Victorian Fiction

The Victorian period saw some of the most important developments in Britain's history: rapid industrialization, social and welfare reform, ground-breaking scientific discoveries. All this lead to an unprecedented rise in literacy and had their impact on fiction of the time. Mapping the developments in fiction against the key political, cultural, and social events of the nineteenth century, this book looks at issues of humanism, domestic politics, religion, colonialism, class identity, and sexuality, while at the same time providing an introduction to the works of Dickens, the Brontes, Thackeray, Gaskell, Trollope, Eliot, Collins, Gissing, Hardy, and Stevenson.