The Victorian Supernatural

Essays by literary scholars, art historians and science historians explore the diversity of the Victorians' fascination with the supernatural.

Nicola Bown (Edited by), Carolyn Burdett (Edited by), Pamela Thurschwell (Edited by)

9780521114646, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 June 2009

328 pages, 9 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.44 kg

' … the volume's eleven essays are, without exception, richly detailed and engaging.' Women: a Cultural Review

The Victorians were haunted by the supernatural, by ghosts and fairies, table-rappings and telepathic encounters, occult religions and the idea of reincarnation, visions of the other world and a reality beyond the everyday. The Victorian Supernatural explores the sources of these beliefs in their literary, historical and cultural contexts. The collection brings together essays by scholars from literature, history of art and history of science, which examine the diversity of the Victorians' fascination with the supernatural. The essays show that the supernatural was not simply a reaction to a post-Darwinian loss of faith, but was embedded in virtually every aspect of Victorian culture. This important interdisciplinary study sheds light on debates surrounding the relationship between high and popular Victorian culture and contemporary notions of the supernatural.

List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
Foreward Gillian Beer
Part I. Supernatural Science: 1. Spiritualism, science and the supernatural in mid-Victorian Britain Richard Noakes
2. Investigations and fictions: Charles Dickens and ghosts Louise Henson
Part II. Invisible Women: 3. Spectral politics: the Victorian ghost story and the domestic servant Eve M. Lynch
4. George Eliot's prophecies: coercive second sight and everyday thought reading Pamela Thurschwell
Part III. Raising the Dead: 5. Browning, the dramatic monologue and the resuscitation of the dead Adam Roberts
6. Baron Corvo and the key to the underworld Colin Cruise
Part IV. Envisioning the Unseen: 7. What is the stuff that dreams are made of? Nicola Bown
8. Holman Hunt, William Dyce and the image of Christ Michaela Giebelhausen
Part V. Imperial Occult: 9. Knowledge, belief and the supernatural at the imperial margin Roger Luckhurst
10. Romance, reincarnation and Rider Haggard Carolyn Burdett
Part VI. Haunted modernism: 11. The origins of modernism in the haunted properties of literature Geoffrey Gilbert
12. Afterword Steven Connor
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]