Atkinson, Damian

Dr. Damian Atkinson has been a teacher, Open University consultant, and librarian. He has been working on the late Victorian poet and editor W. E. Henley for a number of years and published The Selected Letters of W. E. Henley in 2000. He has contributed many entries to Volume 4 of the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature and has also contributed to the National Dictionary of Biography. He is contributing to the forthcoming History of the Book in Scotland. Currently he is working on Henley’s letters to Robert Louis Stevenson.

Correspondence of John Stephen Farmer and W. E. Henley on Their Slang Dictionary 1890-1904

2003 0-7734-6612-6
Slang and its Analogues is a classic of its kind, completed in seven volumes between 1890 and 1904, and has not been superseded. It was last reprinted in 1987. This study sheds light on its compilation through an examination of the correspondence of the two editors. The letters illustrate the nature of the Farmer-Henley relationship, which appears to be quite formal, and the amount of work involved in such an enterprise. Apart from slang, the book provides an insight into the second half of Farmer’s literary career as an editor of early English drama texts.

Letters of William Ernest Henley to Charles Whibley, 1888 - 1903: Volume 1: March 9, 1888 - June 10, 1892 and Volume 2: July 4, 1892 - June 23, 1903

2013 0-7734-4365-7
This edition of the extant four hundred and sixty-four surviving letters from the editor and man of letters W.E. Henley (1849-1903) to the classical scholar Charles Whibley (1859-1930) cover the period late 1888 to June 1903 and give an insight into the workings of an editor and his major contributor and also their firm friendship, with Whibley replacing Robert Louis Stevenson in Henley’s life.