In an age of radical transformation, the Victorians were caught between a vanishing past and an uncertain future. In the face of such a dizzying present, connecting with their past became for the Victorians a kind of survival strategy - this nostalgia took forms as diverse as their obsession with history and origins; the religious revivalism of the Oxford Movement; and the new Houses of Parliament, built in 1834, whose design looked longingly back to the Middle Ages.

This rich and elegant work describes how the unsettled cultural climate provided fertile soil for the flourishing of...

In an age of radical transformation, the Victorians were caught between a vanishing past and an uncertain future. In the face of such a dizzying present, connecting with their past became for the Victorians a kind of survival strategy - this nostalgia took forms as diverse as their obsession with history and origins; the religious revivalism of the Oxford Movement; and the new Houses of Parliament, built in 1834, whose design looked longingly back to the Middle Ages. This rich and elegant work describes how the unsettled cultural climate provided fertile soil for the flourishing of elegy....