The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel

In this Companion, first published in 2000, specially-commissioned essays examine the social and cultural context of Victorian fiction.

Deirdre David (Edited by)

9780521641500, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 November 2000

288 pages
23.7 x 15.7 x 2.4 cm, 0.568 kg

"The essays are uniformly excellent...Geared for upper-division undergraduate English majors and beginning graduate students, this volume is clearly intended for classroom use but should also be in every library's collection." Choice

In The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, first published in 2000, a series of specially-commissioned essays examine the work of Charles Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot and other canonical writers, as well as that of such writers as Olive Schreiner, Wilkie Collins and H. Rider Haggard, whose work has recently attracted new attention from scholars and students. The collection combines the literary study of the novel as a form with analysis of the material aspects of its readership and production, and a series of thematic and contextual perspectives that examine Victorian fiction in the light of social and cultural concerns relevant both to the period itself and to the direction of current literary and cultural studies. Contributors engage with topics such as industrial culture, religion and science and the broader issues of the politics of gender, sexuality and race. The Companion includes a chronology and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

Introduction Deirdre David
1. The Victorian novel and its readers Kate Flint
2. The business of Victorian publishing Simon Eliot
3. The aesthetics of the Victorian novel: form, subjectivity, ideology Linda M. Shires
4. Industrial culture and the Victorian novel Joseph W. Childers
5. Gender and the Victorian novel Nancy Armstrong
6. Sexuality and the Victorian novel Jeff Nunokawa
7. Race and the Victorian novel Patrick Brantlinger
8. Detection in the Victorian novel Ronald R. Thomas
9. Sensation and the fantastic in the Victorian novel Lyn Pykett
10. Intellectual debate and the Victorian novel: religion, science and the professional John Kucich
11. Dickens, Melville and a tale of two countries Robert Weisbuch
Guide to further reading.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], Literary studies: general [DSB]