The Financial System in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Victorian Archives Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195150570 ISBN 13: 9780195150575

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Featuring primary documents drawn from the Victorian era's business and periodical press, this anthology provides an introduction to the most important features of the financial system in nineteenth-century Britain. Topics covered include currency and credit instruments; the national debt and the stock exchange; banks and the banking system; and the money market, company law, and financial fraud. The documents represent a variety of perspectives, including working-class radicals' complaints about the burden the national debt imposed on the poor, Indian economists' warnings about how debt was impoverishing India, political economists' celebrations of "magic" capital, and satirists' exposures of the frauds perpetrated by nefarious swindlers and company promoters. Most of the selections are reproduced in their entirety so that readers can see how closely financial matters were intertwined with the politics, ethics, and literary concerns of the period. An introduction by the editor and a chronology of the British financial system help place the materials in their historical context.
Ideal for courses in Victorian literature, culture, and history, The Financial System in Nineteenth-Century Britain will also interest general readers who have been puzzled by references to financial matters in writings of the period. This unique collection reveals how England rose to a position of international financial supremacy and how writing about finance both monitored and supported that triumph.

About this title

About the Author

Mary Poovey is at New York University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0195150570
• ISBN 13: 9780195150575
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Poovey Mary