Victorian Fantasy

by Stephen Prickett

Far from being just children's literature, Victorian fantasyis 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 nonrealistic techniques - nonsense, dreams, visions, and the creation of other worlds - to extend our understanding of this world. In particular, Prickett focuses on...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253174619
• ISBN13: 9780253174611
• Release Date: December 1979
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A thoughtful and measured analysis of literature's voice in period history

Now in a second significantly revised and expanded edition, Victorian Fantasy is a discourse of the writing that flourished in direct response to the social and intellectual constrictions of "Victorianism". Author and library director Stephen Prickett explores how Victorian writers used nonrealistic techniques such as nonsense, dreams, visions, and fantastic world settings, to extend understanding of this world. Focusing on six writers - Lear, Carroll, Kingsley, MacDonald, Kipling, and Nesbit, Victorian Fantasy traces how their work developed, how they influenced one another, and how their fantasy came to question the rigid ideology of Victorian society. A thoughtful and measured analysis of literature's voice in period history.