| Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World Contributor(s): Wevers, Lydia (Author) |
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ISBN: 0864736355 ISBN-13: 9780864736352 Publisher: Victoria University Press OUR PRICE: $21.80 Product Type: Paperback Published: April 2011 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Australian & Oceanian - Social Science | Popular Culture |
| Dewey: 306.488 |
| LCCN: 2010533879 |
| Physical Information: 0.9" H x 5.4" W x 8.2" (1.20 lbs) 344 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Oceania |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Providing a snapshot of a lost time, this record utilizes the Victorian library on Brancepeth Station in the Wairarapa, its staff, and its customers to reflect upon the significance of books, reading, and intellectual life in colonial New Zealand. The station records, library archives, and the books themselves--based on borrowing histories, physical conditions, and marginalia--offer a compelling interpretation of the social and cultural implications of reading at that time. Examining characters such as the Beetham family, Wairarapa Maori, and especially librarian John Vaughn Miller, this intriguing account exemplifies the class cleavages, social anxieties, and uncertainties that were at the heart of both Brancepeth and popular Victorian fiction. |