The Cambridge companion to the Victorian novel

In The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, a series of specially commissioned essays examine the work of Charles Dickens, the Brontes, George Eliot, and other canonical writers, as well as that of such writers as Olive Schreiner, Wilkie Collins, and H. Rider Haggard, whose work has recently attracted new attention from scholars and students. Contributors engage with topics such as industrial culture, religion, and science and the broader issues of the politics of gender, sexuality and race. The collection combines the literary study of the novel as a form with analysis of the material aspects of its readership and production, and a series of thematic and contextual perspectives that examine Victorian fiction in the light of social and cultural concerns relevant both to the period itself and to the direction of current literary and cultural studies. The Companion includes a chronology and a comprehensive guide to further reading. - Publisher.