Varieties of Victorianism

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Introduction: Past and Present — the Case of Samuel Smiles’ Self Help

   • Gary Day

   Pages 1-24

3. Imperial Muscular Christianity: Thomas Hughes’s Biography of David Livingstone

   • Mary Angela Schwer

   Pages 25-39

4. Victorian Modernity? Writing the Great Exhibition

   • Chris Hopkins

   Pages 40-62

5. Black Silk and Red Paisley: the Toxic Woman in Wilkie Collins’s Armadale

   • Jessica Maynard

   Pages 63-79

6. A Postmodern Victorian? Lewis Carroll and the Critique of Totalising Reason

   • Simon Malpas

   Pages 80-97

7. Politics as Antagonism and Diversity: Mill and Lyotard

   • Peter R. Sedgwick

   Pages 98-109

8. ‘Victorian Values’ and Silas Marner

   • K. M. Newton

   Pages 110-125

9. Racism in the Mid-Victorian Novel: Thackeray’s Philip

   • John Peck

   Pages 126-141

10. The Reason for Drinking in Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge

    • Steven Earnshaw

    Pages 142-160

11. ‘To Whom Does He Address Himself?’: Reading Wordsworth in Browning’s Pauline

    • Carl Plasa

    Pages 161-178

12. A Rose is a Rose is a Rover

    • Alistair Walker

    Pages 179-190

13. Haven’t I Seen You Somewhere Before? Melodrama, Postmodernism and Victorian Culture

    • Nadine Holdsworth

    Pages 191-205

14. ‘A low born labourer like you’: Audience and Victorian Working-Class Melodrama

    • Darryl Wadsworth

    Pages 206-219

15. ‘Victorian Values’ and ‘Fast Young Ladies’: from Madeleine Smith to Ruth Rendell

    • Nick Rance

    Pages 220-235

16. Vampires and Victorians: Count Dracula and the Return of the Repressive Hypothesis

    • Robert Mighall

    Pages 236-249

17. Of Elephants and Men: the Freak as Victorian and Contemporary Spectacle

    • Jonathan Skinner

    Pages 250-262

18. Back Matter

    Pages 263-270

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The essays collected here all take issue with the claim that the Victorian period is the antithesis of our own. They show how characteristic postmodern anxieties and celebrations concerning truth, certainty and identity informed Victorian culture at all levels. Covering everything from attitudes to drink to the poetry of Browning, from the Great Exhibition to the Elephant Man, this volume shows not only how the Victorians coped with these challenges but also what lessons they have for us today.

• culture
• essay
• identity
• postmodernism

• De Montfort University, Bedford, UK

  Gary Day

STEVEN EARNSHAW Senior Lecturer, Sheffield Hallam University NADINE HOLDSWORTH Lecturer in Drama, De Montfort University, Bedford CHRIS HOPKINS Course Leader of B.A. English Studies, Sheffield Hallam University SIMON MALPAS Lecturer, Department of English, Manchester Metropolitan University JESSICA MAYNARD Tutorial Assistant, University of Wales, Bangor ROBERT MIGHALL Editor, Penguin Classics KEN NEWTON Professor of English, Dundee University JOHN PECK Senior Lecturer in English, University of Wales, Cardiff CARL PLASA Lecturer in English, University of Wales, Cardiff NICK RANCE Senior Lecturer, Middlesex University MARY ANGELA SCHWER Lecturer, University of Notre Dame PETER R. SEDGWICK Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Wales, Cardiff JONATHAN SKINNER Lecturer in Sociology and Anthropology, University of Abertay, Dundee DARRYL WADSWORTH Lecturer, University of Pennslyvania ALISTAIR WALKER Senior Lecturer in English, De Montford University, Bedford.

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