Men of Blood - Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England

An examination of the treatment of serious violence by men against women in nineteenth-century England. During Victoria's reign the criminal law came to punish such violence more systematically and heavily, while propagating a new, more pacific ideal of manliness. Yet this apparently progressive legal development called forth strong resistance, not only from violent men themselves but, from others who drew upon discourses of democracy, humanitarianism and patriarchy to establish sympathy with 'men of blood'.

Victorian Technology - Invention, Innovation and the Rise of the Machine

An enlightening history of 19th-century technology, focusing on the connections between invention and cultural values.
In 1822, Charles Babbage unveiled his Difference Engine—a mechanical device made of thousands of hand-tooled parts that could calculate large numbers with unprecedented precision. In other words, it was the prototype of the computer—one of many Victorian-era innovations that foreshadowed the technologies that define our world.

Consuming Angels - Advertising and Victorian Women

Timid and retiring, the Victorian housewife was an "angel in the house," or so says the stereotype. But when this angel picked up a popular magazine--The Lady, for instance--she saw in its advertisements images of Grecian goddesses, women warriors, queens, actresses, adventurers. These arrestingly sexual and surprisingly powerful images are the subject of Consuming Angels, a major examination of how Victorian ads shaped social values. Stylishly written and featuring 73 reproductions, this book shows how ads used the hedonistic aspects of Victorian culture to sell their wares, glorified consumerism, and mythologized the middle-class life.

Of Victorians and Vegetarians - The Vegetarian Movement in Nineteenth-century Britain

Nineteenth-century Britain was one of the birthplaces of modern vegetarianism in the West. In 'Of Victorians and Vegetarians' James Gregory explores the relationship between this newly organized movement and wider culture and society. It evolved with a myriad of meanings and voices: partly for propagandist reasons, but also because of the varied motivations and characteristcs of vegetarians. Teetotallers, animal lovers, mystics, spiritualists and theosophists, as well as those who saw the diet as an effective and democratic medical treatment, all provided the constituents for a movement whose critics associated it with radicalism and faddism.

Victorian Writing about Risk

In Victorian Writing about Risk, Elaine Freedgood explores a wide spectrum of once-popular literature, including works on political economy, sanitary reform, balloon flight, and African exploration. The consolations offered by this geography of risk are precariously predicated on the stability of dominant Victorian definitions of people and places. Women, men, the laboring and middle classes, Africa and Africans: all have assigned identities that allow risk to be located and contained. When identities shift and boundaries fail, danger and safety begin to appear in all the wrong places.