This book offers a collection of essays on novels and short stories from the beginning of Victoria's reign through to the end of the nineteenth century and into our own times. The essays represent a wide range of critical and theoretical viewpoints on fiction, and they deal with a number of lesser-known Victorian Works as well as with some of the most canonical texts of the period. The chronological range of the volume is extended by essays which explore Victorian texts' connections with earlier literature, as well as by studies of twentieth-century novelists' responses to Victorian fiction. Overall this collection emphasizes the breadth and diversity of Victorian prose fiction and will be of interest to students and specialists alike.
This book offers a collection of essays on novels and short stories from the beginning of Victoria's reign through to the end of the nineteenth century and into our own times. The essays represent a wide range of critical and theoretical viewpoints on fiction, and they deal with a number of lesser-known Victorian Works as well as with some of the most canonical texts of the period. The chronological range of the volume is extended by essays which explore Victorian texts' connections with earlier literature, as well as by studies of twentieth-century novelists' responses to Victorian fiction. Overall this collection emphasizes the breadth and diversity of Victorian prose fiction and will be of interest to students and specialists alike.
This inspiring survey challenges conventional ways of viewing theVictorian novel. Provides time maps and overviews of historical and socialcontexts. Considers the relationship between the Victorian novel andhistorical, religious and bibliographic writing. Features short biographies of over forty Victorian authors,including Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and RobertLouis Stevenson. Offers close readings of over 30 key texts, among themCharlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) and BramStoker’s Dracula (1897), as well as key presences,such as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (Pt 1,1676, Pt 2, 1684). Also covers topics such as colonialism, scientific speculation,the psychic and the supernatural, and working class reading.
Placing the popular genre of neo-Victorian fiction within the context of the contemporary cultural fascination with the Victorians, this book argues that these novels are distinguished by a commitment to historical specificity and understands them within their contemporary context and the context of Victorian historical and literary narratives.
A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. Arguing that neo-Victorian fiction enacts and celebrates cultural memory, this book uses memory discourse to position these novels as dynamic participants in the contemporary historical imaginary.
Exploring the pervasive presence of the Victorian past in contemporary culture, these essays use the trope of haunting and spectrality as a critical tool with which to consider neo-Victorian works, as well as our ongoing fascination with the Victorians, combining original readings of well-known novels with engaging analyses of lesser-known works.
Victorian England produces some the the greatest novelists in Western history, including Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and George Eliot. Critical analysis focuses on the development of the Victorian novel through the second half of the 19th century.
This is an eclectic collection of essays from a group of international scholars tackling various subjects on Victorian literature—from studies of specific authors such Charles Dickens’ early and later works, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, and novels by Thomas Hardy to more general discussions, such as the depictions of women in Victorian novels.
This study shows how aesthetics and economics have been combined in a great work of literature. Frost examines the history of Middlemarch’s composition and publication within the context of Victorian demand, then goes on to consider the interpretation, reception and consumption of the book.
This book introduces students to the Victorian novel and its contexts, teaching strategies for reading and researching nineteenth-century literature. Combining close reading with background information and analysis it considers the Victorian novel as a product of the industrial age by focusing on popular texts including Dickens's Oliver Twist, Gaskell's North and South and Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Victorian Novel in Context examines the changing readership resulting from the growth of mass literacy and the effect that this had on the form of the novel. Taking texts from the early, mid and late Victorian period it encourages students to consider how serialization shaped the nineteenth-century novel. It highlights the importance of politics, religion and the evolutionary debate in 'classic' Victorian texts. Addressing key concerns including realist writing, literature and imperialism, urbanization and women's writing, it introduces students to a variety of the most important critical approaches to the novels. Introducing texts, contexts and criticism, this is a lively and up-to-date resource for anyone studying the Victorian novel.
This volume in this exciting new series provides a detailed yet accessible study of Gothic literature in the nineteenth century. It examines how themes and trends associated with the early Gothic novels were diffused widely in many different genres in the Victorian period, including the ghost story, the detective story and the adventure story. It looks in particular how the Gothic attempted to resolve the psychological and theological problems thrown up the modernisation and secularisation of British society. The author argues that the fetishized figure of the child came to stand for what many believed was being lost by the headlong rush into a technological and industrial future. The relationship between the child and horror is examined, and the book demonstrates that far from a simple rejection or acceptance of secularisation, the Gothic attempts to articulate an entirely different way of being modern.
