Includes bibliographical references (p. 730-758) and index.

Machine generated contents note: Introduction Kate Flint; Part I. Authors, Readers, and Publishers: 1. Publishing and the materiality of the book David Finkelstein; 2. Victorian reading Leah Price; 3. Periodicals and reviewing Hilary Fraser; Part II. Writing Victoria's England: 4. The expansion of Britain David Amigoni; 5. High Victorianism Janice Carlisle; 6. The Fin-de-Siècle Stephen Arata; Part III. Modes of Writing: 7. Lyric and the lyrical Angela Leighton; 8. Epic Herbert Tucker; 9. Melodrama Carolyn Williams; 10. Sensation Kate Flint; 11. Autobiography Linda H. Peterson; 12. Comic and satirical John Bowen; 13. Innovation and experiment Jerome McGann; 14. Writing for children Claudia Nelson; Part IV. Matters of Debate: 15. Education Dinah Birch; 16. Spirituality Elisabeth Jay; 17. Material Elaine Freedgood; 18. Economics and finance Mary Poovey; 19. History Andrew Sanders; 20. Sexuality Sharon Marcus; 21. Aesthetics Elizabeth Helsinger; 22. Science and literature Gillian Beer; 23. Subjectivity, psychology, and the imagination Helen Small; 24. Cityscapes Deborah Nord; 25. The rural scene: Victorian literature and the natural world Francis O'Gorman; 26. 'The annihilation of space and time': literature and technology Clare Pettitt; Part V. Spaces of Writing: 27. Spaces of the nineteenth-century novel Isobel Armstrong; 28. National and regional literatures Sara L. Maurer; 29. Britain and Europe Nicholas Dames; 30. Victorian empire Pablo Mukherjee; 31. Writing about America Deirdre David; Part VI. Victorian Afterlives: 32. 1900 and the de;but de siècle Joseph Bristow; 33. Revisiting the Victorians Jay Clayton; Bibliography; Index.

"This collaborative history aims to become the standard work on Victorian literature for the twenty-first century. Well-known scholars introduce readers to their particular fields, discuss influential critical debates and offer illuminating contextual detail to situate authors and works in their wider cultural and historical contexts. Sections on publishing and readership and a chronological survey of major literary developments between 1837 and 1901, are followed by essays on topics including sexuality, sensation, cityscapes, melodrama, epic and economics. Victorian writing is placed in its complex relation to the Empire, Europe and America, as well as to Britain's component nations. The final chapters consider how Victorian literature, and the period as a whole, influenced twentieth-century writers. Original, lucid and stimulating, each chapter is an important contribution to Victorian literary studies. Together, the contributors create an engaging discussion of the ways in which the Victorians saw themselves and of how their influence has persisted"--