Life Writing and Victorian Culture
Edition: First edition.
Series: The Nineteenth Century Series
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 252
ISBN-13: 9781315250502
Subjects: English prose literature; History and criticism; Biography as a literary form; Autobiography; History; Biography; Biographies as Topic; Autobiographies as Topic; Prose anglaise; Histoire et critique; Biographie (Genre littéraire); Autobiographie; Histoire; Biographies; Biographies (literary works); Autobiography (genre)
Description: "In this collection of interdisciplinary essays, experts from Britain and the United States in the fields of nineteenth-century literature, and social and cultural history explore new directions in the field of Victorian life writing. Chapters examine a varied yet interrelated range of genres, from the biography and autobiography, to the relatively neglected diary, collective biography, and obituary. Reflecting the rich research being conducted in this area, the contributors link life writing to the formation of gendered and class-based identities; the politics of the Victorian family; and the broader professional, political, colonial, and literary structures in which social and kinship relations were implicated. A wide variety of Victorian works are considered, from the diary of the Radical Samuel Bamford, to the diary of the homosexual George Ives; from autobiographies of professional men to collective biographies of eminent women. Embracing figures as diverse as Gandhi, Wilde, and Bradlaugh, the collection explores the way in which narratives contested one another in a society that devoted an abundance of cultural energy to writing about, and reading of, lives."--Provided by publisher.
Table of contents: title: Chapter Introduction: Victorian Life Writing: Genres, Print, Constituencies; title: chapter 1 Diary, Autobiography and the Practice of Life History; title: chapter 2 Men and Women of the Time: Victorian Prosopographies; title: chapter 3 The Self in Society: Middle-class Men and Autobiography; title: chapter 4 Male Masochism: A Model of Victorian Identity Formation; title: chapter 5 Promoting a Life: Patronage, Masculinity and Philip Meadows Taylor's The Story of My Life; title: chapter 6 Excursive Discursive in Gandhi's Autobiography: Undressing and Redressing the Transnational Self; title: chapter 7 In the Name of the Father: Political Biographies by Radical Daughters; title: chapter 8 The Deaths of Heroes: Biography, Obits and the Discourse of the Press, 1890-1900; title: chapter 9 Sex Lives and Diary Writing: The Journals of George Ives; title: chapter 10 'House of Disquiet': The Benson Family Auto/biographies.