On both sides of the Atlantic, there is nowadays a profound and varied interest in both Victorian literature and Victorian culture (the two, of course, continue to reflect and to denote the dominant role of printed pages in the life of that society, and the relatively unified culture assumed then to be valid and acceptable). In prose, this was the distinguished age of Dickens, Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, Elizabeth Gaskell, the Brontes, and “George Eliot”. That is sufficient to denote the full emergence of the “social problem” novel, the contest between religion and science, and the unease between the individual and society. In poetry, likewise, those highly formative Victorian years saw also the increasing use of poetry for both narrative and reflective purposes, by such enduring masters as Tennyson, Browning, Matthew Arnold, and ‐ latterly ‐ by both D.G. Rosetti and A.C. Swinburne. “Art for art’s sake” became a partially decadent slogan of Victorian poetry of the end of the nineteenth century.
Judging, perhaps, from what is today so generously left of the stores of Victorian literature, treasured and accumulated by Gladstone at St Deiniol’s Library, Hawarden, one might be excused the error of supposing that Victorian Britain, in its heyday, fostered and demonstrated a somewhat detached and“élitist” intellect. Certainly, there and then, high standards of both literature and culture were, almost universally, respected and upheld. Nevertheless, it is also very evident, on closer study, that the best minds of our “Eminent Victorians” were far from being either complacent or detached: indeed, Victorian literature and culture was immensely varied and it abundantly reflected the current perplexities, about the “Condition of England” question, changes in religion and science, the new subject of sociology, the hazards of popular democracy, and the drive for equality as well as liberty.
The issue nowadays is not to discover the continuing relevance of such immensely challenging “Victorian studies”, but rather to elucidate afresh and in depth new aspects and facets of them. Each new generation, perhaps, merits and expects a new appraisal of the Victorian Age, so that our history must be revised and enlarged, not so much factually, as in terms of new insights and interrelations. This large and rather formidable work definitely constitutes an exceedingly worthwhile and ambitious publishing venture: a well‐disciplined and organized summary of many years of diligent and varied studies by a galaxy of American scholars together with a solitary Australian (from the University of Sydney). Its editor, Herbert F. Tucker, is Professor of English at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
With such very distinguished academic credentials, one might well expect to peruse a volume characterised by meticulous scholarship, insight, and orginality; and the reader will have few or no disappointments in such respects. Part One deals with the straightforward landmarks of history: Britain as it was, in 1832, 1848, 1870, and 1897. Part Two provides us with unusual focuses upon childhood, adolescence, old age, death, and sexuality, amply illustrated from Victorian literature. Part Three offers us even longer diversions into different walks of Victorian life and society: the church, law, medicine, the army, education, public administration, finance, trade and inustry, and publishing. Varieties of literature occupy Part Four: poetry, fiction, drama, autobiography and biography, “sage writing” (how little of that we have now!), and literary criticism. The final part of the book deals, equally thoroughly and incisively, with some marginal but important themes: Victorian “prudery,” private versus public life, and ‐ beyond such confined and domesticated reaches ‐ a most illuminating and forward‐thinking essay, entitled “The Victorian Nation and Its Others”, validly ending this immensely useful work on a refreshingly futuristic vision of Kiplingesqe “Imperialism.”
This is scarcely a volume for continuous reading, but it must certainly fulfil its intended role: as a compilation of solid and reliable research, wholly creditable for the transatlantic efforts of English scholars so well favoured with the huge resources of excellent academic libraries. Each of the very varied contributions ‐ there are 29 of them in all ‐ is well equipped with exhaustive and up‐to‐date bibliographies, invaluable for further studies. There is also an excellent index. Altogether, therefore, this is an admirable and enduring book, which should certainly be added to the reference departments of all self‐respecting university libraries ‐ and a great many civic and municipal libraries, as well.
