Janis Caldwell investigates the links between the growing scientific materialism of the nineteenth century and the persistence of the Romantic literary imagination. Through closely analyzing literary texts from Frankenstein to Middlemarch, and examining fiction alongside biomedical lectures, textbooks and articles, Caldwell argues that the way "Romantic materialism" influenced these disciplines compels us to revise conventional accounts of the relationship between literature and medicine.

The relationship between the work of Charles Dickens and popular literature has often been noted, but the extent to which his fiction and journalism were rooted in, and continued to respond to, the popular radical culture of his time had so far been unexplored. Sally Ledger traces the influence of Regency radicals, such as William Hone and William Cobbett, and mid-century radical writers, such as Douglas Jerrold and the Chartists Ernest Jones and G. W. M. Reynolds. She offers substantial readings of works from Pickwick to Little Dorrit, arguing that Dickens's populism bridged eighteenth- and...

The nineteenth-century novel has always been regarded as a literary form pre-eminently occupied with the written word, but Ivan Kreilkamp shows it was deeply marked by and engaged with vocal performances and the preservation and representation of speech. He offers a detailed account of the many ways Victorian literature and culture represented the human voice, from political speeches, governesses' tales, shorthand manuals, and staged authorial performances in the early- and mid-century, to mechanically reproducible voice at the end of the century. Through readings of Charlotte Bronte,...

In the nineteenth century, epic poetry in the Homeric style was widely seen as an ancient and anachronistic genre, yet Victorian authors worked to recreate it for the modern world. Simon Dentith explores the relationship between epic and the evolution of Britain's national identity in the nineteenth century up to the apparent demise of all notions of heroic warfare in the catastrophe of the First World War. Paradoxically, writers found equivalents of the societies which produced Homeric or Northern epics not in Europe, but on the margins of empire and among its subject peoples. Dentith...

Stories about Jewesses proliferated in nineteenth-century Britain as debates about the place of the Jews in the nation raged. While previous scholarship has explored the prevalence of antisemitic stereotypes in this period, Nadia Valman argues that the figure of the Jewess - virtuous, appealing and sacrificial - reveals how hostility towards Jews was accompanied by pity, identification and desire. Reading a range of texts from popular romance to the realist novel, she investigates how the complex figure of the Jewess brought the instabilities of nineteenth-century religious, racial and...

In this study Deborah Vlock shows that characters, dialogue, and plots from many of Charles Dickens' novels can be traced to the Victorian stage, and that contemporary readers and writers of fiction were strongly influenced by what they saw at the theater. Through an examination of theatrical and popular-cultural sources--including accounts of noted actors and actresses, and of popular theatrical characters of the time--Vlock uncovers unexpected precursors for some popular Dickensian characters, and throws new light on the conditions in which Dickens' novels were initially received.

Queen Victoria's central importance to the era defined by her reign is self-evident, and yet it has been surprisingly overlooked in the study of Victorian culture. This collection of essays by noted scholars in literature, cultural studies, art history, and women's studies goes beyond biography and official history to explore the diverse and sometimes conflicting meanings this complex and fascinating figure held for her subjects around the world and even for those outside her empire.

In Physiognomy and the Meaning of Expression in Nineteenth-Century Culture, Lucy Hartley examines the emergence of physiognomy as a form of popular science. Physiognomy posited an understanding of the inner meaning of human character from observations of physical appearances, usually facial expressions. Taking the physiognomical teachings of Johann Caspar Lavater as a starting-point, Hartley considers the extent to which attempts to read the mind and judge the character through expression can provide descriptions of human nature.

Aestheticism and Sexual Parody adds a new and important dimension to the concept of parody as a combative strategy by which sexually marginalized groups undermine the status quo. From W. S. Gilbert's drama, and Vernon Lee and Christopher Isherwood's prose to George Du Maurier's cartoons and Max Beerbohm's caricatures, Dennis Denisoff explores the interactions of late nineteenth and twentieth century parody and aestheticism with the texts of canonical authors such as Alfred Tennyson, Walter Pater, Algernon Swinburne, and Oscar Wilde.

This study of the Victorian fascination with fairies reveals their significance in Victorian art and literature. Nicola Bown explores what the fairy meant to the Victorians, and why they were so captivated by a figure which nowadays seems trivial and childish. She argues that fairies were a fantasy that allowed the Victorians to escape from their worries about science, technology and the effects of progress. The fairyland they dreamed about was a reconfiguration of their own world, and the fairies who inhabited it were like themselves.