Victorian Prose

This engaging, informative collection of Victorian nonfiction prose juxtaposes classic texts and canonical writers with more obscure writings and authors in order to illuminate important debates in nineteenth-century Britain—inviting modern readers to see the age anew. The collection represents the voices of a broad scope of women and men on a range of nineteenth-century cultural issues and in various forms—from periodical essays to travel accounts, letters to lectures, and autobiographies to social surveys. With its fifty-six substantial selections, Victorian Prose reaches beyond the work of Carlyle, Newman, Mill, Arnold, and Ruskin to uncover an array of lesser-known voices of the era. Women writers are given full attention—writings by Mary Prince, Dinah M. Craik, Florence Nightingale, Frances P. Cobbe, and Lucie Duff Gordon are among the entries. Excerpts cover such topics of the age as British imperialism, the crisis of religious faith, and debates about gender. On the issue of colonial expansion, opinions range from Benjamin Disraeli's celebration of empire-building as evidence of Britain's glory to David Livingstone's promotion of commerce with Africa as a way to retard the slave trade and make it unprofitable. Views on "the woman question" extend from John Stuart Mill's defense of women's rights to Mrs. Humphry Ward's opposition to women's franchise and Sarah Ellis's support for the domestic ideal. This invaluable resource features: attention to important noncanonical writers—including a generous selection of women writers; a wide range of written forms, including periodical essays, travel accounts, letters, lectures, autobiographies, and social surveys; both chronological and thematic tables of contents—the latter encompassing subject areas such as England at home and abroad, the new sciences, religion, and the status of women; selections drawn from the original nineteenth-century editions; and annotations to each text that aid nonspecialists in understanding unfamiliar names, terms, and cultural debates.

The Victorian era witnessed dramatic transformations in print culture, and this new anthology covers the exciting intellectual and social debates of the period. From first-person accounts of the lives of factory workers to Oscar Wilde’s aesthetic theory, and from narratives of British travelers in Africa and Asia to Havelock Ellis’s theories of “sexual inversion,” the surprising diversity of nineteenth-century nonfiction writing is represented. Illustrations from Victorian periodicals provide a vivid sense of the original reading experience. The book’s thematic organization emphasizes the social and historical contexts of prose writings, as well as the way in which these writings address each other. In addition to a general critical introduction, the anthology features new thematic introductions by experts in the field.

"An established series of classic American, British, and continental literature distinguished by its textual purity and authoritative editorial material." -Publisher.

Incorporating a broad range of contemporary scholarship, A History of Victorian Literature presents an overview of the literature produced in Great Britain between 1830 and 1900, with fresh consideration of both major figures and some of the era's less familiar authors. Part of the Blackwell Histories of Literature series, the book describes the development of the Victorian literary movement and places it within its cultural, social and political context. A wide-ranging narrative overview of literature in Great Britain between 1830 and 1900, capturing the extraordinary variety of literary output produced during this era Analyzes the development of all literary forms during this period - the novel, poetry, drama, autobiography and critical prose - in conjunction with major developments in social and intellectual history Considers the ways in which writers engaged with new forms of social responsibility in their work, as Britain transformed into the world's first industrial economy Offers a fresh perspective on the work of both major figures and some of the era’s less familiar authors Winner of a Choice Outstanding Academic Title award, 2009

This new anthology emphasizes Victorian nonfiction prose and verse with a generous, fresh selection of pieces from authors within the canon as well as outside of it.

This guide to Victorian Literature and Culture provides students with the ideal introduction to literature and its context from 1837-1900, including: - the historical, cultural and intellectual background including politics and economics, popular culture, philosophy - major writers and genres including the Brontes, Dickens, Eliot, Hardy, Trollope, Thackeray, Conan Doyle, Ibsen, Shaw, Hopkins, Rossetti and Tennyson - concise explanations of key terms needed to understand the literature and criticism - key critical approaches - a chronology mapping historical events and literary works and further reading including websites and electronic resources.

Victorian literature’s fascination with the past, its examination of social injustice, and its struggle to deal with the dichotomy between scientific discoveries and religious faith continue to fascinate scholars and contemporary readers. During the past hundred years, traditional formalist and humanist criticism has been augmented by new critical approaches, including feminism and gender studies, psychological criticism, cultural studies, and others. In Twenty-First Century Perspectives on Victorian Literature, twelve scholars offer new assessments of Victorian poetry, novels, and nonfiction. Their essays examine several major authors and works, and introduce discussions of many others that have received less scholarly attention in the past. General reviews of the current status of Victorian literature in the academic world are followed by essays on such writers as Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Hardy, and the Brontë sisters. These are balanced by essays that focus on writing by women, the development of the social problem novel, and the continuity of Victorian writers with their Romantic forebears. Most importantly, the contributors to this volume approach Victorian literature from a decidedly contemporary scholarly angle and write for a wide audience of specialists and non-specialists alike. Their essays offer readers an idea of how critical commentary in recent years has influenced—and in some cases changed radically—our understanding of and approach to literary study in general and the Victorian period in particular. Hence, scholars, teachers, and students will find the volume a useful survey of contemporary commentary not just on Victorian literature, but also on the period as a whole.

First published in 1996. The first modern collection of its kind, this anthology includes unabridged essays written by 19th century Britain’s' most eminent women intellectuals- the female counter-parts to the Victorian men of letters. Writing on topics ranging from animal rights and trade unions to aesthetic theory and literary criticism, the women whose rare and hard-to-find woks are presented in this anthology include Mary Russell Mitford, George Eliot, Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, Isabella Bird Bishop, Anne Thackerary Ritchie, Sarah Grand and others.