Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture

This collection includes twelve provocative essays from a diverse group of international scholars, who utilize a range of interdisciplinary approaches to analyze “real” and “representational” animals that stand out as culturally significant to Victorian literature and culture. Essays focus on a wide range of canonical and non-canonical Victorian writers, including Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Anna Sewell, Emily Bronte, James Thomson, Christina Rossetti, and Richard Marsh, and they focus on a diverse array of forms: fiction, poetry, journalism, and letters. These essays consider a wide range of cultural attitudes and literary treatments of animals in the Victorian Age, including the development of the animal protection movement, the importation of animals from the expanding Empire, the acclimatization of British animals in other countries, and the problems associated with increasing pet ownership.  The collection also includes an Introduction co-written by the editors and Suggestions for Further Study, and will prove of interest to scholars and students across the multiple disciplines which comprise Animal Studies. 

Introduction.- Part I: Animals in the Victorians’ World.- 1. Ann C. Colley, “Collecting the Live and the Skinned”.- 2. Ronald D. Morrison, “DickensHousehold Words, and the Smithfield Controversy at the Time of the Great Exhibition”.- 3. Grace Moore, “‘Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Reptiles’: Anthony Trollope and the Australian Acclimatization Debate”.- 4. Susan Hamilton, “Dogs’ Homes and Lethal Chambers, or, What was it like to be a Battersea Dog?”.- Part II: Animals in the Victorians’ Literature.- 5. Jennifer McDonell, “Bull’s-eye, Agency and the Species Divide inOliver Twist: a Cur’s-Eye View”.- 6. Antonia Losano, “Performing Animals/Performing Humanity”.- 7. Monica Flegel, “‘I declare I never saw so lovely an animal!’: Beauty, Individuality, and Objectification in Nineteenth-Century Animal Autobiographies”.- 8. Susan Pyke, “Cathy’s Whip and Heathcliff’s Snarl: Control, Violence, Care,and Rights inWuthering Heights”.- 9. John Miller, “Creatures on the ‘Night-Side of Nature’: James Thomson’s Melancholy Ethics”.- 10. Jed Mayer, “‘Come buy, come buy!’: Christina Rossetti and the Victorian Animal Market”.- 11. Kathyrn Yeniyurt, “Black Beauty: The Emotional Work of Pretend Play”.- 12. Elizabeth Effinger, “Insect Politics in Richard Marsh’sThe Beetle”.- Sources for Further Study.- Editors and Contributors.- Index.