Will be welcome in all collections of Victorian literature...Highly recommended. -- P. W. Stine Choice Lane's study succeeds in prompting readers to confront a deep, simple, and problematic truth: that it is no small feat to live successfully among people. -- Ilana M. Blumberg Nineteenth-Century Literature An impressive successor... [that] mark[s] him out...as the most renowned psychoanalytic critic in his generation of Victorianists. -- John Plotz Victorian Studies Lane's vision of the period as one rife with antisocial sentiment is provocative and convincing, and amply demonstrated through the breadth of his analysis and the strength of his readings. -- Tanya Agathocleous Journal of British Studies A valuable and engaging book. -- Stephanie Cross Times Literary Supplement Lane achieves a remarkable recasting of the Victorian age, revealing a pervasive Victorian 'willingness to let hatred and civility collide in Jekyll-and-Hyde fashion.' His range of reference is impressive... [This book] is a major contribution to Victorian studies. -- Nicola Bradbury Modern Language Review [Lane] convincingly shows that the aesthetic and moral premises of Victorian literature are powerfully undermined by a constantly resurfacing belief that hatred and malice are more potent ontological imperatives in human nature than are love and sympathy." -- David G. Riede, author of Allegories of One's Own Mind: Melancholy in Victorian Poetry Lane's excellent book [provides] fascinating close readings while always keeping the bigger picture--the relationship between the individual and society--in full view. -- Caroline Reitz, author of Detecting the Nation: Fictions of Detection and the Imperial Venture, 1788-1927
