers, in particular James A.H. Murray, the chief editor of the OED, Samuel Johnson, and Noah Webster. Chapter 5 “Grammar and Grammars” (76-99) investigates grammatical structures used by individuals on the one hand, distinguishing, as in the case of spelling (chapter 3), between private and public writing, and normative grammar and its influence on the other. & Tieken-Boon van Ostade shows that many changes attributed to normative grammars were well under way before they were prescribed. Chapter 6 “Language and Social Networks” (100-118) introduces the social network model developed by Lesley Milroy (Milroy 1980) for Belfast, which distinguishes between close-knit and loose networks and peripheral and central members of networks. Tieken-Boon van Ostade identifies social networks of people corresponding with each other and shows which members of the networks functioned as innovators and which as early adopters with regard to spellings, words and grammatical constructions. Chapter 7 “The Language of Letters and Other Text Types” (119-146) discusses the following text types: letters, journals, memoirs, depositions, wills, recipes, and newspapers. The main focus is on letters and journals, as these are the text types that are closest to spoken language and least monitored by writers. But Tieken-Boon van Ostade also shows that these are highly conventionalised in the opening and closing sections (cf. the example of the spelling of your’s mentioned below) and that the degree of monitoring varied between people and also in the same individual’s usage, depending on the addressee. The book clearly profits from Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s extensive knowledge of this period, which encompasses literature, society and culture, as well as language, and her meticulous analytical methodology. Her background knowledge allows her to see why people use grammatical structures or spellings where other scholars failed to do so (e.g. Görlach’s surprise at the use of ‘incorrect’ possessive your’s in the closing of letters, which Tieken-Boon van Ostade identified as a spelling prescribed in letter manuals (46). In chapter 4 (53) she shows that the two peaks in the chronology of new vocabulary in the Late Modern English period identified by Görlach might be an artefact. She points out that the chronology and frequency distribution of new words in the OED is biased by two factors: (1.) the editors’ tendency to use recent texts for illustration, as a result of which the OED contains c. 8 million quotations from the nineteenth century, but only c. 3 million from the eighteenth, and (2.) the fact that quotations from Johnson’s dictionary are dated to the dictionary’s publication rather than to the origins of its sources, which were considerably earlier, as Johnson avoided quoting living authors. Similarly her careful analysis of social networks shows that women could not only be early adopters of changes introduced by educated men, and that, if they were, this did not in all cases indicate linguistic insecurity (cf. the counterexample of Lady Wortley Montagu), but that they could also adopt changes from below through frequent interaction with servants (115-116). Unfortunately too little space is devoted to the latter observation, which is only briefly mentioned in the “Concluding Remarks” (116). It appears that Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s research throws more doubts on the unmodified applicability of this model than she is prepared to admit. As pointed out above, chapter 2 stands out by being largely a summary of other scholars’ work. Here Tieken-Boon van Ostade uncritically takes over her sources’ interpretation of h-insertion as hypercorrection (23-25), while the kind of rigorous close analysis applied in her other chapters would have shown that this does not hold true for either Dickens’ Cockney characters or & for minimally schooled writers (see Häcker 2003, 2005, 2006: 174-220). The same may be true for other spellings that are interpreted as hypercorrection, where it would have been essential to differentiate between the usage of people with social aspirations (who might use hypercorrect forms) and those without (who were unlikely to do so). It would have also been advisable to give a chronological distribution of the many variants in Martha Ballard’s spelling of the word daughter rather than the list provided on p. 33. This might have thrown some light on ongoing change in pronunciation. It would also have been nice to have been provided with the complete list of the first group of individuals whose names were searched in the OED (chapter 4, p. 58) rather than being referred to the author’s chapter in a handbook, but this may be due to pressures of space. The book contains a few typos. Most of these are clearly identifiable as such, e.g. the long life of Edward Phillips “(1630-c.1796)” (71). The use of proscription (twice on page 91), however, is more confusing, as the reader wonders whether proscription is different from prescription and if so, what the difference is. There are also some (minor) omissions in the index (e.g. there is no entry “apostrophe” nor is the form your’s listed under spelling). Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s analyses are frequently based on electronic resources. Her explanations of her methodology are user-friendly; she always gives search path and search word, so that the reader is able to use her descriptions as instructions for his or her own research. The “Research Questions” encourage follow-up research that in many cases involves the use of electronic resources as a database. The book is a most inspiring textbook, as Tieken-Boon van Ostade not only provides facts about Late Modern English language, but also an understanding, if not love, for the people whose language is described. Yet it is not an easy read; it is densely written with complex syntax, and it presupposes basic linguistic knowledge (IPA symbols, phonological terminology and grammatical categories) and at times considerable general knowledge (e.g. references to manuscripts are given with superscript r and v, without explaining the convention, p. 72). A list of phonetic symbols would have been useful for the non-linguists among the readers and a glossary and an author index would have been a helpful addition, even if there is an index and the book is carefully cross-referenced. The book is the most informative textbook on Late Modern English to date. It is particularly suitable as a textbook for advanced students, as it invites its readers to carry out research in each of the areas discussed. But it is equally recommendable as a source for scholars. Due to its sociolinguistic focus it is also of interest to non-linguists with an interest in the Late Modern English period. Bailey, Richard (1996). Nineteenth-Century English. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Beal, Joan C. (2004). English in Modern Times 1700-1945. London: Arnold. & --- Görlach, Manfred (1999). English in Nineteenth-Century England: An Introduction. Cambridge: CUP. Häcker, Martina (2003). “From Linking [h] to Glottal Stop: Changes in the Phonotactic System of 20th-Century Cockney”. In: Cornelia Tschichold (ed). English Core Linguistics: Essays in Honour of D.J. Allerton. Bern: Lang. 31-53. Häcker, Martina (2005). “Linking [h] and the Variation between Linking [r] and Glottal Onsets in South African English. In: Cornelia Tschichold and David Spurr (eds.). The Space of English. (Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature, 17). Tübingen: Narr. 207-227. Häcker, Martina (2006). “The Origins and History of [h]-insertion and [h]-loss in English: A Corpus-Based Investigation”. [Unpublished Habilitation dissertation, University of Freiburg]. Milroy, Lesley (1980). Language and Social Networks. Oxford: Blackwell. 0 / - # (+ = . / 2 * < G > D 9 D ) + $) 7 ) F6 6 , - ( 1 # , A ) *$ > , ( DH * The study of beginnings of literary texts is as notoriously complex as it is rewarding, since beginnings prove to be very elusive on just about every conceptual level. Beginnings can be made, experienced or determined, they can be points in time as well as longer durations, and they can be actions, too - and this is just the beginning of it. Yet what makes them valuable subjects of analysis is that they are always “over-determined moments in narrative performance” (151), sites of an excess of meaning, always important nodes in the network of what follows them. Every student must have learned in school that the first line of any text deserves special attention, and every journalist knows that this is the line you have to get right, no matter what follows. Yet literary studies has considered beginnings in many more ways than these, and the study under review here - Interfaces of Fiction: Initial Framings in the American Novel from 1790 to 1900 by Christian Quendler - is an excellent example of just how varied and fruitful these considerations can be. Quendler offers a very insightful and thorough analysis of framing practices in American novels published in the Early Republic, the American Renaissance and the Gilded Age (a time line according to which his book is structured). Focusing on beginnings as well as paratextual framings and material aspects of books, he considers them as “historical and culture-specific signposts that illuminate the positions and functions of novelistic fiction in the social and literary landscape of the nine-