Victorian Studies Reader

What does the Age of Steam have to say to the Age of the Internet?New ideas about gender, race, language, space and material culture have transformed the way the Victorians are being discussed today. The Victorian Studies Reader brings together for the first time the best of these international writings about the period. Not only do Kelly Boyd and Rohan McWilliam consider familiar themes such as parliamentary reform and poverty, but they also look at the mesmerist, the barmaid and the cosmopolitan man about town. New light is shed on the Chartists, the British Empire and Darwinian evolution, while other readings challenge conventional views about Victorian religion, morality and hypocrisy. Each reading is prefaced by a helpful commentary placing the work in context. In their wide-ranging introduction, Kelly Boyd and Rohan McWilliam not only illuminate how the Victorians have been imagined since the death of Victoria, but they also make a powerful argument for the importance of the Victorian inheritance today. They reveal how the field has been reshaped over the last generation by the rise of cultural history and cross-disciplinary conversation, and establish a challenging agenda for Victorian studies in the twenty-first century. The Victorian Studies Reader will appeal to all those who want to know more about the world of the Victorians.Boyd, Kelly is the author of 'Victorian Studies Reader ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415355797 and ISBN 0415355796.