| Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England Contributor(s): Ward, Ian (Author) |
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ISBN: 1509904980 ISBN-13: 9781509904983 Publisher: Hart Publishing OUR PRICE: $32.62 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2015 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Criminology - Literary Criticism | English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh - Law | Gender & The Law |
| Dewey: 820.935 |
| Physical Information: 0.4" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" (0.57 lbs) 160 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The Victorians worried about many things, prominent among their worries being the 'condition' of England and the 'question' of its women. Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England revisits these particular anxieties, concentrating more closely upon four 'crimes' which generated especial concern amongst contemporaries: adultery, bigamy, infanticide and prostitution. Each engaged questions of sexuality and its regulation, legal, moral and cultural, for which reason each attracted the considerable interest not just of lawyers and parliamentarians, but also novelists and poets and perhaps most importantly those who, in ever-larger numbers, liked to pass their leisure hours reading about sex and crime. Alongside statutes such as the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act and the 1864 Contagious Diseases Act, Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England contemplates those texts which shaped Victorian attitudes towards England's 'condition' and the 'question' of its women: the novels of Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot, the works of sensationalists such as Ellen Wood and Mary Braddon, and the poetry of Gabriel and Christina Rossetti. Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian 'Ward successfully provides a legal and legislative context to texts that both shaped and reflected the Victorian psyche ... this book would be an excellent addition to an academic library as it has broad appeal to those studying law, literature, history, and gender studies'. Alexia Loumankis, Canadian Law Library Review |
Contributor Bio(s): Ward, Ian: - Ian Ward is Professor of Law at Newcastle University, and the author of a number of books on law, literature and history including 'Law and Literature: Possibilities and Perspectives' (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 'Shakespeare and the Legal Imagination' (Cambridge University Press, 1999), The English Constitution: Myths and Realities' (Hart Publishing, 2004), 'Law, Text, Terror' (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and most recently 'Law and the Brontes' (Palgrave, 2011). |