Victorian Fantasy - Softcover

Prickett, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253174619 ISBN 13: 9780253174611

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 1979

Synopsis

Far from being just children's literature, Victorian fantasy is an art form that flourished in opposition to the repressive social and intellectual conditions of "Victorianism." In this fully revised and expanded edition, Stephen Prickett explores the way in which Victorian writers used non-realistic techniques--nonsense, dreams, visions, and the creation of other worlds--to extend our understanding of this world. In particular, Prickett focuses on six writers (Lear, Carroll, Kingsley, MacDonald, Kipling, and Nesbit), tracing the development of their art form, their influence on each other, and how these writers used fantasy to question the ideology of Victorian culture and society.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Prickett (Ph.D. Cambridge) is the Director of Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University and is the author or editor of eleven volumes, including Narrative, Religion, and Science; The Bible and Literature; Origins of Narrative; and Words and the Word.

Review

A new and expanded edition of Prickett's Victorian Fantasy is indeed welcome. This book remains the most authoritative study of the literary counter culture of Victorian literature. Prickett convincingly connects writers from Walpole to Kipling and Nesbit to a tradition that sees fantasy as a matter of utmost importance to the spirit and its connection to reality. --Roderick McGillis, Professor of English, University of Calgary

Prickett counters the prevailing notion that fantasy reacted to Victorian cultural repressions.... this book [will] continue to be read, in this revised edition. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --CHOICE

Victorian Fantasy is one of the few critical works which has lasted, deservedly, for twenty five years. Here in its reappearance in an expanded second edition, it once again takes fantasy beyond the easy evasions of a merely comfortable "alternative," out to the very limits of imaginative thought and belief. The new work provided here, in particular on the still neglected genius of George MacDonald, confirms Victorian Fantasy both book and subject as serious exploration and powerful experiment. --Philip Davis, University of Liverpool

A new and expanded edition of Prickett's Victorian Fantasy is indeed welcome. This book remains the most authoritative study of the literary counter culture of Victorian literature. Prickett convincingly connects writers from Walpole to Kipling and Nesbit to a tradition that sees fantasy as a matter of utmost importance to the spirit and its connection to reality. --Roderick McGillis, Professor of English, University of Calgary

Edition details

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 1979
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0253174619
• ISBN 13: 9780253174611
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 257