Novel craft
Subtitle: Victorian domestic handicraft and nineteenth-century fiction
By: Talia Schaffer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 228
ISBN-13: 9780195398045
Subjects: History; English Domestic fiction; Women and literature; English fiction; History and criticism; Women in literature
Description: Schaffer explores an intriguing and under-studied aspect of cultural life in Victorian England: domestic handicrafts, the decorative pursuit that predated the Arts and Crafts movement. The book argues that the handicraft movement served as a way to critique the modern mass-produced commodity and the rapidly emerging industrial capitalism of the 19th century. The argument is illustrated with the four pivotal novels that form this study's core - Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Cranford', Charlotte Mary Yonge's 'The Daisy Chain', Charles Dickens's 'Our Mutual Friend', and Margaret Oliphant's 'Phoebe Junior'.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: "Women's" work: the history of the Victorian domestic handicraft; title: Ephemerality: the Cranford papers; title: Preservation: the daisy and the chain; title: Salvage: Betty as the mutual friend; title: Connoisseurship: giving credit to Phoebe junior.