Download or read book Sensation and Professionalism in the Victorian Novel written by Mariaconcetta Costantini and published by Victorian and Edwardian Studies. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the extent to which four sensation novelists contributed to the Victorian redefinition of professionalism. Through an analysis of works authored by Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charles Reade and Ellen Wood, Costantini shows how the sensation genre was an important forum for the age's controversial rethinking of professional ideals and standards

Download or read book Professional Domesticity in the Victorian Novel written by Monica F. Cohen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-02-05 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much attention has recently been given by scholars to the widening of the gender gap in the nineteenth century and the concept of separate spheres. Testing such constructions, and questioning the stereotypes associated with Victorian domesticity, Monica F. Cohen offers new readings of narratives by Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Eliot, Eden, Gaskell, Oliphant and Reade to show how domestic work, the most feminine of all activities, gained much of its social credibility by positioning itself in relation to the emergent professions. By exploring how novels cast the Victorian conception of female morality into the vocabulary of nineteenth-century professionalism, Cohen traces the ways in which women sought identity and privilege within a professionalised culture, and revises our understanding of Victorian domestic ideology.

Download or read book Victorian Sensation written by James A. Secord and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-09-20 with total page 645 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiction or philosophy, profound knowledge or shocking heresy? When Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation was published anonymously in 1844, it sparked one of the greatest sensations of the Victorian era. More than a hundred thousand readers were spellbound by its startling vision—an account of the world that extended from the formation of the solar system to the spiritual destiny of humanity. As gripping as a popular novel, Vestiges combined all the current scientific theories in fields ranging from astronomy and geology to psychology and economics. The book was banned, it was damned, it was hailed as the gospel for a new age. This is where our own public controversies about evolution began. In a pioneering cultural history, James A. Secord uses the story of Vestiges to create a panoramic portrait of life in the early industrial era from the perspective of its readers. We join apprentices in a factory town as they debate the consequences of an evolutionary ancestry. We listen as Prince Albert reads aloud to Queen Victoria from a book that preachers denounced as blasphemy vomited from the mouth of Satan. And we watch as Charles Darwin turns its pages in the flea-ridden British Museum library, fearful for the fate of his own unpublished theory of evolution. Using secret letters, Secord reveals how Vestiges was written and how the anonymity of its author was maintained for forty years. He also takes us behind the scenes to a bustling world of publishers, printers, and booksellers to show how the furor over the book reflected the emerging industrial economy of print. Beautifully written and based on painstaking research, Victorian Sensation offers a new approach to literary history, the history of reading, and the history of science. Profusely illustrated and full of fascinating stories, it is the most comprehensive account of the making and reception of a book (other than the Bible) ever attempted. Winner of the 2002 Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society

Download or read book Rediscovering Victorian Women Sensation Writers written by Anne-Marie Beller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-09-07 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarly understanding of the Victorian literary field has changed dramatically in the past thirty years, due in large part to the extensive recovery of sensation fiction and a corresponding recognition of that genre’s importance in the literary debates, trends, and wider cultural practices of the period. Yet until very recently, work on sensationalism has focused on a narrow range of authors and works, with Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Ellen Wood retaining the preponderance of critical attention. This collection examines the fiction of ten women sensation writers who were immensely popular in the Victorian period but remain critically neglected today – writers such as Annie Edwardes, M.C. Houstoun, Annie French, Dora Russell and others. The Victorian sensation novel was categorically associated with women by Victorian reviewers and this collection extends our current understanding of this sub-genre by showing that female sensation writers were often sophisticated in their textual strategies, employing a range of metafictional techniques and narrative innovations. By moving beyond the novelists who have come to represent the genre, this book presents a fuller, more nuanced, understanding of the spectrum of writing that constructed the concept of ‘sensationalism’ for Victorian readers and critics. The book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s Writing.

Download or read book The Professional Ideal in the Victorian Novel written by S. Colon and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-05-14 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book makes the claim that Victorian novels do not simply reflect professional ideology; they also scrutinize its dilemmas, contradictions, and limitations. In this volume, innovative readings of canonical texts like Sybil, Barchester Towers, Romola, and Daniel Deronda accompany groundbreaking work on less familiar texts like Tancred and My Lady Ludlow to illuminate the Victorians' own struggles with the emerging professional ideology. The Victorians' engagement with fundamental ideas of professional identity such as autonomy, meritocracy, and the service ethic reveal professionalism's dual basis in materialist and idealist rationalities.

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel written by Deirdre David and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-18 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of this standard work, fully updated with four brand new chapters.

Download or read book Sensation Drama 1860 1880 written by Hofer-Robinson Joanna Hofer-Robinson and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-03 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Features previously unpublished material alongside famous plays This pioneering edition provides access to some of the most popular plays of the nineteenth century. Characterised by exhilarating plots, large-scale special effects and often transgressive characterisation, these dramas are still exciting for modern readers. This anthology lays the foundation for further scholarly work on sensation drama and focuses public attention on to this influential and immensely popular genre. It features five plays from writers including Dion Boucicault and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. These are supported by a substantial critical apparatus, which adds further value to the anthology by providing rich details on performance history and textual variants. The critical introduction situates the genre in its cultural context and argues for the significance of sensation drama to shifting theatrical cultures and practices.Key FeaturesProvides detailed critical apparatus to facilitate the study of neglected plays, including performance history, notes and recommended further readingWidens the critical conversation on sensation drama by drawing attention to the work of female playwrightsReprints obscure works by popular authors and shows their involvement with both literary and theatrical cultures

Download or read book How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain written by Leah Price and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-27 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain asks how our culture came to frown on using books for any purpose other than reading. When did the coffee-table book become an object of scorn? Why did law courts forbid witnesses to kiss the Bible? What made Victorian cartoonists mock commuters who hid behind the newspaper, ladies who matched their books' binding to their dress, and servants who reduced newspapers to fish 'n' chips wrap? Shedding new light on novels by Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew, Leah Price also uncovers the lives and afterlives of anonymous religious tracts and household manuals. From knickknacks to wastepaper, books mattered to the Victorians in ways that cannot be explained by their printed content alone. And whether displayed, defaced, exchanged, or discarded, printed matter participated, and still participates, in a range of transactions that stretches far beyond reading. Supplementing close readings with a sensitive reconstruction of how Victorians thought and felt about books, Price offers a new model for integrating literary theory with cultural history. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain reshapes our understanding of the interplay between words and objects in the nineteenth century and beyond.

Download or read book Wilkie Collins in Context written by William Baker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-07-31 with total page 675 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays by international scholars celebrates the 200th anniversary of Wilkie Collins's birth by exploring his unconventional life alongside his works, critical responses to his writings and their afterlife, and the literary and cultural contexts which shaped his fiction. Topics discussed include gender, science and medicine, music, law, race and empire, media adaptations, neo-Victorianism, disability, and ethics. Along with an analysis of his novels, the essays included also recognize the importance of his short stories, journalism, and contributions to Victorian theatre, most notably illuminating the strong connections between sensation fiction and melodrama, as well as exploring his influence on film and TV. Engaging with yet also delving far beyond the famous novels, this volume promotes awareness of Collins' remarkable and diverse writerly achievements and paints a vivid portrait of an author whose fluctuating reputation among contemporary critics stands in stark contrast to his immense and still-enduring popularity.

Download or read book The Victorian Novel written by Francis O'Gorman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This guide steers students through significant critical responses to the Victorian novel from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day.

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Sensation Fiction written by Andrew Mangham and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accessible and comprehensive account of the sensation novel of the nineteenth century.

Download or read book A History of Victorian Literature written by James Eli Adams and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book A Companion to the Victorian Novel written by Patrick Brantlinger and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Companion to the Victorian Novel provides contextual and critical information about the entire range of British fiction published between 1837 and 1901. Provides contextual and critical information about the entire range of British fiction published during the Victorian period. Explains issues such as Victorian religions, class structure, and Darwinism to those who are unfamiliar with them. Comprises original, accessible chapters written by renowned and emerging scholars in the field of Victorian studies. Ideal for students and researchers seeking up-to-the-minute coverage of contexts and trends, or as a starting point for a survey course.

Download or read book From Spinster to Career Woman written by Arlene Young and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The late Victorian period brought a radical change in cultural attitudes toward middle-class women and work. Anxiety over the growing disproportion between women and men in the population, combined with an awakening desire among young women for personal and financial freedom, led progressive thinkers to advocate for increased employment opportunities. The major stumbling block was the persistent conviction that middle-class women - "ladies" - could not work without relinquishing their social status. Through media reports, public lectures, and fictional portrayals of working women, From Spinster to Career Woman traces advocates' efforts to alter cultural perceptions of women, work, class, and the ideals of womanhood. Focusing on the archetypal figures of the hospital nurse and the typewriter, Arlene Young analyzes the strategies used to transform a job perceived as menial into a respected profession and to represent office work as progressive employment for educated women. This book goes beyond a standard examination of historical, social, and political realities, delving into the intense human elements of a cultural shift and the hopes and fears of young women seeking independence. Providing new insights into the Victorian period, From Spinster to Career Woman captures the voices of ordinary women caught up in the frustrations and excitements of a new era.

Download or read book Women Writing Men written by Joanne Ella Parsons and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-06-08 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how women writers create and question men and masculinity. As men have written women so have women written men. Debate about how men have represented women in literature has a long and distinguished history; however, there has been much less examination of the ways in which women writers depict male characters. This is clearly a notable absence given the recent rise in interest in the field of 18th- and 19th-century masculinities. Women writers were in a unique position to be able to deconstruct and examine cultural norms from a position away from the centre. This enabled women to ‘look aslant’ at masculinity using their female gaze to expose the ruptures and cracks inherent within the rigid formation of the manly ideal. This collection focuses on women’s representations of men and masculinity as they negotiate issues of class, gender, race, and sexuality. Women Writing Men: 1689 to 1869 will be of interest to academics, researchers, and advanced students of Literature, Gender Studies, Critical Theory, and Cultural Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Women’s Writing.

Download or read book A Companion to the Victorian Novel written by William Baker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2002-01-30 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victorian novels remain enormously popular today: some continue to be made into films, while authors such as Charles Dickens and George Eliot are firmly established in the canon and taught at all levels. These works have also attracted a great deal of critical attention, with much current scholarship examining the novel in relation to its historical, political, and cultural contexts. This reference book is an introductory guide to the Victorian novel, its background, and its legacy. Each chapter is written by an expert contributor and offers a fresh account of past, current, and new directions in scholarship. The volume is divided into several broad sections, with chapters in each section treating more specialized topics. The first section looks at the emergence of the Victorian novel and its literary precursors, with particular emphasis on the growth of serialization and the development of the novel of syndication. The second explores significant social and cultural facets of nineteenth-century British literature, while the third discusses the principal features of different genres, such as ghost stories, the Gothic, detective fiction, the social problem novel, and contemporary film adaptations. Individual authors are examined in the fourth section, while the fifth overviews various critical approaches and their application to nineteenth-century fiction.

Download or read book Sensational Deviance written by Heidi Logan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-06 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sensational Deviance: Disability in Nineteenth-Century Sensation Fiction investigates the representation of disability in fictional works by the leading Victorian sensation novelists Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, exploring how disability acts as a major element in the shaping of the sensation novel genre and how various sensation novels respond to traditional viewpoints of disability and to new developments in physiological and psychiatric knowledge. The depictions of disabled characters in sensation fiction frequently deviate strongly from typical depictions of disability in mainstream Victorian literature, undermining its stigmatized positioning as tragic deficit, severe limitation, or pathology. Close readings of nine individual novels situate their investigations of physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities against the period’s disability discourses and interest in senses, perception, stimuli, the nervous system, and the hereditability of impairments. The importance of moral insanity and degeneration theory within sensation fiction connect the genre with criminal anthropology, suggesting the genre’s further significance in the light of the later emergence of eugenics, psychoanalysis, and genetics.