| Description |
1 online resource (iv, 154 pages) |
| Contents |
Angels in the house -- At home with the Dombeys -- The disease of reading -- Pleasing and teaching -- One person in law -- Newcome v. Lord Highgate -- Carlyle v. Carlyle -- Oh reader! -- The sensational moment -- Fashionable crimes -- Mrs. Mellish's marriages -- The shame of Miss Braddon -- The precious quality of truthfulness -- Hardwicke's children -- R v. Sorrel -- The lost and the saved -- Walking the streets -- The murder of Nancy Sikes -- Contemplating Jenny -- Because men made the laws |
| Summary |
"An exploration of the texts which shaped Victorian attitudes towards the 'condition' of England and the 'question' of its women. It offers a richly contextual commentary on a critical period in the evolution of modern legal and cultural attitudes to the relation of crime, sexuality and the family."--Bloomsbury Publishing |
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"The Victorians worried about many things, prominent among their worries being the 'condition' of England and the 'question' of its women. Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England revisits these particular anxieties, concentrating more closely upon four 'crimes' which generated special concern amongst contemporaries: adultery, bigamy, infanticide, and prostitution. Each engaged with questions of sexuality and its regulation - as well as the legal, moral, and cultural concerns - which attracted the considerable interest, not just of lawyers and parliamentarians, but also novelists and poets, and perhaps most importantly, those who, in ever-larger numbers, liked to pass their leisure hours reading about sex and crime. Alongside statutes such as the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act and the 1864 Contagious Diseases Act, the book contemplates those texts which shaped Victorian attitudes towards England's 'condition' and the 'question' of its women - the novels of Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot; the works of sensationalists, such as Ellen Wood and Mary Braddon; and the poetry of Gabriel and Christina Rossetti. Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England is a richly contextual commentary on a critical period in the evolution of modern legal and cultural attitudes to the relation of crime, sexuality, and the family. It is an important study for all those interested in law and literature, legal history, and criminology"--Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Finding Aid |
Available in electronic full text to members of the University via the Library web catalogue |
| Subject |
Great Britain. Matrimonial Causes Act 1857.
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Great Britain. Contagious Diseases Act 1864
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English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism
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Crime in literature.
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Women in literature.
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Adultery -- England -- History -- 19th century
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Bigamy -- England -- History -- 19th century
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Infanticide -- England -- History -- 19th century
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Prostitution -- England -- History -- 19th century
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Law & society.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh.
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Prostitution.
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Infanticide.
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Bigamy.
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Adultery.
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Crime in literature.
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English literature.
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Sex in literature.
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Women in literature.
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England.
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| Genre/Form |
History.
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Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781474201322 |
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1474201326 |
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9781782253709 |
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178225370X |
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1782253696 |
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9781782253693 |
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