Böcker i Anthem Nineteenth-Century Series-serien

John Keble had an immense influence on nineteenth-century literature and culture. A founding figure of the Oxford Movement, he was mythologized as the living embodiment of Christian ideals. His 1827 volume of verse The Christian Year was the best-selling book of poetry in the Victorian era while his lectures as Oxford Professor of Poetry were highly influential. Those indebted to his ideas include figures as diverse as John Henry Newman, Christina Rossetti and Alfred Tennyson. Despite his evident importance, Keble?s social, political and cultural impacts on his times have, until recently, been significantly underestimated. This interdisciplinary volume is a major contribution to our understanding of the importance of Keble?s life and work. It provides an entirely fresh perspective on Keble?s writings, bringing critical work on Keble into the twenty-first century, in particular, demonstrating the importance of his contribution to nineteenth-century literature, politics and theology. Including works by a number of prominent scholars, John Keble in Context provides a wide range of perspectives on Keble?s place in politics and religion, his writings and his influence on his literary heirs and successors. This unique and timely volume offers the first major reassessment of Keble?s work for several decades, and a comprehensive introduction to this key figure. John Keble in Context will appeal to students of Victorian literature, history, religion and culture.

'Victorian Sensation' sheds light on the Victorians' fascination with celebrity culture and their obsession with gruesome and explicit reportage of murders and sex scandals. With a vivid cast of characters, ranging from the serial poisoner William Palmer, to Charles Dickens, Jumbo the Elephant, distinguished politicians and even the Queen herself, this passionate analysis of the period reveals how the reporting methods of our own popular media have their origins in the Victorian press, and shows that sensation was as integral a part of society in the nineteenth century as it is today.

This book explores the importance of sympathy as a central idea behind Victorian fiction, and an animating principle of novel reading generally. Sympathy, Brigid Lowe argues, deserves a much more important role as both a subject and a guiding principle for literary criticism.Over the past thirty years, much literary theory has approached literature in general, and Victorian fiction in particular, in a spirit of suspicion. It has tried to purge criticism of the human subject, and of that distinctively human faculty, sympathy. Reading in a contrary, sympathetic mode, Lowe turns the tables on theoretical orthodoxy by submitting some of its central premises to the sympathetic suggestions of novels by Dickens, Gaskell, Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Charlotte Yonge and Dinah Craik. Their explorations of such diverse issues as history, imagination, individual rights, family, and social responsibility, highlight sympathy as a cornerstone of human nature and humane conduct. Lowe argues that not only literary theory, but our culture more generally, would greatly profit by opening itself up to a sympathetic exchange of ideas with another age, and giving Victorian intimations of sympathy a sympathetic hearing.Lowes exploration of sympathy as part of the dynamics of reading will be of interest to academics and students working on fiction in all periods, and especially to those concerned with aesthetic and critical theory. Her investigation of the role of sympathy in a range of nineteenth-century cultural debates, in particular in relation to gender and the family, should also interest cultural historians. The engaging argumentative momentum of Victorian Fiction and the Insights of Sympathy will appeal to anyone interested in why we do, and should, go on reading Victorian fiction.

There have been a great many books written on military intelligence and the secret services rooted in the twentieth century; however there is very little covering the activities of the men involved in the establishment of this fascinating institution. Its origins lie in the British Army: from the beginnings in the Topographical Department to the Boer War, when various factors made the foundation work of the eventual MI5 (founded in 1909) possible. Incredibly, there were two vast armies in the 1840s, both serving the state and Queen, yet no formally organized military intelligence bureau. Such ignorance of the enemy brought about many botched and bloody encounters, such as the notorious Charge of the Light Brigade. The thrilling story of the various intelligence sources for the armed forces throughout the Victorian period is one of individuals, adventurers and small, ad hoc bodies set up by commanders when the need arose. Stephen Wades enthralling book reveals the unsteady foundations of one of the countrys most prominent and renowned organizations, tracing the various elements that gradually composed the intelligence and political branches of Britains Secret Service.

This Dictionary is a guide to the literary terms most relevant to students and readers of English literature today, thorough on the essentials and generous in its intellectual scope. The definitions are lively and precise in equipping students and general readers with a genuinely useful critical vocabulary. It identifies the thinking and controversies surrounding terms, and offers fresh insights and directions for future reading. It does this with the help of extensive cross-referencing, indexes and up-to-date bibliography (with recommended websites).