Kevin J. H. Dettmar is W. M. Keck Professor and Chair, Department of English, at Pomona College, and Past President of the Modernist Studies Association.  He is the author of The Illicit Joyce of Postmodernism and Is Rock Dead?, and the editor of Rereading the New: A Backward Glance at Modernism; Marketing Modernisms: Self-Promotion, Canonization, and Rereading; Reading Rock & Roll: Authenticity, Appropriation, Aesthetics; the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners; and The Blackwell Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture, and co-general editor of The Longman Anthology of British Literature. 

Heather Henderson is a freelance writer and former Associate Professor of English Literature at Mount Holyoke College.  A specialist in Victorian literature, she is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  She is the author of The Victorian Self: Autobiography and Biblical Narrative.  Her current interests include home-schooling, travel literature, and autobiography. 

William Sharpe is Professor of English Literature at Barnard College.  A specialist in Victorian poetry and the literature of the city, he is the author of Unreal Cities: Urban Figuration in Wordsworth, Baudelaire, Whitman, Eliot, and Williams.  He is also co-editor of The Passing of Arthur and Visions of the Modern City.  He is the recipient of Guggenheim, National Endowment of the Humanities, Fulbright, and Mellon fellowships, and recently published New York Nocturne: The City After Dark in Literature, Painting, and Photography.

The Victorian Age

Illustration: Gustave Doré, Ludgate Hill 1044

THE VICTORIAN AGE AT A GLANCE 1045

INTRODUCTION 1049

VICTORIA AND THE VICTORIANS 1049

Illustration: Sunlight Soap advertisement commemorating the 1897 Jubilee of

Victoria’s reign 1050

THE AGE OF ENERGY AND INVENTION 1052

Illustration: Robert Howlett, Portrait of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and

Launching Chains of the Great Eastern, 1857 1053

THE AGE OF DOUBT 1055

Illustration: The Crystal Palace 1058

THE AGE OF REFORM 1059

THE AGE OF EMPIRE 1063

Illustration: “The Formula of British Conquest,” Pears’ Soap

advertisement 1065

THE AGE OF READING 1066

Color Plate 11: Sir John Everett Millais, Mariana

Color Plate 12: William Holman Hunt, The Awakening Conscience

Color Plate 13: Ford Madox Brown, Work

Color Plate 14: Augustus Egg, Past and Present, No. 1

Color Plate 15: Augustus Egg, Past and Present, No. 3

Color Plate 16: William Morriss, Guenevere, or La Belle Iseult

Color Plate 17: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Blessed Damozel

Color Plate 18: James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The

Falling Rocket

Color Plate 19: John Williams Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott

Color Plate 20: Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Love Among the Ruins

THE AGE OF SELF-SCRUTINY 1068

Illustration: Cartoon from Punch magazine, 1867 1068

THOMAS CARLYLE 1074

Illustration: Julia Margaret Cameron, Thomas Carlyle, 1867 1075

Past and Present 1076

Midas [The Condition of England] 1076

from Gospel of Mammonism [The Irish Widow] 1079

from Labour [Know Thy Work] 1080

from Democracy [Liberty to Die by Starvation] 1081

Captains of Industry 1083

PERSPECTIVES

The Industrial Landscape 1088

Illustration: John Leech, Horseman pursued by a train engine named

“Time” 1089

THE STEAM LOOM WEAVER 1090

FANNY KEMBLE 1091

from Record of a Girlhood 1091

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 1092

from A Review of Southey’s Colloquies 1092

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS (“BLUE BOOKS”) 1094

Testimony of Hannah Goode, a Child Textile Worker 1095

Testimony of Ann and Elizabeth Eggley, Child Mineworkers 1095

CHARLES DICKENS 1097

from Dombey and Son 1097

from Hard Times 1098

BENJAMIN DISRAELI 1100

from Sybil 1100

FRIEDRICH ENGELS 1101

from The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 1101

Illustration: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, Catholic Town in 1440 /Same

Town in 1840 1103

HENRY MAYHEW 1108

from London Labour and the London Poor 1108

Illustration: The Boy Crossing-Sweepers 1112

JOHN STUART MILL 1113

On Liberty 1115

from Chapter 2. Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion 1115

from Chapter 3. Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being 1117

The Subjection of Women 1121

from Chapter 1 1121

Statement Repudiating the Rights of Husbands 1129

Autobiography 1129

from Chapter 1. Childhood, and Early Education 1129

from Chapter 5. A Crisis in My Mental History. One Stage Onward 1132

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 1138

The Cry of the Children 1140

To George Sand: A Desire 1144

To George Sand: A Recognition 1144

A Year’s Spinning (Web)

Sonnets from the Portuguese 1145

1 (“I thought once how Theocritus had sung”) 1145

13 (“And wilt thou have me fashion into speech”) 1145

14 (“If thou must love me, let it be for nought”) 1145

21 (“Say over again, and yet once over again”) 1146

22 (“When our two souls stand up erect and strong”) 1146

24 (“Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife”) 1147

28 (“My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!”) 1147

32 (“The first time that the sun rose on thine oath”) 1147

38 (“First time he kissed me, he but only kissed”) 1148

43 (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”) 1148

The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point 1148

Aurora Leigh 1155

Book 1 1155

[Self-Portrait] 1155

Illustration: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, frontispiece of Aurora Leigh 1156

[Her Mother’s Portrait] 1157

[Aurora’s Education] 1158

[Discovery of Poetry] (Web)

Book 2 1162

[Woman and Artist] 1162

[No Female Christ] 1165

[Aurora’s Rejection of Romney] 1166

Book 3 1170

[The Woman Writer in London] 1170

Book 5 1171

[Epic Art and Modern Life] 1171

from A Curse for a Nation (Web)

A Musical Instrument 1174

The Best Thing in the World (Web)

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 1175

Illustration: Max Beerbohm, Tennyson Reading “In Memoriam” to his Sovereign,

1904 1178

The Kraken 1178

Mariana 1179

The Lady of Shalott 1181

Illustration: William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalott 1182

The Lotos-Eaters 1185

Ulysses 1189

Tithonus 1191

Break, Break, Break 1193

The Epic [Morte d’Arthur] 1194

The Eagle: A Fragment (Web)

Locksley Hall 1196

from THE PRINCESS 1201

Sweet and Low (Web)

The Splendour Falls 1201

Tears, Idle Tears 1202

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal 1202

Come Down, O Maid (Web)

[The Woman’s Cause Is Man’s] 1203

from In Memoriam A. H. H. 1204

The Charge of the Light Brigade 1235

Idylls of the King 1237

The Coming of Arthur 1237

Pelleas and Ettarre (Web)

The Passing of Arthur 1247

The Higher Pantheism 1257

RESPONSE

Algernon Charles Swinburne: The Higher Pantheism in a

Nutshell 1258h

Flower in the Crannied Wall (Web)

Crossing the Bar 1259

EDWARD FITZGERALD (Web)

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of Naishápúr (Web)

CHARLES DARWIN 1260

Illustration: Linley Sambourne, Man is But a Worm 1261

The Voyage of the Beagle 1262

from Chapter 10. Tierra Del Fuego 1262

Illustration: Thomas Landseer, after a drawing by C. Martens, A Fuegian at

Portrait Cove 1263

from Chapter 17. Galapagos Archipelago 1269

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection 1272

from Chapter 3. Struggle for Existence 1272

The Descent of Man 1277

from Chapter 21. General Summary and Conclusion 1277

from Autobiography 1283

PERSPECTIVES

Religion and Science 1291

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 1292

from Lord Bacon 1292

CHARLES DICKENS 1293

from Sunday Under Three Heads 1293

DAVID FRIEDRICH STRAUSS 1296

from The Life of Jesus Critically Examined 1296

CHARLOTTE BRONTË 1299

from Jane Eyre 1299

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 1301

Epi-strauss-ium 1301

The Latest Decalogue 1302

from Dipsychus 1302

JOHN WILLIAM COLENSO 1303

from The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined 1304

JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN 1305

from Apologia Pro Vita Sua 1305

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 1313

from Evolution and Ethics 1313

SIR EDMUND GOSSE 1317

from Father and Son 1317

ROBERT BROWNING 1322

Illustration: Julia Margaret Cameron, Robert Browning, 1866 1322

Porphyria’s Lover 1325

Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 1326

My Last Duchess 1328

How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix 1330

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad 1331

Home-Thoughts, from the Sea 1332

The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church 1332

Meeting at Night 1335

Parting at Morning 1336

A Toccata of Galuppi’s 1336

Memorabilia 1337

Love Among the Ruins 1338

“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” 1340

RESPONSE

Stevie Smith: Childe Rolandine 1346h

Fra Lippo Lippi 1347

The Last Ride Together 1355

Andrea del Sarto 1358

Two in the Campagna (Web)

A Woman’s Last Word 1364

Caliban Upon Setebos 1366

Epilogue to Asolando 1372

CHARLES DICKENS 1373

A Christmas Carol 1376

Illustration: Hablot K. Browne, Mr Scrooge Extinguishing the Spirit 1399

from A Walk in a Workhouse 1425

COMPANION READINGS

Dickens at Work: Recollections by His Children and Friends (Web)

Kate Field: Dickens Giving a Reading of A Christmas Carol 1430 h

POPULAR SHORT FICTION 1431

ELIZABETH GASKELL 1432

Our Society at Cranford 1432

THOMAS HARDY 1447

The Withered Arm 1448

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 1466

A Scandal in Bohemia 1467

Illustration: Sidney Paget, Good-night Mr Sherlock Holmes 1480

EMILY BRONTË 1482

“High waving heather ’neath stormy blasts bending” 1484

“The night is darkening round me” 1484

“And first an hour of mournful musing” 1485

“I’m happiest when most away” 1485

“There are two trees in a lonely field” 1485

Stanzas 1485

Plead for me 1486

Stars 1487

The Prisoner (A Fragment) 1488

Remembrance 1490

“No coward soul is mine” 1491

JOHN RUSKIN 1492

Modern Painters 1493

from Definition of Greatness in Art 1493

from Of Water, As Painted by Turner 1494

The Stones of Venice 1495

from The Nature of Gothic 1495

Illustration: John Ruskin, Windows of the Early Gothic Palaces 1496

The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century 1505

Praeterita (Web)

Preface (Web)

from The Springs of Wandel (Web)

from Herne-Hill Almond Blossoms (Web)

from Schaffhausen and Milan (Web)

from The Grande Chartreuse (Web)

from Joanna’s Care (Web)

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 1510

from Cassandra 1511

PERSPECTIVES

Victorian Ladies and Gentlemen 1520

Illustration: The Parliamentary Female, from Punch magazine, 1853 1521

FRANCES POWER COBBE 1522

from Life of Frances Power Cobbe As Told by Herself 1522

SARAH STICKNEY ELLIS 1525

from The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits 1525

CHARLOTTE BRONTË 1528

from Letter to Emily Brontë 1528

Illustration: Richard Redgrave, The Poor Teacher, 1844 1529

ANNE BRONTË 1529

from Agnes Grey 1530

JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN 1531

from The Idea of a University 1531

CAROLINE NORTON 1532

from A Letter to the Queen 1533

GEORGE ELIOT 1535

Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft 1535

THOMAS HUGHES 1540

from Tom Brown’s School Days 1540

ISABELLA BEETON 1542

from The Book of Household Management 1542

JOHN RUSKIN 1544

from Sesame and Lilies 1544

Of Queens’ Gardens 1544

QUEEN VICTORIA 1547

Letters and Journal Entries on the Position of Women 1547

Illustration: Edwin Landseer, Windsor Castle in Modern Times, 1841—1845 1549

SARAH GRAND 1552

from The New Aspect of the Woman Question 1552

SIR HENRY NEWBOLT 1553

Vitaï Lampada 1554

MONA CAIRD 1554

from Does Marriage Hinder a Woman’s Self-Development? 1555

RUDYARD KIPLING 1556

If 1556

MATTHEW ARNOLD 1557

Illustration: Matthew Arnold and his wife Frances Wightman Arnold 1557

Isolation. To Marguerite 1560

To Marguerite–Continued 1561

Dover Beach 1562

RESPONSE

Anthony Hecht: The Dover Bitch 1563h

Lines Written in Kensington Gardens 1564

The Buried Life 1565

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse 1567

The Scholar-Gipsy 1572

East London 1578

West London 1579

Thyrsis 1579

from The Function of Criticism at the Present Time 1585

from Culture and Anarchy 1595

from Sweetness and Light 1595

from Doing as One Likes 1597

from Hebraism and Hellenism 1600

from Porro Unum Est Necessarium 1601

from Conclusion 1603

from The Study of Poetry 1604

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 1611

The Blessed Damozel 1612

The Woodspurge 1615

The House of Life 1616

The Sonnet 1616

4. Lovesight 1616

6. The Kiss 1617

Nuptial Sleep 1617

The Burden of Nineveh 1618

Jenny 1622

RESPONSES

Augusta Webster: from A Castaway 1633

Thomas Hardy: The Ruined Maid 1642 h

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 1642

Song (“She sat and sang alway”) 1644

Song (“When I am dead, my dearest”) 1644

Remember 1645

After Death 1645

A Pause 1645

Echo 1646

Dead Before Death 1646

Cobwebs 1647

A Triad 1647

In an Artist’s Studio 1647

A Birthday 1648

An Apple-Gathering 1648

Winter: My Secret 1649

Up-Hill 1650

Goblin Market 1650

Illustration: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, frontispiece to Goblin Market 1651

“No, Thank You, John” 1663

Promises Like Pie-Crust 1664

In Progress 1664

What Would I Give? 1665

A Life’s Parallels 1665

Later Life 1665

17 (“Something this foggy day, a something which”) 1665

Sleeping at Last 1666

WILLIAM MORRIS 1666

The Defence of Guenevere 1667

The Haystack in the Floods 1675

from The Beauty of Life 1679

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 1684

The Leper 1685

The Triumph of Time 1689

I Will Go Back to the Great Sweet Mother 1689

Hymn to Proserpine 1690

A Forsaken Garden (Web)

WALTER PATER 1693

from The Renaissance 1694

Preface 1694

from Leonardo da Vinci 1697

Conclusion 1698

from The Child in the House (Web)

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS 1701

God’s Grandeur 1702

The Starlight Night 1703

Spring 1703

The Windhover 1704

Pied Beauty 1704

Hurrahing in Harvest 1705

Binsey Poplars 1705

Duns Scotus’s Oxford 1706

Felix Randal 1706

Spring and Fall: to a young child 1707

As Kingfishers Catch Fire 1707

[Carrion Comfort] 1708

No Worst, There Is None 1708

I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day 1708

That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire and of the Comfort of the Resurrection 1709

Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord 1710

from Journal [On “Inscape” and “Instress”] 1710

from Letter to R. W. Dixon [On Sprung Rhythm] 1712

LEWIS CARROLL 1713

from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 1715

Chapter 1. Down the Rabbit-Hole 1715

from Chapter 2. The Pool of Tears 1718

Illustration: John Tenniel, illustration to Alice in Wonderland, 1865 1719

You are old, Father William 1720

The Lobster-Quadrille 1721

from Through the Looking Glass 1721

Child of the pure unclouded brow (Web)

Jabberwocky 1721

[Humpty Dumpty on Jabberwocky] 1722

The Walrus and the Carpenter 1723

The White Knight’s Song (Web)

PERSPECTIVES

Imagining Childhood (Web)

CHARLES DARWIN (Web)

from A Biographical Sketch of an Infant (Web)

MORAL VERSES (Web)

Table Rules for Little Folks (Web)

Eliza Cook: The Mouse and the Cake (Web)

Heinrich Hoffmann: The Story of Augustus who would Not have any Soup (Web)

Thomas Miller: The Watercress Seller (Web)

William Miller: Willie Winkie (Web)

EDWARD LEAR (Web)

[Selected Limericks] (Web)

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat (Web)

The Jumblies (Web)

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear! (Web)

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (Web)

from Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (Web)

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (Web)

from A Child’s Garden of Verses (Web)

HILAIRE BELLOC (Web)

from The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts (Web)

from Cautionary Tales for Children (Web)

DAISY ASHFORD (Web)

from The Young Visiters; or, Mr Salteena’s Plan (Web)

RUDYARD KIPLING 1726

Without Benefit of Clergy 1728

from JUST SO STORIES (Web)

How the Whale Got His Throat (Web)

How the Camel Got His Hump (Web)

How the Leopard Got His Spots (Web)

Gunga Din 1742

The Widow at Windsor 1744

Recessional 1745

PERSPECTIVES

Travel and Empire 1746

Illustration: Daylight at Last! 1746

FRANCES TROLLOPE 1748

from Domestic Manners of the Americans 1748

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY 1753

from Minute on Indian Education 1754

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 1758

from Our Colonies 1758

BENJAMIN DISRAELI 1759

Illustration: New Crowns for Old 1760

from Conservative and Liberal Principles 1760

ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE (Web)

from Eothen (Web)

SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON (Web)

from A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah (Web)

ISABELLA BIRD (Web)

from A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains (Web)

SIR HENRY MORTON STANLEY 1762

from Through the Dark Continent 1762

MARY KINGSLEY 1769

from Travels in West Africa 1769

RUDYARD KIPLING 1776

The White Man’s Burden 1777

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 1778

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 1780

OSCAR WILDE 1818

Illustration: Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, 1893 1820

Impression du Matin 1821

RESPONSE

Lord Alfred Douglas: Impression de Nuit 1822h

The Harlot’s House 1822

Symphony in Yellow 1823

from The Decay of Lying (Web)

from The Soul of Man Under Socialism 1824

Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray 1828

The Importance of Being Earnest 1829

Aphorisms 1870

from De Profundis 1872

COMPANION READING

H. Montgomery Hyde: from The Trials of Oscar Wilde 1879h

PERSPECTIVES

Aestheticism, Decadence, and the Fin de Siècle 1885

Illustration: Aubrey Beardsley, J’ai baisé ta bouche, Iokanaan 1886

Illustration: George Du Maurier, The Six-Mark Tea-Pot 1887

W. S. GILBERT 1888

If You’re Anxious for to Shine in the High Aesthetic Line 1889

JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER 1890

from Mr. Whistler’s “Ten O’Clock” 1891

“MICHAEL FIELD” (KATHARINE BRADLEY AND EDITH COOPER) 1895

La Gioconda 1896

A Pen-Drawing of Leda 1896

“A Girl” 1897

ADA LEVERSON 1897

Suggestion 1898

ARTHUR SYMONS 1903

Pastel 1903

White Heliotrope 1904

from The Decadent Movement in Literature 1904

from Preface to Silhouettes 1906

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE 1907

A Ballad of London 1907

LIONEL JOHNSON 1908

The Destroyer of a Soul 1909

The Dark Angel 1909

A Decadent’s Lyric 1911

LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS 1911

In Praise of Shame 1912

Two Loves 1912

OLIVE CUSTANCE (LADY ALFRED DOUGLAS) 1914

The Masquerade 1915

Statues 1915

The White Witch 1916

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.