Victorian Will

Reed, John R.

ISBN 10: 082140928X / ISBN 13: 9780821409282

Published by Ohio UP, 1989

About this Item

Cloth, 493pp, vg.

Seller Inventory # UPLINE061520

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Victorian Will
• Publisher: Ohio UP
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 082140928X
• ISBN 13: 9780821409282
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Condition: Used: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature

About this title

Synopsis

John R. Reed, author of Victorian Conventions, The Natural History of H.G. Wells, and Decadent Style, has published a new critical study examining nineteenth-century British attitudes toward free will, determinism, providence, and fate. His new book, Victorian Will, argues for the need to understand a body of literature in its broadest historical and intellectual context. From among a number of different possibilities, Reed chose the concept of will –- whether understood as part of a providential scheme, as an illusory power in a determined existence, or as a free agent in a world of chance –- to illuminate the relationship of literary works of the period. Will was not only a prominent subject of discussion in Victorian England, but attitudes towards will affect form, style, and characterization in contemporary fiction, as Reed demonstrates in his discussion of the works of Mary Shelley, Bulwer-Lytton, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and others. Victorian Will is destined to take its place beside Reed’s other work as a standard reference in nineteenth-century study.