Wiley-Blackwell The Victorian Novel (Blackwell Guides to Criticism)

Review "O'Gorman functions as more author than editor in this second volume in the "Blackwell Guides to Criticism" series, providing a lucid, readable narrative accessible to the non-specialist.[...] In its definition and summary of current critical theories, the book will prove useful to all students of literature, not just those interested in the Victorian period. Highly recommended for all collections." Choice "this will be a useful companion to any English or History course whatever the level of study and will provide a concise and clear critique that can be applied to any Victorian novel." Reference Reviews "It is the kind of book you come back to, repeatedly consult, and would find absorbing whether or not you were an academic teacher. It is likely to serve for a long time as a fruitful reminder of how the practice of literary criticism has permanently changed the way we enjoy the old-fashioned narrative pleasures of the Victorian novel." The Brown Book Product Description This guide steers students through significant critical responses to the Victorian novel from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day. From the Inside Flap This guide looks at how the Victorian novel has been read over the past hundred years. Unlike other critical guides, it not only provides students with examples of significant strands of criticism, but also helps them to make sense of these articles and extracts by means of a narrative and critical framework. The novelists referred to are the acknowledged great names of Victorian fiction, including the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Anthony Trollope. A short opening section describing and representing early critical responses is complemented by a longer second section looking at current themes in criticism, such as genre, gender, politics, science, language, the canon, and modes of production. The volume as a whole enhances students' critical repertoire, encourages them to recognise the situatedness of all criticism, and helps them to engage with critical debates about the Victorian novel. From the Back Cover This guide looks at how the Victorian novel has been read over the past hundred years. Unlike other critical guides, it not only provides students with examples of significant strands of criticism, but also helps them to make sense of these articles and extracts by means of a narrative and critical framework. The novelists referred to are the acknowledged great names of Victorian fiction, including the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Anthony Trollope. A short opening section describing and representing early critical responses is complemented by a longer second section looking at current themes in criticism, such as genre, gender, politics, science, language, the canon, and modes of production. The volume as a whole enhances students' critical repertoire, encourages them to recognise the situatedness of all criticism, and helps them to engage with critical debates about the Victorian novel. About the Author Francis O'Gorman is Lecturer in Victorian Literature in the School of English at the University of Leeds. He has written widely on the Victorian period, including the books John Ruskin (1999) and Late Ruskin: New Contexts (2001), and co-edited collections on Margaret Oliphant (1999), Ruskin and Gender (2002), and The Victorians and the Eighteenth Century: Reassessing the Tradition (2003). He has also written articles and book chapters on Ruskin, Tyndall, Robert Browning, Tennyson, Michael Field, and Victorian masculinities. He is currently working on an annotated anthology of Victorian poetry (Blackwell, forthcoming), and writing more on Ruskin.