‘H. Lawrenny' [Edith Simcox], from a review in the Academy

Edith Simcox (1844–1901), the devoted admirer of George Eliot, was author of Natural Law and other books, and a prolific reviewer in the Academy from its inception in 1869 until the 1890s. The Academy was a scholarly periodical, established by a group of young Liberals; see D. Roll–Hansen, ‘The Academy’ 1869–79 (Copenhagen, 1957). Most of its reviewers were distinguished Oxford men: hence Edith Simcox’s writing under a pseudonym. In a brief notice of No. 1 of Edwin Drood, the Academy reviewer had commented (14 April 1870, i, 201) that the opening scene ‘looks very like a reminiscence of Bracebridge Hemyng’s Visit to Bluegate Fields, in Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, extra vol. pp. 231–2 (1862).’