A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture

The Victorian period was a time of rapid cultural change, which resulted in a huge and varied literary output. A New Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture offers experienced guidance to the literature of nineteenth-century Britain and its social and historical context. This revised and expanded edition comprises contributions from over 30 leading scholars who, approaching the Victorian epoch from different positions and traditions, delve into the unruly complexities of the Victorian imagination.

Divided into five parts, this new companion surveys seven decades of history before examining the keys phases in a Victorian life, the leading professions and walks of life, the major Victorian literary genres, and the way Victorians defined their persons, their homes, and their national identities. Important topics such as sexuality, denominational faith, social class, and global empire inform each chapter’s approach. Each chapter provides a comprehensive bibliography of established and emerging scholarship.

Keywords: English Literature, Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, Victorian sexualities, 19th century literature, Victorian poetry, Victorian novel, Victorian childhood, Tennyson, Arnold, Browning, Carlyle, Ruskin, Rossetti, Wilde, Eliot, Brontë, English literature, Victorian culture, critical essays, gender, textual analysis, Victorian medicine, drama, literary criticism, literary history