Oxford Handbook of Victorian Literary Culture

"The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Literary Culture is a major contribution to the dynamic field of Victorian studies. This collection of 37 original chapters by leading international Victorian scholars offers new approaches to familiar themes (for example, science, religion, gender) and gives space to newer and emerging topics (for instance, old age, fair play, economics). Structured around three broad sections (on ‘Ways of Being: Identity and Ideology’, ‘Ways of Understanding: Knowledge and Belief’, and ‘Ways of Communicating: Print and Other Cultures’), the volume is sub-divided into 9 sub-sections each with its own ‘lead’ essay: on subjectivity, politics, gender and sexuality, place and race, religion, science, material and mass culture, aesthetics and visual culture, and theatrical culture.^ The collection, like today’s Victorian studies, is thoroughly interdisciplinary and yet its substantial Introduction explores a concern which is evident both implicitly and explicitly in the volume’s essays: that is, the nature and status of ‘literary’ culture and the literary from the Victorian period to the present. The diverse and wide-ranging essays present original scholarship framed accessibly for a mixed readership of advanced undergraduates, graduate students and established scholars. is a major contribution to the dynamic field of Victorian studies. This collection of 37 original chapters by leading international Victorian scholars offers new approaches to familiar themes (for example, science, religion, gender) and gives space to newer and emerging topics (for instance, old age, fair play, economics).^ Structured around three broad sections (on ‘Ways of Being: Identity and Ideology’, ‘Ways of Understanding: Knowledge and Belief’, and ‘Ways of Communicating: Print and Other Cultures’), the volume is sub-divided into 9 sub-sections each with its own ‘lead’ essay: on subjectivity, politics, gender and sexuality, place and race, religion, science, material and mass culture, aesthetics and visual culture, and theatrical culture. The collection, like today’s Victorian studies, is thoroughly interdisciplinary and yet its substantial Introduction explores a concern which is evident both implicitly and explicitly in the volume’s essays: that is, the nature and status of ‘literary’ culture and the literary from the Victorian period to the present.^ The diverse and wide-ranging essays present original scholarship framed accessibly for a mixed readership of advanced undergraduates, graduate students and established scholars"--Publisher's website.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.