Why Victorian Literature Still Matters

“This book argues fearlessly and passionately for the relevance of Victorian literature to contemporary society, addressing a question too rarely asked in literary study: why should we care?”
–Marion Thain, University of Birmingham

Philip Davis (Author)

9781405135795, Wiley

Paperback / softback, published 19 September 2008

192 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.29 kg

"Philip Davis's Blackwell manifesto offers a spirited, polemical defence of Victorian literature in general, and Victorian realism in particular, against its modernist and postmodernist detractors." (Oxford Journals, 1 June 2011)

"In Why Victorian Literature Still Matters, Davis writes as a reader.  Readers, as he defines them, are different from scholars and critics. Who distance themselves from the worlds before them by turning to history or theory instead.  Readers, by contrast, do not distance themselves at all, but rather seek ever more closeness." (Victorian Studies, Winter 2010)"Philip Davis's [book] ... Was fascinating about Victorian writing, and one of the best books written about how novels can work." (The Guardian, November 2008)

Why Victorian Literature Still Matters is a passionate defense of Victorian literature’s enduring impact and importance for readers interested in the relationship between literature and life, reading and thinking.

• Explores the prominence of Victorian literature for contemporary readers and academics, through the author’s unique insight into why it is still important today
• Provides new frames of interpretation for key Victorian works of literature and close readings of important texts
• Argues for a new engagement with Victorian literature, from general readers and scholars alike
• Seeks to remove Victorian literature from an entrenched set of values, traditions and perspectives - demonstrating how vital and resonant it is for modern literary and cultural analysis

Introduction: The Victorian Bump and Where to Find It 1

Subject Areas: Literature: history & criticism [DS]