Selected as an 'Outstanding Academic Title' in the 2008 CHOICE awards, The Victorian Studies Reader gathers together, in one volume, some of the key pieces on Victorian history, society and culture. The book draws on new trends in looking at the Victorian Age and includes sections on:
- periodization
- politics
- consumerism
- intellectual life
- sexuality
- empire.
The Victorian Studies Reader is a rich resource, essential for all those studying this important period of history.
Preface. 1. 'Rethinking the Victorians', Kelly Boyd and Rohan McWilliam Periodisation. 2. Should we abandon the idea of the Victorian period? 'Historiography, Narrative and the Nineteenth Century', Richard Price Economy. 3. Can culture explain economic decline? 'English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980', Martin Wiener 4. Gentlemanly capitalism ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Overseas Expansion’, P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins Consumerism and Material Culture. 5. Women and the Department Store. 'Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End', Erika Rappaport 6. Clothing the Middle-Class Male. '"Each Man to his Station": Clothing, stereotypes and the patterns of class’ Chris Breward Society and Class. 7. The fall of class. 'Democratic Subjects: The self and the social in nineteenth century England', Patrick Joyce 8. Representing the Manchester Irish. 'Making a Social Body: British cultural formation, 1830-1864', Mary Poovey Space. 9. Public Spaces in the Victorian City, 'The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class: Ritual and authority and the English industrial city, 1840-1914', Simon Gunn Politics High and Low. 10. Liberalism and Government. Introduction from 'The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain', Jonathan Parry 11. Radicalism, Language and Class. 'The Language of Chartism', Gareth Stedman Jones 12. Gender and Radicalism. 'The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the making of the British working class', Anna Clark Morality. 13. In Defence of the Victorians.
'The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian virtues to modern values', Gertrude Himmelfarb Intellectual History. 14. Character and the Victorian Mind. 'The Idea of Character: private habits and public virtues', Stefan Collini Religion. 15. Religion, Doctrine and Public Policy. 'From Retribution to Reform', Boyd Hilton 16. How Religious was Victorian Britain? 'Did Urbanization Secularize Britain?', Callum Brown Science. 17. Evolution before Darwin. 'The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, medicine, and reform in radical London', Adrian Desmond 18. Domesticating Evolution. 'Behind the Veil: Robert Chambers and Vestiges', James A. Secord 19. Darwin’s Imagination. 'Darwin’s Plots: Evolutionary narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and nineteenth century fiction', Gillian Beer 20. Science and Popular Culture. 'Mesmerized: Powers of mind in Victorian Britain', Alison Winter Gender. 21. Separate Spheres, 'Family Fortunes: Men and women of the English middle class, 1780-1850', Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall 22. Men and Domesticity, 'A Man’s Place; Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England', John Tosh 23. Working-Class Family Strategies. 'Fierce Questions and Taunts', Ellen Ross Sexuality. 24. Working-Class Sexuality. 'The Making of Victorian Sexuality', Michael Mason 25. The Meaning of the Prostitute. 'Forms of Deviancy: The Prostitute', Lynda Nead 26. Jack the Ripper and the Doctors. 'Jack the Ripper', Judith Walkowitz 27. Homosexuality and Late Victorian Anxiety. 'Dr. Jekyll’s Closet', Elaine Showalter 28. Sexuality and the Pub, 'The Victorian Barmaid as Cultural Prototype', Peter Bailey Monarchy. 29. Restoring the Popularity of the Monarchy, 'Queen Victoria: First media monarch', John Plunkett Race, Empire and National Identity. 30. Bringing the Empire Back In. 'Civilising Subjects: Metropole and colony in the English imagination, 1830-1867', Catherine Hall
Biography
Kelly Boyd teaches at the University of London. She edited the Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing (1999) and is the author of Manliness and the Boys’ Story Paper in Britain: A Cultural History, 1855-1940 (2003).
Rohan McWilliam is Senior Lecturer in History at Anglia Ruskin University and author of Popular Politics in Nineteenth-Century England (1998) and The Tichborne Claimant: A Victorian Sensation (2007).
"For Victorianists, this is a welcome collection of significant articles or book excerpts written after 1980 that reflect important trends in broader interdisciplinary Victorian studies. ... This is a book to educate (and update) both students and professors, who are likely to keep returning to it." -- CHOICE April 2008 Vol. 45 (P.T. Smith, Saint Joseph's University)
