bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Prevalence and outcomes of HIV‐1 diagnostic challenges during universal birth testing – an urban South African observational cohort
Authors: Technau Karl‐Günter , Mazanderani Ahmad Haeri , Kuhn Louise , Hans Lucia , Strehlau Renate , Abrams Elaine J. , Conradie Martie , Coovadia Ashraf , Mbete Ndileka , Murnane Pamela M , Patel Faeezah , Shiau Stephanie , Tiemessen Caroline T. , Sherman Gayle G.
Published: June 2017

Introduction: HIV‐1 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing at birth aims to facilitate earlier initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV‐infected neonates. Data from two years of universal birth testing implementation in a high‐burden South African urban setting are presented to demonstrate the prevalence and outcomes of diagnostic challenges in this context.

Methods: HIV‐exposed neonates born at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital between 5 June 2014 and 31 August 2016 were routinely screened at birth for HIV‐1 on whole blood samples using the COBAS® AmpliPrep/COBAS® TaqMan (CAP/CTM) HIV‐1 Qualitative Test, version 2.0 (Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., Branchburg, NJ, USA). Virological results were interpreted according to standard operating procedures with the South African National Health Laboratory Service. All neonates with non‐negative results were actively followed‐up and categorized according to HIV infection status as positive, negative, uncertain and lost to follow‐up (LTFU).

Results: 104 (1.8%) of 5743 HIV‐exposed neonates received a non‐negative birth PCR result, for which laboratory data were available for 102 (98%) cases – 78 (76%) tested positive and 24 (24%) indeterminate. HIV infection status was confirmed positive in 83 (81%) infants, negative in 8 (8%), uncertain in 5 (5%) and LTFU in 6 (6%) cases. The positive predictive value (excluding cases of uncertain diagnosis and inadequate testing) following a non‐negative HIV‐1 PCR screening test at birth was 0.91 (83/91; 95% confidence interval: 0.85–0.96). Neonates testing positive at birth had significantly higher viral load (VL) results than those testing indeterminate at birth of 4.5 and 3.0 log copies/ml (p = 0.0007), respectively. Similarly, mothers of neonates with positive as compared to indeterminate birth test results had higher VLs of 4.5 and 2.7 log copies/ml (p = 0.0013), respectively. Half of neonates with an indeterminate birth test were shown to be HIV‐infected on subsequent confirmatory testing, with time to final diagnosis 30 days longer for these neonates (p < 0.0001).

Conclusion: Indeterminate HIV‐1 PCR results accounted for a quarter of non‐negative results at birth and were associated with a high risk of infection in comparison to the risk of in utero transmission. Indeterminate birth results with positive HIV PCR results on repeat testing were associated with later final diagnosis. The HIV‐1 status remains uncertain in a minority of cases because of repeatedly indeterminate results, highlighting the need for more sensitive and specific virological tests.
Gastric cancer‐derived exosomes promote peritoneal metastasis by destroying the mesothelial barrier
Authors: Deng Guang , Qu Jinglei , Zhang Ye , Che Xiaofang , Cheng Yu , Fan Yibo , Zhang Simeng , Na Di , Liu Yunpeng , Qu Xiujuan
Published: June 2017

An intact mesothelium serves as a protective barrier to inhibit peritoneal carcinomatosis. Cancer‐derived exosomes can mediate directional tumor metastasis; however, little is known about whether gastric cancer‐derived exosomes will destroy the mesothelial barrier and promote peritoneal dissemination. Here, we demonstrate that gastric cancer‐derived exosomes facilitate peritoneal metastasis by causing mesothelial barrier disruption and peritoneal fibrosis. Injury of peritoneal mesothelial cells elicited by gastric cancer‐derived exosomes is through concurrent apoptosis and mesothelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (MMT). Additionally, upregulation of p‐ERK in peritoneal mesothelial cells is primarily responsible for the MMT while contributing little to apoptosis. Together, these data support the concept that exosomes play a crucial role in remodeling the premetastatic microenvironment and identify a novel mechanism for peritoneal metastasis of gastric carcinoma.
Control of Mus81 nuclease during the cell cycle
Authors: Pfander Boris , Matos Joao
Published: June 2017

DNA replication and homologous recombination involve the formation of branched DNA structures that physically link chromosomes. Such DNA‐based connections, which arise during S‐phase, are typically disengaged prior to entry into mitosis, in order to ensure proper chromosome segregation. Exceptions can, however, occur: replication stress, or elevated levels of DNA damage, may cause cells to enter mitosis with unfinished replication as well as carrying recombination intermediates, such as Holliday junctions. Hence, cells are equipped with pathways that recognize and process branched DNA structures, and evolved mechanisms to enhance their function when on the verge of undergoing cell division. One of these pathways utilizes the structure‐selective endonuclease Mus81, which is thought to facilitate the resolution of replication and recombination intermediates. Mus81 function is known to be enhanced upon entry into M phase in budding yeast and human cells. Based on recent findings, we discuss here an updated model of Mus81 control during the cell cycle.
VLF waves from ground‐based transmitters observed by the Van Allen Probes: Statistical model and effects on plasmaspheric electrons
Authors: Ma Qianli , Mourenas Didier , Li Wen , Artemyev Anton , Thorne Richard M.
Published: June 2017

Whistler mode very low frequency (VLF) waves from powerful ground‐based transmitters can resonantly scatter energetic plasmaspheric electrons and precipitate them into the atmosphere. A comprehensive 4 year statistics of Van Allen Probes measurements is carried out to assess their consequences on the dynamics of the inner radiation belt and slot region. Statistical models of the measured wave electric field power and of the inferred full wave magnetic amplitude are provided as a function of L, magnetic local time, season, and Kp over L = 1–3, revealing the localization of VLF wave intensity and its variation with geomagnetic activity over 2012–2016. Since this VLF wave model can be directly used together with existing hiss and lightning‐generated wave models in radiation belt simulation codes, we perform numerical calculations of the corresponding quasi‐linear pitch angle diffusion rates, allowing us to demonstrate the crucial role played by VLF waves from transmitters in energetic electron loss at L < 2.5.
Immunity to Infections
Authors: Sehrawat Sharvan , Rouse Barry T
Published: June 2017

Understanding how different pathogens are sensed and recognised by the immune system and an appropriate response generated is critical for devising control strategies. Innate immunity is deployed immediately after the infection, while it takes several days before adaptive immunity effectively kicks in. Key differentiating features of two types of responses are specific recognition and the formation of immunological memory during adaptive immunity. Both types of immune responses are interdependent and play critical role during defence against infections. Recently, emerging trends that challenge well‐established paradigm how innate and adaptive immunity are defined and categorised are highlighted. In addition, factors that make some pathogens less amenable to immune control and unresolved issues in infection immunity are discussed.

Key Concepts

A concerted activity of innate and adaptive immune mechanisms is critical for defence against microbes.

Innate immune responses are not so specific while adaptive immune responses exhibit specificity effected by TCRs and BCRs expressed by T and B cells respectively.

Some mediators however act at the interface of innate and adaptive immunity.

The outcome of infection depends on several host and pathogen properties.

Although most infectious agents utilise strategy to outmanoeuvre immunity but immune evasion is not absolute.

Most chronic infections induce upregulation of inhibitory receptors on T cells a phenomenon commonly known as immune exhaustion.

Blocking signalling induced by inhibitory receptors can reverse function in exhausted T cells.

Immune modulatory strategies could be useful to achieve optimal protection conferred by prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines.
Inflammation: Acute
Authors: Raynes John G
Published: June 2017

Inflammation represents the response of vascularised tissue to damage resulting from infection or injury. An acute inflammatory response comprises four phases: detection of harmful stimuli, response from effector molecules and cells, elimination of pathogens and cellular debris and restoration of tissue homeostasis. Innate pattern recognition molecules are found in extracellular, cell surface and intracellular locations and bind to components of microbes or molecules released by cellular damage. These trigger pathways that lead to the release of inflammatory molecules that alter vascular permeability at sites of tissue damage and activation of many immune cells. Changes in vascular endothelium promote the exudation of plasma and leucocyte recruitment for the clearance of microorganisms and necrotic tissue. Inflammatory mediators also exert systemic effects called the acute‐phase response. Successful clearance of injurious agents and tissue damage abates inflammatory signals and is followed by the formation of granulation tissue and the initiation of tissue remodelling.

Key Concepts

Tissues are continuously surveyed for infection and cellular damage by cells and molecules that recognise pathogen‐ and damage‐associated molecular patterns.

Recognition of infection or cellular damage activates inflammation locally and systemically to activate immune cells and eliminate microbial pathogens and damaged tissue.

Inflammatory signals recruit neutrophils and macrophages into inflamed tissues where they release toxic factors and phagocytose pathogens and cellular debris.

Inflammation has many feedback control mechanisms because if unrestrained it can lead to severe pathology.

The resolution of inflammation is followed by tissue repair and remodelling.
DNA
Methylation and Mutation
Authors: Pfeifer Gerd P
Published: June 2017

Single‐gene and genome sequencing studies have identified base substitution mutations as a causative mechanism in human genetic diseases and cancer. These mutations do not occur randomly but are often enriched at specific DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) sequences. The genome of most human cells contains about 50 million 5‐methylcytosine bases, the majority of them occurring at the CpG dinucleotide sequence. Methylated CpG dinucleotides are the targets of many of the mutations, mostly transition mutations (C→T or G→A), found in genetic disorders and in malignant tumours. The mechanisms that increase mutations at CpG sites include spontaneous deamination of 5‐methylcytosine and preferential interaction of such sequences with physical or chemical carcinogens. As a consequence of enhanced mutagenesis at methylated CpGs, the CpG frequency in mammalian genomes has been strongly depleted over evolutionary time.

Key Concepts

Methylated CpG sequences are preferentially mutated.

Deamination of 5‐methylcytosine leads to transition mutations at CpGs.

Exogenous carcinogens target methylated CpGs.

CpG mutations are frequent in genetic diseases and cancer.

DNA repair may be affected by methylation of CpG sequences.
HIV
Vaccine Approaches
Authors: Kent Stephen J
Published: June 2017

An HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) vaccine is needed to combat the 1–2 million cases on new HIV infection each year. The goal of vaccination is to establish long‐term immunological readiness that allows rapid protection against infectious disease. All current successful vaccines achieve this by inducing neutralising antibodies, which are effective against acute, cytopathic infections that could otherwise prove fatal. By contrast, potential vaccines against highly variable pathogens that establish persistent infections, such as HIV, have had limited success. There have been multiple attempts to induce effective immunity to HIV in humans, with only one approach showing partial (31%) efficacy. Several clues on a better path forward have, however, emerged from HIV vaccine trials in humans, studies of humans who naturally control HIV infection and studies in animal models. There has been an improved understanding of anti‐HIV neutralising antibodies, which, if could be induced successfully, are likely to be highly effective. Antibodies that engage Fc receptors on innate immune cells (the so‐called ADCC (antibody‐dependent cellular cytotoxicity) antibodies) have emerged as a key component of successful vaccine strategies. New vaccine design and delivery strategies are now entering large‐scale human efficacy trials. These approaches offer real hope that a safe and effective HIV vaccine will eventually be developed to assist in the control of the HIV/AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) pandemic.

Key Concepts

A HIV vaccine is urgently needed.

There are many hurdles to induce effective HIV immunity.

Only one HIV vaccine trial in humans has showed partial efficacy to date.

Neutralising antibodies against HIV are highly effective in animal models but are difficult to induce by vaccination.

Functional anti‐HIV antibodies that can engage innate immune cells to fight HIV are likely to be a key component of successful HIV vaccine strategies.

T‐cell‐based immunity against HIV shows promise in certain settings.

New HIV vaccines are entering human efficacy trials.

There is considerable promise that an effective HIV vaccine will be developed in the future.
Immunology of Birds
Authors: Wigley Paul
Published: June 2017

The immune system of birds diverged from that of mammals over 200 million years ago, and although the basic structure and function is largely similar, the immune system of birds is generally more compact and less polymorphic than that of mammals. Birds possess only a single polymorphonuclear leucocyte, the heterophil, but have cellular thrombocytes that may act as phagocytes and antigen‐presenting cells. Recognition of pathogens through pattern recognition is very similar to mammalian species.

Within the adaptive immune response, birds have considerably less polymorphism of major receptor families. The most studied avian species, the chicken, has a compact major histocompatibility complex expressing only two Class I and Class II alleles and evidence of coevolution with major pathogens. There are only three immunoglobulin classes (IgY, IgM and IgA) but three T‐cell receptor classes. Functionally, the system is similar to mammals with cellular (Th1), humoral (Th2), regulatory and Th17 all described in the chicken. Vaccination is a widely used tool in disease control in chickens and other domestic birds. Vaccination technology is particularly advanced and includes the use of drinking water, spray and
in ovo
vaccines to facilitate delivery to large numbers of animals.

Key Concepts

Birds possess a complex immune system which, although shares much of its structure and function with mammals, has differences that reflect 200 million years of divergent evolution.

Most of our knowledge of avian immunology comes from the domestic chicken and the development of vaccines for use by the poultry industry.

B lymphocytes are named after the Bursa of Fabricius, the primary lymphoid organ where they mature in birds.

Birds lack structured peripheral or mesenteric lymph nodes.

The immune system of birds is more compact than that of mammals, with less polymorphism of major receptor families.

Birds have three immunoglobulin or antibody classes compared to five in mammals.

Birds possess three T‐cell receptor types, one more than mammals.

Pattern recognition receptors such as Toll‐like receptors are largely conserved between mammalian and avian species.

Birds possess a single polymorphonuclear cell class, the heterophil, but their nucleated thrombocytes appear to play a key role in innate immunity.

The compact ‘minimal’ major histocompatibility complex of the chicken gives rise to close association between MHC type and resistance to infection.

The need to vaccinate up to 50 billion animals reared each year has driven novel vaccines and delivery systems in the poultry industry.
Brain Growth in

H
omo
erectus
Authors: Cofran Zachary
Published: June 2017

Humans' massive brains stand out as one of our species' defining features. Growth and development are the means by which our large brains are achieved, and these mechanisms also distinguish us from other animals. The evolution of brain growth is difficult to reconstruct as fossil samples are generally small, and brain growth occurs within a minuscule proportion of an individual's life. Although there are several nonadult hominin cranial fossils, the earliest specimen to shed light on this issue is the
Homo erectus
infant from Mojokerto. This infant's proportional brain size is consistent with both human and chimpanzee models of brain growth. On the basis of absolute size, however, this infant implies growth rates that are higher than chimpanzees' and within the modern human range. It is therefore likely that the behaviour and life history of
H. erectus
were more similar to those of modern humans than has generally been appreciated.

Key Concepts

Human brain growth is an important part of our unique life history.

Brain size growth ceases early in life, and so the poor fossil record obfuscates the evolution of brain growth.

Analysis of the Nariokotome adolescent skeleton led to the correct conclusion that human‐like secondary altriciality was present in
Homo erectus
, albeit from the wrong data.

The Mojokerto child's cranium, with an endocranial volume of around 650 cc, is the only
H. erectus
individual that died during the period of brain growth.

The relative brain size of Mojokerto can be found in samples of chimpanzees or humans, meaning proportional brain size does not distinguish patterns of growth.

The finding of a common relationship between neonatal‐adult brain size among catarrhine primates means that a reasonable estimate of neonatal brain size, around 300 cc, can be estimated for
H. erectus
.

Reconstructed brain growth rates, combining the Mojokerto infant's brain size and likely age at death with the species' estimated neonatal brain size, indicate that
H. erectus
was similar to humans in retaining high growth rates for at least a year.
Aguilar, Grace
Authors: Page Judith W.
Published: June 2017

Living in Britain as a Sephardic Jew, Grace Aguilar constantly negotiated between her English and Jewish identities in her works and life. Her writing in various genres provided a vivid early Victorian view of the way a Jewish woman, outside mainstream Victorian culture, viewed both the Christian and Jewish communities of her time and in history. Although many of her finest works addressed Jewish audiences and subjects, she also wrote domestic fiction on secular subjects and appealed to Christian readers as well a Jewish audience. Her poetry, published throughout her career, reveals a keen appreciation and influence of Romantic poetry, as well as knowledge of Hebrew Scriptures. Aguilar's acclaim and reputation in the United States with Jewish audiences grew considerably after she published
The Spirit of Judaism
and
The Women of Israel
; her novella,
The Perez Family
, was widely read by the Jewish communities in both Britain and the United States, but Aguilar regretted that its realistic and sympathetic depiction of a Jewish family did not reach a wider audience.
Allen, Grant
Authors: Anger Suzy
Published: June 2017

Grant Allen was a stunningly prolific freelance writer who wrote during the final decades of the Victorian period. Allen is now remembered primarily for his scandalous, New Woman, eugenics‐themed novel
The Woman Who Did
(1895), but he also composed works in almost every popular genre of the age, including detective fiction, scientific romance, popular science journalism, and tourist guides. Allen's writing is often concerned with ideas from evolutionary biology, heredity theory, and the new physiological psychology, and his fiction repeatedly considers degeneration, atavism, eugenics, and sexual selection. His work is of interest in tracing the interactions between science and literature in the late nineteenth century.
Ballad
Authors: Baker Samuel
Published: June 2017

Ballads are narrative poems in a popular style that are either themselves traditional or that adopt a traditional form. The Victorian period saw a heightened attention to the ballad tradition, building upon Romantic initiatives to collect and taxonomize popular ballads, while extending the Romantic innovation of highly imaginative literary balladeering. Practically all of the best known Victorian poets wrote original ballads, albeit in modes increasingly attenuated from the traditional norm. At the end of the period, the beginnings of sound recording signaled the imminent beginning of a new era for ballad transmission, leaving the Victorian relation to the ballad as the final such relation to be articulated in the age of print culture's total dominance.
Barnes, William
Authors: Burton T. L.
Published: June 2017

William Barnes (1801–86) was born into a poor farming family in Dorset's Blackmore Vale. He became a self‐educated scholar, linguist and philologist, schoolmaster, widely published writer in both poetry and prose, and finally a Church of England clergyman. He was proficient in many languages, wrote book reviews and essays on a wide range of topics in some of the leading nineteenth‐century newspapers and journals, and published poetry in both Standard English and dialect. His
Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect
, with their understanding of the problems of the rural poor and other social issues of the day, their humor, their lyricism, and their metrical virtuosity, are among the finest examples of dialect poetry in the language.
Broadsides
Authors: O'Brien Ellen L.
Published: June 2017

Broadsides were single sheets of cheap paper, printed on one side with rough type, crude woodcuts, and simple texts. Dating from the early sixteenth century, the broadside trade decreased in the eighteenth century but increased in the early nineteenth century as a result of the improved productivity of new iron‐frame presses and the centralized markets of urban economies. Victorian broadsides engaged an extensive range of popular and political, historical, and mundane topics. The most profitable genre of Victorian broadsides was the execution ballad, but comic and romantic ballads were also popular. Their central role in the marketplace of print and their explicit engagements with working‐class politics reflect the class identities and multiple literacies of Victorian Britain. The broadside's late‐Victorian decline was precipitated by the removal of stamp and paper duties, which enabled working‐class consumption of penny dailies and other cheap print.
Broughton, Rhoda
Authors: Heller Tamar
Published: June 2017

Rhoda Broughton (1840–1920), bestselling late‐Victorian writer, authored twenty‐five novels, as well as short fiction including supernatural tales, during a career that spanned from 1867 to the posthumous publication of her last book. Her early novels proved controversial, especially the first two, which were considered sensation fiction for their depiction of respectable girls who narrowly avoid a sexual fall. Long neglected by critics, Broughton's fiction is being reevaluated for its pioneering representation of female sexuality and sensitive portrayal of the impact of romance and marriage on women's lives. Though not personally a political or sexual radical, Broughton helped pave the way for New Woman fiction and the narrative innovations of modernist women writers.
Bulwer‐Lytton, Edward
Authors: Wilson Cheryl A.
Published: June 2017

Edward Bulwer‐Lytton, novelist, historian, and essayist, had a long career that intersected with that of a number of prominent nineteenth‐century figures. A politician who campaigned for reform, Bulwer‐Lytton brought his social and political concerns into his writings, criticizing institutional corruption and advocating for social change.
Burton, Richard Francis
Authors: Grant Ben
Published: June 2017

Richard Francis Burton is famous for having travelled in disguise to Mecca and Medina, and for his expedition to the lake regions of Central Africa. His travel writings cover many parts of the world, including India, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. He played a prominent role in the development of anthropology, and racial theory. As a translator, he is best known for his involvement in the first translation of
The Kama Sutra
, and for his complete translation of
The Arabian Nights
, which contains a pioneering account of homosexuality. These translations contributed to debates about pornography, censorship, sex, and sexology.
Caird, Mona
Authors: Richardson Angelique
Published: June 2017

Mona Caird (1854–1932) was a polemical feminist and New Woman novelist and essayist who interrogated the social and legal subordination of women in her novels, short stories, and contributions to the periodical press. An animal rights supporter, she also campaigned against vivisection. Examining oppressive discourses around Victorian marriage and motherhood, she inspired the debate “Is Marriage a Failure?” in theDaily Telegraphin 1888. Drawing on the liberal philosophy of John Stuart Mill and the evolutionary ideas of Charles Darwin, Caird exposed the fallacy of biological determinism both in respect of class and gender. In this, she took a position opposite to many New Woman writers, notably Sarah Grand and George Egerton, and increasingly exposed the misapplication of science to justify political and social conflict and oppression. Most known for her bestselling novelThe Daughters of Danaus(1894), at the heart of her work and vision lies the importance of civil liberty.
Carlyle, Jane Welsh
Authors: Kinser Brent E. , Sorensen David R.
Published: June 2017

Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801–66), for most of the twentieth century remembered as the wife of the essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle, was in fact a significant and creative writer in her own right. Her letters and miscellaneous writings reflect a keen wit and a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, many of whom are figures connected with London's literary and intellectual life. Conventional views of Welsh Carlyle as a paradigmatic victim of Victorian sexual politics have been superseded by estimations of her as an important literary figure in her own right, especially in the context of “lifewriting.”
Carlyle, Thomas
Authors: Kinser Brent E. , Sorensen David R.
Published: June 2017

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, biographer, and social critic whose influence, both on the Victorian era and on the subsequent study of it, is difficult to overestimate. Carlyle's deep “religiosity” distinguished him as a seer in the eyes of his contemporaries. His search for a spiritual solution to the dehumanizing “Mechanism” of his era inSartor Resartus(1833–34),The French Revolution(1837),On Heroes, Hero‐Worship, and the Heroic in History(1841), andPast and Present(1842), won him a world‐wide reading audience. But his sharp disillusionment with industrialization and laissez‐faire economics – or as he phrased it, the “Dismal Science” – also prompted him to profess illiberal solutions to the “Condition of England” question that led many contemporaries to identify him with despots and bullies and the cause of “might makes right.” Later, reductive associations of Carlyle with the horrors of totalitarian excess in the mid‐twentieth century do not lessen his significance, nor do they satisfactorily account for his ability to engage in his writings what Walt Whitman called the “fierce paradoxes” of their age. Carlyle's voice remains impossible to ignore in any discussion of Victorian culture and society.
Cholmondeley, Mary
Authors: Oulton Carolyn W. de la L.
Published: June 2017

On the recommendation of Rhoda Broughton, Mary Cholmondeley's early novels were serialized in
Temple Bar
before appearing in volume form with Richard Bentley. She is remembered primarily for her fin de siècle New Woman fiction, notably the 1899 bestseller
Red Pottage
. Despite her deteriorating health, Cholmondeley continued to publish until 1921. While she never equaled the success of
Red Pottage
, her short stories and her nonfiction reference a continued interest in gender debates and are the focus of renewed attention from scholars of Victorian and early‐twentieth‐century women's writing.
Cosmopolitanism and Literature
Authors: Agathocleous Tanya
Published: June 2017

This entry looks at cosmopolitanism in Victorian studies in relation to wider debates in the field and the discipline about globalization, imperial, colonial, and postcolonial history, and ethics. It traces the ambiguities of the term as it was used by a range of Victorian writers and the way that contemporary critics have used the concept to think about the breadth and limitations of those writers’ ethical and political investments. It ends with an exploration of new directions in the field – prompted by studies of cosmopolitanism and related paradigms – that promise to change its parameters in significant ways.
Degeneration
Authors: Hurley Kelly
Published: June 2017

The term “degeneration” denotes reversion to a state of lesser complexity on the part of an individual, species, society, or nation. In late Victorian Britain, degeneration theory was used to describe and diagnose real or perceived economic, social, and cultural crises, and to warn against the possibility of widespread, catastrophic decline on the part of the nation, its people, and its empire. Models of degenerate pathology articulated in such human sciences as evolutionary biology, psychology, criminology, and sexology were borrowed and reworked by political analysts and cultural critics, all serving to inform representations of degeneration and degenerate types in late Victorian literature.
Disraeli, Benjamin
Authors: O'Kell Robert
Published: June 2017

Benjamin Disraeli's twelve published novels are all imaginatively autobiographical “psychological romances.” The ambivalences of their heroes’ character and the conflicts of their plots reflect similar tensions in Disraeli's political career. The early novels from
Vivian Grey
to
Venetia
focus on issues of self‐definition, reflecting Disraeli's youthful adoption of a Byronic persona and the challenges posed by the pervasive anti‐Semitism he faced. The political trilogy of the 1840s,
Coningsby
,
Sybil
, and
Tancred
, attempts to define a new heroic basis for Conservative politics and introduces the subgenre known as the political novel.
Lothair
(1870) also reflects Disraeli's views – in particular the threats to the British constitution he believed were posed by the Catholic Church.
Endymion
(1880), by contrast, seems removed from any sense of controversy. Disraeli's greatest political achievements and fame came during his second term as Prime Minister (1874–80) and consisted of both his government's progressive domestic legislation and the triumphant diplomatic defense of Britain's interests abroad.
Egerton, George
Authors: Hibbard Andrea
Published: June 2017

George Egerton (Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright) achieved critical success and social notoriety with
Keynotes
(1893) and
Discords
(1894), her first two collections of proto‐modernist short stories. The fictions in these volumes give powerful expression to controversies over the New Woman and the decadent movement. Egerton distinguishes herself from most other New Women writers by rejecting literary realism and embracing female sexual freedom. And while most authors associated with decadence drew inspiration from France, Egerton was influenced by the plays, novels, and poetry of Scandinavian modernists.
Eliot, George, poetry
Authors: Williams Wendy S.
Published: June 2017

Though best known for her novels, George Eliot also wrote poetry throughout her life. Poetry served as a vehicle for promoting Eliot's artistic aim of enlarging readers’ sympathies in ways unseen in her novels. As a poetess, Eliot relied on feminine expression and Christian morality to advance society. Her poetic corpus offers critics and readers a fuller picture of the artist and contributes to a more complete understanding of her work and its relation to Victorian literature.
Ewing, Juliana Horatia
Authors: Valint Alexandra
Published: June 2017

Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841–85) was an esteemed Victorian children's literature author best known for her family stories and fairy tales. Many of Ewing's stories were initially published in
Aunt Judy's Magazine
, the periodical edited by her mother, the children's author Margaret Gatty. Ewing excelled at sympathetically representing the child's perspective and creating lively, strong female characters. She drew on her happy childhood in Yorkshire for several works, including
Six to Sixteen
. The fond portrayal of army life in
Jackanapes
and
The Story of a Short Life
resulted from a happy marriage to Major Alexander Ewing, though critics have debated Ewing's stance on imperialism. Ewing's love for gardens and animals is frequently reflected in her characters. She tended to write about orphans or foundlings who were adopted, and mutually beneficial friendships between adults and children – often strengthened by the act of storytelling – were also common in her writing.
Fabian Society
Authors: Courtemanche Eleanor
Published: June 2017

The Fabian Society, a socialist discussion group, was founded in 1884. The Fabians rejected violent revolution in favor of more gradualist tactics: they published hundreds of pamphlets on policy questions, sponsored public lectures on socialist topics, founded the London School of Economics, and tried to push Liberal and Labour politicians toward more socialist policies. Their position as middle‐class technocrats attracted many creative writers and other intellectuals, including George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. The Fabian Society is still active today as a think tank for the Labour Party.
Fashion
Authors: Stetz Margaret D.
Published: June 2017

Despite widely held prejudices against fashion, Victorian literature frequently used detailed information about dress both to indicate and to judge class status, moral values, and gender norms. Authors and readers alike had to understand the social meaning of clothing. Women's writing and works marketed to women readers paid close attention to changing fashion ideals, but so did writing by and for men, especially with the rise of Aestheticism in the later Victorian period. The male Dandy, a figure mocked and reviled at the start of the Victorian age, returned at the end of the century. Even feminist characters in New Woman fiction of the 1890s were characterized by what they wore or chose not to wear.
Feminism
Authors: Mitchell Sally
Published: June 2017

Organized efforts to improve women's legal rights, personal and social opportunities, and public roles achieved significant goals during the Victorian period; parliamentary suffrage was the only major right still lacking in 1900. Many beliefs about Victorian women's social status are demonstrably untrue. Respectable and respected middle‐class women spoke at public meetings, held public office, earned university degrees, owned businesses, factories, and banks, worked for their living, and walked or traveled alone, not only in villages but also in cities and countries around the world. Many women writers were active in the women's movement, although that work is seldom represented in Victorian literature. Renewed feminist awareness since the 1960s has inspired much literary criticism; its most important consequence is the continuing recovery and republication of women's fiction, poetry, and nonfiction prose written during the nineteenth century but ignored for much of the twentieth.
France
Authors: Creasy Matthew
Published: June 2017

Social and cultural attitudes toward France during the nineteenth century varied greatly, ranging from the outright suspicion and hostility toward French politics and morals expressed by conservative critics, to the enthusiasm for French intellectual culture espoused by figures from George Eliot to Matthew Arnold. These varying attitudes can be seen in a variety of cultural forms, from travel writing to novels and translations.
Gaskell, Elizabeth
Authors: Shattock Joanne
Published: June 2017

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810–65), novelist, short story writer, and biographer, was a woman of letters in the mid‐Victorian mold. Her work encompassed multiple genres, and her outlets included most of the major periodicals of the mid‐Victorian period. Mid‐twentieth century critics praised her “social problem” novels,
Mary Barton
(1848),
Ruth
(1853), and
North and South
(1855), for their honest and forthright depiction of complex issues. Later readers favored her domestic fiction, and her advocacy of women's proactive roles, particularly within the family. Her short fiction reveals an ability to work in a variety of modes, including the supernatural, and her biography of her contemporary and friend Charlotte Brontë (1857) has become one of the most celebrated of nineteenth‐century lives.
Gissing, George
Authors: Maltz Diana
Published: June 2017

Best known for his works of realism, George Gissing has been mythologized as a misanthropist traumatized by his early imprisonment for petty theft and his two harrowing marriages to working‐class women. The themes of sexual fallenness and thwarted social mobility haunt his strongest novels, includingNew Grub Street,The Odd Women, andThe Nether World. Despite his insecure home life and fragile health, Gissing was a highly disciplined, productive, versatile contributor in the literary marketplace. His last four years were distinguished by his common‐law marriage to a French intellectual and move to France. Although he retained a love for the classical Greece he had studied while a student, most of his novels addressed crises of late Victorian modernity, including slum squalor, sexual anarchy, financial speculation, and mass consumer culture.
Gosse, Edmund
Authors: Demoor Marysa
Published: June 2017

Edmund William Gosse (1849–1928) was a man of letters and son of the natural historian and proto‐creationist Philip Gosse. He did not go to university because his father was wary of a secular environment and the influence of young male students. But Gosse nevertheless became an influential literary critic and the author of fiction, poetry, and some remarkable biographies: his autobiographical
Father and Son
(1907) and the biographies of his famous father (1890) and the metaphysical poet John Donne (1899). In 1884 he delivered the prestigious Clark lectures at Cambridge. However, their publication revealed a number of unforgivable mistakes which were at once attacked by his former friend John Churton Collins. Gosse was skilled in foreign languages and advocated Scandinavian and Dutch literature. As a Francophile he was also a middleman between British and French culture.
Henley, William Ernest
Authors: Cronin Richard
Published: June 2017

W. E. Henley's reputation is as a leading spokesman for muscular Tory imperialism, but this belies a variousness that was necessary to his work as an editor of periodicals and his patronage of the “Henley Regatta,” the writers he helped into prominence, and that is evident in much of his poetry, especially in his neglected masterpiece
In Hospital
.
Housman, Alfred Edward
Authors: Richardson LeeAnne M.
Published: June 2017

Alfred Edward (A. E.) Housman (1859–1936) was a poet and professor of Classics, well‐known for his most famous volume of poetry,
A Shropshire Lad
, and highly regarded for his textual editions of the Latin poet Manilius. While Housman's poetry is often perceived as simple and therefore minor, scholars have defended it on its own merits. Scholars also often use Housman's biography – his homosexuality, his reclusiveness, his cynicism – as keys to interpret his poetry.
Hughes, Thomas
Authors: Agruss David
Published: June 2017

Thomas Hughes (1822–96) was extremely famous during his lifetime for his best‐selling novel of public‐school life
Tom Brown's School Days
(1857). One of the first novels aimed explicitly at boy readers, it celebrated Christian morality and manly athleticism, and single‐handedly invented both the school story and the sports story, catapulting both genres to the heights of popularity. Hughes published two additional novels, including
Tom Brown at Oxford
(1861), the sequel to
Tom Brown's School Days
, and also published numerous biographies. Hughes was an active member of the Christian Socialist movement, which advocated for the rights of the working classes, served as a Liberal member of the House of Commons, and spoke widely during his lifetime on the challenges facing the Church of England and for the American abolitionists’ antislavery cause.
India
Authors: Hassan Narin
Published: June 2017

India held a position as the centerpiece of the British Empire. Geographically, symbolically, and ideologically, India influenced and inspired literature in the Romantic and Victorian periods. The vast range of literature and writing engaged with India during the period helped to shape and inform a sustained colonial structure, and the increased settlement of English families in India produced a range of texts that revealed the complex and intimate nature of that relationship.
Japan
Authors: Law Graham
Published: June 2017

During the Victorian period English constructions of “the land of the rising sun” changed almost as radically, and just as unevenly, as Japanese society itself. To chart that complex process in the literary imagination, though, this entry goes beyond “canonical” works of fiction or verse, which, with few exceptions, tend to remain content with aging stereotypes of oriental lethargy and despotism or simplicity and elegance, and looks to occasional compositions such as periodical articles, travel journals, and the writings of British residents in Japan.
Jerome, Jerome K.
Authors: Wild Jonathan
Published: June 2017

Jerome K. Jerome came to prominence as a writer of comedy in the final years of the nineteenth century. His wry observations of the small irritations and injustices inherent in everyday life, which appeared in work such as his novel
Three Men in a Boat
(1889), had great appeal not only to their target audience, members of the period's emerging lower‐middle class, but also to a vast international readership. Jerome remained frustrated, however, by his enduring association with popular literary comedy and felt that his serious novels and plays offered more representative examples of his talents as a writer.
Jerrold, Douglas
Authors: Worth Aaron
Published: June 2017

Douglas Jerrold (1803–57) was considered a major comic and satiric writer by his contemporaries, on a par with his friends Dickens and Thackeray. Today Jerrold is primarily remembered as a key figure in the development of both Victorian popular drama and periodical writing. Jerrold's most enduring works are probably the nautical melodramaBlack‐Ey'd Susanand the comic seriesMrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures, the latter of which originally appeared, like much of his work, in the weekly periodicalPunch.
Kingsley, Mary
Authors: Spillman Deborah Shapple
Published: June 2017

One of the most celebrated Victorian travel writers, Mary Kingsley published two major works:
Travels in West Africa
(1897) and
West African Studies
(1899). Kingsley's publications quickly established her as an iconic “lady traveler” and as an authority on West Africa, and her study of African laws and customs challenged evolutionary anthropology's portrayal of these institutions as primitive. Focusing particularly on West African fetishism, Kingsley argued for perceiving European and African thought as different in kind rather than degree. This claim supported Kingsley's stance against British colonialism and cultural imperialism, as she argued for the preservation of African legal and social institutions. Representing differences of both race and gender as essential, Kingsley has inspired conflicting critical responses among Africanists and feminists past and present.
Lang, Andrew
Authors: Demoor Marysa
Published: June 2017

Andrew Lang (1844–1912), poet and scholar, novelist and translator, anthropologist and historian, journalist and folklorist, was one of the most prolific men of letters of the second half of the nineteenth century. Ironically, Lang is now remembered mainly for the coloured “fairy books” that were largely the work of his wife, Leonora Lang. Lang's many interests are all to be related to his romantic nature. It was that romantic nature that lay at the basis of his interest in folklore and mythology. And the same disposition explains his literary preferences, from the poetry of Tennyson and William Morris to the championship of the romance and the stories of Stevenson, Kipling, and Haggard. Lang also contributed significant insights to the controversies concerning the authorship of Shakespeare's plays and of the Homeric epics. And he was a dedicated historian who chose to write biographies of such heroic figures as Mary Stuart, Joan of Arc, and Bonnie Prince Charlie. With his anthropological writings he probably achieved the highest goals, in that his writings anticipated some of the insights of Freud, Jung, and Lévi‐Strauss.
Lee, Vernon
Authors: Maxwell Catherine
Published: June 2017

For many years known chiefly for her supernatural tales, the cosmopolitan intellectual Vernon Lee is increasingly regarded as a key figure in British aestheticism and a major late Victorian writer. In addition to notable works in fiction, drama, travel writing, and biography, she made significant contributions to many diverse fields of study – including musicology, art history, literary criticism, aesthetics, ethics, and politics. Her pacifism during the World War I and the advent of literary modernism meant that her work fell out of favor and was neglected for a large part of the twentieth century, but her rich and eclectic oeuvre of forty‐one major works and many articles is now attracting the serious critical interest it deserves.
Lever, Charles
Authors: Tilley Elizabeth
Published: June 2017

Charles Lever (1806–72) was an Anglo‐Irish writer, Dickens's rival for the middle‐class serial fiction market in the 1840s. Like Dickens, Lever was adept at writing quickly, to order, for the periodical press. His fiction favored old‐fashioned action, humor, and self‐deprecation; all of these traits became deeply unpopular with a newly literate, newly politicized Irish reading public. By the time Lever's ideas and writing style began to change, his reputation was already waning, and his later novels were much less successful.
Lewes, George Henry
Authors: Baker William
Published: June 2017

George Henry Lewes was an accomplished writer and editor who contributed to Victorian era's understanding of the history of philosophy, physiology, and biology. His
Biographical History of Philosophy
examined the ideas of Comte, Goethe, and other philosophers. His
Physiology of Common Life
explored inherited characteristics and relationships between mind and brain and between sleep and dreams. His five‐volume
Problems of Life and Mind
extended Darwinian ideas of evolutionary biology and examined differences between human and nonhuman animals. Partner of pioneering female novelist George Eliot (Marian Evans), Lewes himself wrote two autobiographical novels. He was also an active literary critic who championed the works of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, among other Victorian‐era writers.