David Wayne Thomas teaches English at the University of Michigan.

"Some of the most innovative and exciting work on aestheticism that I have read in a long time, Cultivating Victorians moves fluidly between specific circumstances of the crisis in liberalism after the Second Reform Bill and twenty-first-century critical debates about agency and liberalism. This is Victorian cultural studies at its best." (Kathy Alexis Psomiades, University of Notre Dame) "This is a volume of extraordinary intelligence, which will be eagerly read, discussed, and quarreled with by a wide range of scholars." (James Eli Adams, Cornell University) "This is a challenging volume, in the ambition of its arguments, the breadth of the material discussed, and the rnage of theoretical perspectives deployed. Its strengths like in the scope and sensitivity of its consideration of the interrelationships between aesthetic and liberal culture in the Victorian period." (History)

• List of IllustrationsPrefacePART I. VICTORIAN LIBERAL CULTUREChapter 1. Cultivating VictoriansChapter 2. Reflections of Agency in Ruskin's VeniceChapter 3. The Work of Imposture: The Victorian Public and the Tichborne CasePART II. AESTHETIC AGENCYChapter 4. Replicating Agency: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Victorian ManchesterChapter 5. Against Originality: Oscar Wilde's Aesthetic AgencyNotesIndexAcknowledgments

David Wayne Thomas teaches English at the University of Michigan.

"Some of the most innovative and exciting work on aestheticism that I have read in a long time, Cultivating Victorians moves fluidly between specific circumstances of the crisis in liberalism after the Second Reform Bill and twenty-first-century critical debates about agency and liberalism. This is Victorian cultural studies at its best." (Kathy Alexis Psomiades, University of Notre Dame) "This is a volume of extraordinary intelligence, which will be eagerly read, discussed, and quarreled with by a wide range of scholars." (James Eli Adams, Cornell University) "This is a challenging volume, in the ambition of its arguments, the breadth of the material discussed, and the rnage of theoretical perspectives deployed. Its strengths like in the scope and sensitivity of its consideration of the interrelationships between aesthetic and liberal culture in the Victorian period." (History)

• List of IllustrationsPrefacePART I. VICTORIAN LIBERAL CULTUREChapter 1. Cultivating VictoriansChapter 2. Reflections of Agency in Ruskin's VeniceChapter 3. The Work of Imposture: The Victorian Public and the Tichborne CasePART II. AESTHETIC AGENCYChapter 4. Replicating Agency: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Victorian ManchesterChapter 5. Against Originality: Oscar Wilde's Aesthetic AgencyNotesIndexAcknowledgments

David Wayne Thomas teaches English at the University of Michigan.

"Some of the most innovative and exciting work on aestheticism that I have read in a long time, Cultivating Victorians moves fluidly between specific circumstances of the crisis in liberalism after the Second Reform Bill and twenty-first-century critical debates about agency and liberalism. This is Victorian cultural studies at its best." (Kathy Alexis Psomiades, University of Notre Dame) "This is a volume of extraordinary intelligence, which will be eagerly read, discussed, and quarreled with by a wide range of scholars." (James Eli Adams, Cornell University) "This is a challenging volume, in the ambition of its arguments, the breadth of the material discussed, and the rnage of theoretical perspectives deployed. Its strengths like in the scope and sensitivity of its consideration of the interrelationships between aesthetic and liberal culture in the Victorian period." (History)

• List of IllustrationsPrefacePART I. VICTORIAN LIBERAL CULTUREChapter 1. Cultivating VictoriansChapter 2. Reflections of Agency in Ruskin's VeniceChapter 3. The Work of Imposture: The Victorian Public and the Tichborne CasePART II. AESTHETIC AGENCYChapter 4. Replicating Agency: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Victorian ManchesterChapter 5. Against Originality: Oscar Wilde's Aesthetic AgencyNotesIndexAcknowledgments