Jon Bate (General Editor):FBA, Professor of English Literature, Warwick University, well known as a scholar of Shakespeare and the Renaissance, and of the Romantic period. The UK's leading exponent of ecocriticism. Most recent books: Shakespeare and Ovid, the Arden Titus Andronicus, The Genius of Shakespeare, a novel about William Hazlitt called The Cure for Love and The Song of the Earth. General Editor of the Oxford English Literary History, for which he is writing the volume on the Elizabethans. He is also writing a major biography of John Clare.

General volumes of literary history rarely offer themselves as serious and original criticism, and never as good reads. Philip Davis's Victorian contribution to The Oxford English Literary History is an exception on all counts. Seemingly at ease through what seems the whole range of Victorian thought and literature, so that the most complex ideas emerge under his presentation as lucid and interesting, Davis is particularly impressive in the way he punctuates the work with detailed and convincing readings of dozens of works. And while his broad picture of Victorian literary culture is forcefully and coherently worked out, he is quite remarkably sensitive to the particulars of language and the subtle movement of literary writings.

• Illustrations ; Introduction ; 1. Rural to Urban 1830-1850 ; 2. Nature ; 3. Religion ; 4. Mind ; 5. Conditions of Literary Production ; 6. The Drama ; 7. Debatable Lands: Variety of Form and Genre in the Early Victorian Novel ; 8. Alternative Fictions ; 9. High Realism ; 10. Lives and Thoughts ; 11. Poetry ; Conclusion ; Author Bibliographies ; Suggestions for Further Reading ; Index

Jon Bate (General Editor):FBA, Professor of English Literature, Warwick University, well known as a scholar of Shakespeare and the Renaissance, and of the Romantic period. The UK's leading exponent of ecocriticism. Most recent books: Shakespeare and Ovid, the Arden Titus Andronicus, The Genius of Shakespeare, a novel about William Hazlitt called The Cure for Love and The Song of the Earth. General Editor of the Oxford English Literary History, for which he is writing the volume on the Elizabethans. He is also writing a major biography of John Clare.

General volumes of literary history rarely offer themselves as serious and original criticism, and never as good reads. Philip Davis's Victorian contribution to The Oxford English Literary History is an exception on all counts. Seemingly at ease through what seems the whole range of Victorian thought and literature, so that the most complex ideas emerge under his presentation as lucid and interesting, Davis is particularly impressive in the way he punctuates the work with detailed and convincing readings of dozens of works. And while his broad picture of Victorian literary culture is forcefully and coherently worked out, he is quite remarkably sensitive to the particulars of language and the subtle movement of literary writings.

• Illustrations ; Introduction ; 1. Rural to Urban 1830-1850 ; 2. Nature ; 3. Religion ; 4. Mind ; 5. Conditions of Literary Production ; 6. The Drama ; 7. Debatable Lands: Variety of Form and Genre in the Early Victorian Novel ; 8. Alternative Fictions ; 9. High Realism ; 10. Lives and Thoughts ; 11. Poetry ; Conclusion ; Author Bibliographies ; Suggestions for Further Reading ; Index

Jon Bate (General Editor):FBA, Professor of English Literature, Warwick University, well known as a scholar of Shakespeare and the Renaissance, and of the Romantic period. The UK's leading exponent of ecocriticism. Most recent books: Shakespeare and Ovid, the Arden Titus Andronicus, The Genius of Shakespeare, a novel about William Hazlitt called The Cure for Love and The Song of the Earth. General Editor of the Oxford English Literary History, for which he is writing the volume on the Elizabethans. He is also writing a major biography of John Clare.

General volumes of literary history rarely offer themselves as serious and original criticism, and never as good reads. Philip Davis's Victorian contribution to The Oxford English Literary History is an exception on all counts. Seemingly at ease through what seems the whole range of Victorian thought and literature, so that the most complex ideas emerge under his presentation as lucid and interesting, Davis is particularly impressive in the way he punctuates the work with detailed and convincing readings of dozens of works. And while his broad picture of Victorian literary culture is forcefully and coherently worked out, he is quite remarkably sensitive to the particulars of language and the subtle movement of literary writings.

• Illustrations ; Introduction ; 1. Rural to Urban 1830-1850 ; 2. Nature ; 3. Religion ; 4. Mind ; 5. Conditions of Literary Production ; 6. The Drama ; 7. Debatable Lands: Variety of Form and Genre in the Early Victorian Novel ; 8. Alternative Fictions ; 9. High Realism ; 10. Lives and Thoughts ; 11. Poetry ; Conclusion ; Author Bibliographies ; Suggestions for Further Reading ; Index