Laurence W. Mazzeno is president emeritus of Alvernia University (Reading, Pennsylvania). He is the author of several books, including The Victorian Novel: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow, 1989) and Victorian Poetry (Scarecrow, 1995), and has written more than two hundred articles and reviews. Mazzeno is the editor of numerous collections, including the multi-volume Masterplots series.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: Victorian Literature: A Cultural and Historical Overview, Jennifer CadwalladerChapter 2: “The velocity of the novel-producing apparatus” and “large loose baggy monsters”: The Changing Reputation of the Victorian Novel, Tamara Sylvia WagnerChapter 3: Popular Fiction and Social Protest: Dickens in the 1830s, Chris LouttitChapter 4: Faith and Doubt: Tennyson and Other Victorian Poets, Saverio TomaiuoloChapter 5: Victorian Romanticism: The Brontë Sisters, Thomas Carlyle, and the Persistence of Memory, Laura DabundoChapter 6: Overt and Covert Narrative Structure: A Reconsideration of Jane Eyre, Katherine Saunders NashChapter 7: What is a Social Problem Novel?, Barbara LeckieChapter 8: Matrimony, Property, and the “Woman Question” in Anne Brontë and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Amy J. RobinsonChapter 9: A “World of Its Own Creation”: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry and the New Paradigm for Art, David LathamChapter 10: Matthew Arnold as a Critic: A Twenty-First Century Perspective, Clinton MachannChapter 11: Great Expectations, Memories, and Hopes Dashed: Dickens and Late Style, Grace MooreChapter 12: Tragedy and Ecology in the Later Novels of Thomas Hardy, Ronald D. MorrisonFurther ReadingContributors

Written by a selection of international scholars, these 12 essays deliver on the collection's title. Sometimes, though, perspectives percolate, as they inevitably must, through earlier evaluations of the era. For instance, the first five essays constitute a valuable summary (particularly useful for the uninitiated) of cultural, critical, political, social, and religious issues dominating Victorian consciousness. Laura Dabundo writes perhaps the most charming of these, deftly analyzing the Romanticism of the Brontës and Carlyle. Dickens gets two full chapters, one by Chris Louttit, who treats Oliver Twist as a protest novel and as a bridge between Regency and Victorian fiction, the other by Grace Moore, who argues that Dickens's later fiction 'convey[s] feelings of entrapment and gloom.' The essays are well chosen, not only for scholars but also for those interested in either a quick introduction or a review of major writers and themes. Mazzeno admits to omissions, another inevitability in a collection of this nature, and one wishes that George Eliot, for instance, had not been left out. That aside, the collection is remarkably comprehensive. Summing Up: Highly recommended: Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty.

Laurence W. Mazzeno is president emeritus of Alvernia University (Reading, Pennsylvania). He is the author of several books, including The Victorian Novel: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow, 1989) and Victorian Poetry (Scarecrow, 1995), and has written more than two hundred articles and reviews. Mazzeno is the editor of numerous collections, including the multi-volume Masterplots series.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: Victorian Literature: A Cultural and Historical Overview, Jennifer CadwalladerChapter 2: “The velocity of the novel-producing apparatus” and “large loose baggy monsters”: The Changing Reputation of the Victorian Novel, Tamara Sylvia WagnerChapter 3: Popular Fiction and Social Protest: Dickens in the 1830s, Chris LouttitChapter 4: Faith and Doubt: Tennyson and Other Victorian Poets, Saverio TomaiuoloChapter 5: Victorian Romanticism: The Brontë Sisters, Thomas Carlyle, and the Persistence of Memory, Laura DabundoChapter 6: Overt and Covert Narrative Structure: A Reconsideration of Jane Eyre, Katherine Saunders NashChapter 7: What is a Social Problem Novel?, Barbara LeckieChapter 8: Matrimony, Property, and the “Woman Question” in Anne Brontë and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Amy J. RobinsonChapter 9: A “World of Its Own Creation”: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry and the New Paradigm for Art, David LathamChapter 10: Matthew Arnold as a Critic: A Twenty-First Century Perspective, Clinton MachannChapter 11: Great Expectations, Memories, and Hopes Dashed: Dickens and Late Style, Grace MooreChapter 12: Tragedy and Ecology in the Later Novels of Thomas Hardy, Ronald D. MorrisonFurther ReadingContributors

Written by a selection of international scholars, these 12 essays deliver on the collection's title. Sometimes, though, perspectives percolate, as they inevitably must, through earlier evaluations of the era. For instance, the first five essays constitute a valuable summary (particularly useful for the uninitiated) of cultural, critical, political, social, and religious issues dominating Victorian consciousness. Laura Dabundo writes perhaps the most charming of these, deftly analyzing the Romanticism of the Brontës and Carlyle. Dickens gets two full chapters, one by Chris Louttit, who treats Oliver Twist as a protest novel and as a bridge between Regency and Victorian fiction, the other by Grace Moore, who argues that Dickens's later fiction 'convey[s] feelings of entrapment and gloom.' The essays are well chosen, not only for scholars but also for those interested in either a quick introduction or a review of major writers and themes. Mazzeno admits to omissions, another inevitability in a collection of this nature, and one wishes that George Eliot, for instance, had not been left out. That aside, the collection is remarkably comprehensive. Summing Up: Highly recommended: Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty.

Laurence W. Mazzeno is president emeritus of Alvernia University (Reading, Pennsylvania). He is the author of several books, including The Victorian Novel: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow, 1989) and Victorian Poetry (Scarecrow, 1995), and has written more than two hundred articles and reviews. Mazzeno is the editor of numerous collections, including the multi-volume Masterplots series.

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1: Victorian Literature: A Cultural and Historical Overview, Jennifer CadwalladerChapter 2: “The velocity of the novel-producing apparatus” and “large loose baggy monsters”: The Changing Reputation of the Victorian Novel, Tamara Sylvia WagnerChapter 3: Popular Fiction and Social Protest: Dickens in the 1830s, Chris LouttitChapter 4: Faith and Doubt: Tennyson and Other Victorian Poets, Saverio TomaiuoloChapter 5: Victorian Romanticism: The Brontë Sisters, Thomas Carlyle, and the Persistence of Memory, Laura DabundoChapter 6: Overt and Covert Narrative Structure: A Reconsideration of Jane Eyre, Katherine Saunders NashChapter 7: What is a Social Problem Novel?, Barbara LeckieChapter 8: Matrimony, Property, and the “Woman Question” in Anne Brontë and Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Amy J. RobinsonChapter 9: A “World of Its Own Creation”: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry and the New Paradigm for Art, David LathamChapter 10: Matthew Arnold as a Critic: A Twenty-First Century Perspective, Clinton MachannChapter 11: Great Expectations, Memories, and Hopes Dashed: Dickens and Late Style, Grace MooreChapter 12: Tragedy and Ecology in the Later Novels of Thomas Hardy, Ronald D. MorrisonFurther ReadingContributors

Written by a selection of international scholars, these 12 essays deliver on the collection's title. Sometimes, though, perspectives percolate, as they inevitably must, through earlier evaluations of the era. For instance, the first five essays constitute a valuable summary (particularly useful for the uninitiated) of cultural, critical, political, social, and religious issues dominating Victorian consciousness. Laura Dabundo writes perhaps the most charming of these, deftly analyzing the Romanticism of the Brontës and Carlyle. Dickens gets two full chapters, one by Chris Louttit, who treats Oliver Twist as a protest novel and as a bridge between Regency and Victorian fiction, the other by Grace Moore, who argues that Dickens's later fiction 'convey[s] feelings of entrapment and gloom.' The essays are well chosen, not only for scholars but also for those interested in either a quick introduction or a review of major writers and themes. Mazzeno admits to omissions, another inevitability in a collection of this nature, and one wishes that George Eliot, for instance, had not been left out. That aside, the collection is remarkably comprehensive. Summing Up: Highly recommended: Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty.