Maestros, Dilettantes, and Philistines: The Musician in the Victorian Novel

From long-haired Jewish composers to young women playing «a little» piano to tone-deaf British concert-goers, Victorian novels are filled with musical characters. Auerbach's fascinating and comprehensive study reveals that Dickens, Thackeray, Hardy, Eliot, and other novelists of «das Land ohne Musik» found music to be a rich source of metaphor.