Mastery and Slavery in Victorian Writing

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction: Master–Slave Relations, Master–Slave Pacts

   • Jonathan Taylor

   Pages 1-20

3. Capitalists, Castrators and Criminals: Violent Masters and Slaves in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White

   • Jonathan Taylor

   Pages 21-44

4. ‘Servants’ Logic’ and Analytical Chemistry: Intellectual Masters and Servants in George Eliot and Charles Dickens

   • Jonathan Taylor

   Pages 45-66

5. Slaveholders and Democrats: Combined Masters and Slaves in Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens’ American Notes and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative

   • Jonathan Taylor

   Pages 67-115

6. Heroes, Hero-Worshippers and Jews: Music Masters, Slaves and Servants in Thomas Carlyle, Richard Wagner, George Eliot and George Du Maurier

   • Jonathan Taylor

   Pages 116-157

7. Stump Orators, Phantasm Captains and Mutual Recognition: Popular Masters and Masterlessness in Dickens’ Hard Times and Thomas Carlyle’s ‘Stump-Orator’

   • Jonathan Taylor

   Pages 158-185

8. Afterword, After Slavery, After Shooting Niagara

   • Jonathan Taylor

   Pages 186-194

9. Back Matter

   Pages 195-229

   PDF

Taking Hegel's famous " Master-Slave Dialectic " as its starting point, this wide-ranging book examines portrayals of masters, slaves and servants in works by Carlyle, Dickens, Eliot, Collins and others. The questions raised about modern mastery and slavery are pursued in relation to intriguing nineteenth-century figures as the American slave-holder, the musician, the demagogue and the Jew.

• America
• Charles Dickens
• George Eliot
• British and Irish Literature

• Department of English and Drama, Loughborough University, UK

  Jonathan Taylor

JONATHAN TAYLOR is Lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He also composes music, and has written a radio play about Joseph Emidy, the Cornish composer.

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