Class, Culture and Suburban Anxieties in the Victorian Era

Description

This book demonstrates how representations of the Victorian suburb in mid- to late-nineteenth century British writing occasioned a literary sub-genre unique to this period, one that attempted to reassure readers that the suburb was a place where outsiders could be controlled and where middle-class values could be enforced. Whelan explores the dissonance created by the differences between the suburban ideal and suburban realities, recognizing the persistence of that ideal in the face of abundant evidence that it was hardly ever realized. She discusses evidence from primary and secondary sources about perceptions and realities of suburban living, showing what it meant to live in a "real" Victorian suburb. The book also demonstrates how the suburban ideal (with its elements of privacy, cleanliness, rus in urbe, and respectability), in its relation to culturally embedded ideas about the Beautiful and Picturesque, gained such a strong foothold in the Victorian middle class that contemplating its failure caused intense anxiety. Whelan goes on to trace the ways in which this anxiety is represented in literature.

Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Introduction: "Scenes of Peace and Quietude," or Victorian Fantasies of Suburban Utopia Chapter 2: Dying of One’s Neighbors: Victorian Suburban Literature and its Deconstruction of the Suburban Ideal Chapter 3: Where There is No Profligacy, Drunkenness or Crime: Representations of the Working Class and Origins of Suburban Anxieties Chapter 4: Cracks in the Façade: Looking Behind the Cult of the Picturesque in Victorian Suburban Fiction Chapter 5: Controlling "That Region of Irregular Bodies": The Uninhabitable House and the Suburban Ghost Story Chapter 6: Gothic Terrors: The Suburban Ruin and Sensation Fiction Chapter 7: Sublime Suburbs Chapter 8: Conclusion: The Death of the Suburban Ideal and the Rise of the "New" Suburban, 1880-1914 Appendix A Notes Bibliography Index

Author Bio

Lara Baker Whelan is Department Chair of English, Rhetoric and Writing at Berry College.

Related Subjects

1. 19th Century Literature
2. British Literature
3. Literature & Culture