Victorian Prose : An Anthology.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This engaging, informative collection of Victorian nonfiction prose juxtaposes classic texts and canonical writers with more obscure writings and authors in order to illuminate important debates in nineteenth-century Britain--inviting modern readers to see the age anew. The collection represents the voices of a broad scope of women and men on a range of nineteenth-century cultural issues and in various forms--from periodical essays to travel accounts, letters to lectures, and autobiographies to social surveys.

With its fifty-six substantial selections, Victorian Prose reaches beyond the work of Carlyle, Newman, Mill, Arnold, and Ruskin to uncover an array of lesser-known voices of the era. Women writers are given full attention--writings by Mary Prince, Dinah M. Craik, Florence Nightingale, Frances P. Cobbe, and Lucie Duff Gordon are among the entries.

Excerpts cover such topics of the age as British imperialism, the crisis of religious faith, and debates about gender. On the issue of colonial expansion, opinions range from Benjamin Disraeli's celebration of empire-building as evidence of Britain's glory to David Livingstone's promotion of commerce with Africa as a way to retard the slave trade and make it unprofitable. Views on "the woman question" extend from John Stuart Mill's defense of women's rights to Mrs. Humphry Ward's opposition to women's franchise and Sarah Ellis's support for the domestic ideal.

This invaluable resource features:

*attention to important noncanonical writers--including a generous selection of women writers;

*a wide range of written forms, including periodical essays, travel accounts, letters, lectures, autobiographies, and social surveys;

*both chronological and thematic tables of contents--the latter encompassing subject areas such as England at home and abroad, the new sciences, religion, and the status of women;

*selections drawn from the original nineteenth-century editions; and

*annotations to each text that aid nonspecialists in understanding unfamiliar names, terms, and cultural debates.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction
• Mary Prince
• Richard Oastler
• Charlote Elizabeth Tonna
• Thomas Carlyle
• Sarah Stickney Ellis
• Thomas Babington Macaulay
• John Henry Newman
• Jane Welsh Carlyle
• Harriet Martineau
• Robert Chambers
• James Phillips Kay-Shuttleworth
• Benjamin Disraeli
• John Stuart Mill
• Caroline Norton
• William Rathbone Greg
• Charles Darwin
• Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake
• William Ewart Gladstone
• Henry Mayhew
• Samuel Smiles
• David Livingstone
• Percival Leigh
• William Acton
• Charlotte Bronte
• George Henry Lewes
• John Ruskin
• Queen Victoria
• Charles Kingsley
• Prince Albert
• Punch
• George Eliot
• Herbert Spencer
• Florence Nightingale
• Richard Francis Burton
• Lucie Duff Gordon
• Frances Power Cobbe
• Matthew Arnold
• Thomas Henry Huxley
• Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
• Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
• Margaret Oliphant
• William Morris
• Walter Horatio Pater
• Edmund William Gosse
• Mary Arnold [Mrs. Humphry] Ward
• Oscar Wilde
• Mary Kingsley
• Arthur William Symons