A materialist account of Wilde's writing career, based on publishing contracts and other documentation as well as detailed evidence of how he composed, this book argues that Wilde was not driven by an oppositional politics, nor was he an aesthetic "purist." Rather, he was thoroughly immersed in the contemporary "commodification of culture" in which books became product. This study surveys his writing practices across the whole of the oeuvre, and radically reinterprets the significance of his revision and "plagiarism."

The Victorian Age introduces students of nineteenth-century literary and cultural history to the main areas of intellectual debate in the Victorian period. Bringing together for the first time in one volume a wide range of primary source material, this anthology gives readers a unique insight into the ways in which different areas of Victorian intellectual debate were interconnected.
The Victorian Age covers developments in social and political theory, economics, science and religion, aesthetics, and sexuality and gender, and provides access to a range of documents which...

This book describes various accounts of the Victorian social-problem novel, examining their strengths and limitations in the light of the historiographical assumptions which underlie them. An alternative historical account is offered, which focuses on the novels' intellectual milieu - specifically on mid-Victorian concepts of 'the social' and of what was understood by the term 'social problem'. In detailed readings of individual works, the book argues that an appreciation of these concepts permits new ways of understanding the contradictions identified in these works together with their...

The current debate about the nature of English studies has questioned the status of English as a discipline. Josephine Guy and Ian Small set this so-called "crisis in English" within the larger context of disciplinary knowledge. They examine the teaching of English and literary studies in the United States and Britain, and argue that the attempt by some radical critics to politicize the discipline has profound consequences for the nature of English studies. In the process they demystify issues and arguments that have often been obscured by jargon and polemic.

The current debate about the nature of English studies has questioned the status of English as a discipline. Josephine Guy and Ian Small set this so-called "crisis in English" within the larger context of disciplinary knowledge. They examine the teaching of English and literary studies in the United States and Britain, and argue that the attempt by some radical critics to politicize the discipline has profound consequences for the nature of English studies. In the process they demystify issues and arguments that have often been obscured by jargon and polemic.