Victorian negotiations with the recent past : history, fiction, utopia
Journal: White Rose eTheses Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York)
Year: 2013

The challenges of contemporary-history-writing were brought into relief in Britain in the nineteenth century. Philosophical and pragmatic factors made the recent past a subject of discomfort for historians, but popular with novelists. Changing concepts of time and social value made it more difficult to draw boundaries on the remit of historiography, and to decide which individuals were worthy of inclusion. As a period still present in diverse living memories, the recent past was associated with