Project MUSE®: Victorian Review - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Victorian Review.daily12026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 16 (1990) through current issueLatest Articles: Victorian ReviewTWOProject MUSE®Victorian Review1923-32800848-1512Latest articles in Victorian Review. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Introduction: Victorian Breeds and Breeding
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/984991
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Over the past decades, the animal turn has become an increasingly important strand in Victorian scholarship. Following the landmark publication of Harriet Ritvo's The Animal Estate in 1987, historians, art historians, and literary critics have traced the diverse ways animals were both symbolically and materially central to the lives of the Victorians. The consolidation of breed as a category of identity and selective breeding as its mode of production knit together this complex species entanglement. Evolving both from the work of Robert Bakewell, whose development of selective breeding techniques for improving livestock were central to the agricultural revolution in the eighteenth century, and the consolidation of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallIntroduction: Victorian Breeds and Breeding2026-03-12text/htmlen-USIntroduction: Victorian Breeds and Breeding2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®163072026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Breeding True (or Not)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/984992
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The modern infrastructure of domesticated animal breeding emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, based on earlier, less formalized practices of evaluation and selection. It includes the breed societies that record and validate pedigrees and establish standards, as well as the competitive shows that illustrate and reinforce them. Economically valuable livestock species were the first to receive this treatment. Thus, The General Stud-Book: Containing (with Few Exceptions) the Pedigree of Every Horse, Mare, &e. of Note, That Has Appeared on the Turf, for the Last Fifty Years was published in 1793, followed by The General Short-Horned Herd-Book: Containing the Pedigrees of Short-Horned Bulls, Cows &c in
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallBreeding True (or Not)2026-03-12text/htmlen-USBreeding True (or Not)2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®145282026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12"A Racehorse from a Carthorse": Eugene Sue's Redefinition of the Thoroughbred
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/984993
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The question then is, whether this excellence of horses is in the blood, or the mechanism.In his opinion—and he was right—any quality displayed by Hobgoblin was to be explained by his having a miniscule drop of that rich pure Arab blood that coursed unadulterated through the veins of El Scham.—Eugene Sue, The Godolphin Arabian (1839)In the spring of 1838, Charles Darwin began formulating his Questions About the Breeding of Animals, distributing the resulting questionnaire among animal breeders the following spring. Most of the data he gathered this way only found its way into print decades later when he published The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868); however, the questions informed his
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmall"A Racehorse from a Carthorse": Eugene Sue's Redefinition of the Thoroughbred2026-03-12text/htmlen-US"A Racehorse from a Carthorse": Eugene Sue's Redefinition of the Thoroughbred2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®167242026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Breed Clubs and Associations
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/984994
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Domesticated animal breeds as we know them today were invented in Victorian Britain (Worboys et al.). Over thousands of years, domestication had produced a variety of physical forms and physiologies in each domesticated species, selected for different environments, agricultural systems, and support roles. The term "breed" had been mainly used for regional varieties of cattle and sheep, typically named after geographical areas, or for commercial brands, such as Robert Bakewell's New Leicesters (Walton 152). These "area" and "brand" breeds had different forms, which had developed from and were secondary to their function, at stud, on grass, and at market. Competitions for best in breed were added to agricultural
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallBreed Clubs and Associations2026-03-12text/htmlen-USBreed Clubs and Associations2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®189662026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12"Pure Breeds" and Hybrids: The Colonial Career of Indian Cattle
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/984995
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There are reasons to think that Pusa was not an entirely happy animal. Named after the government agricultural research institute in the Indian province of Bihar, Pusa was a "pure bred" Sahiwal bull. The breed originated in the semi-arid plains of western Punjab (now in Pakistan), where it was developed by nomadic pastoralists known as "Janglis" (Stow 16–19). With Punjab's annexation in 1849, the breed came to the attention of British officials and agricultural experts, who transformed it into one of the leading breeds of Indian milch cattle. In 1906, at a time when grazing in Punjab was increasingly constricted by the spread of irrigation and settled agriculture, a herd of "pure bred" Sahiwals, each with a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmall"Pure Breeds" and Hybrids: The Colonial Career of Indian Cattle2026-03-12text/htmlen-US"Pure Breeds" and Hybrids: The Colonial Career of Indian Cattle2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®154902026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12The Industrial Reformation of English Goldfish: Breed, Breeding, and National Identity in Victorian Popular Discourse
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/984996
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When the common goldfish was introduced into Britain via the East India trade in the early eighteenth century, it was regarded as both a "curious production of nature" and a "highly valued" pet among Eastern "grandees" and"nobility" ("History and Description"; "The Kin-Yu").1 The fish subsequently became popular ornamental luxuries in Britain, adding a touch of exoticism and extravagance to the gardens and homes of the aristocracy and gentry. As goldfish became more accessible to the middle classes in the early years of the Victorian period, however, commentators became fascinated with the idea of rearing them in industrial cooling ponds and modernized breeding stations. In doing so, their interest shifted to
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallThe Industrial Reformation of English Goldfish: Breed, Breeding, and National Identity in Victorian Popular Discourse2026-03-12text/htmlen-USThe Industrial Reformation of English Goldfish: Breed, Breeding, and National Identity in Victorian Popular Discourse2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®183192026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Breeding Guinea Pigs for Food, Fur, and Fancy
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/984997
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In 1897, Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper published an article titled "Preparing Guinea Pigs for Exhibition." Until recently, the writer explained, "[t]he Guinea Pig was thought so little of that it only vied with white mice in the affection animal-loving schoolboys" (fig. 1). Beginning in the 1880s, however, the species had "been taken in hand by the fancier," and it was now "bred to such perfection in colour, shape and other points that none but very good specimens in the best of condition st[ood] a chance of winning a prize at exhibitions." To improve readers' chances of outclassing the opposition, the article furnished advice on how to spruce up guinea pigs for competition, accentuating the defining features of the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallBreeding Guinea Pigs for Food, Fur, and Fancy2026-03-12text/htmlen-USBreeding Guinea Pigs for Food, Fur, and Fancy2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®190142026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12The Pursuit of the "Perfect" Pigeon
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/984998
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Imagine an exhibition hall, neatly lined with rows of cages, bustling with lively chatter and a flutter of activity. Working-class enthusiasts rub shoulders with aristocrats, top hats alongside flat caps, united by a shared passion. Inside the cages are pigeons of all shapes, sizes, and colours, meticulously prepared and proudly displayed. They strut and bob their heads with an almost theatrical flair, catching the keen eyes of breeders and judges. Welcome to the curious world of the Victorian pigeon show!The first public pigeon shows in Britain are credited to the elite Philoperisteron Society (est. 1847), whose members included politicians, lawyers, and naturalists. The "velvet waistcoats" and "posh venues" of
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallThe Pursuit of the "Perfect" Pigeon2026-03-12text/htmlen-USThe Pursuit of the "Perfect" Pigeon2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®208652026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Peter Rabbit: Domesticity, Breeding, and the Contradictions of the Victorian Rabbit
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/984999
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Rabbits are the quintessential Victorian animal. Originally domesticated for food and fur, by the nineteenth century they had become woven into English domestic life in new ways. The Victorian period produced not only the rabbit as we know it today but also the pet rabbit—an animal simultaneously associated with women and children, moral education, and—ironically—a thriving meat trade. No figure illustrates this tension more vividly than Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit. He is anthropomorphized into the sentimental world of childhood and domesticity, yet his very story is shadowed by the fate of his father, who was baked in a pie. Peter embodies the contradictions of rabbit-keeping in the Victorian era: rabbits were
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallPeter Rabbit: Domesticity, Breeding, and the Contradictions of the Victorian Rabbit2026-03-12text/htmlen-USPeter Rabbit: Domesticity, Breeding, and the Contradictions of the Victorian Rabbit2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®179872026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Boythorn's "Most Astonishing Bird": Canary Care Manuals in Charles Dickens's Bleak House
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985000
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When the reader first meets Lawrence Boythorn in Charles Dickens's Bleak House (1853), the character is threatening outrageous violence on a man who, he claims, gave him wrong directions. "I would have had that fellow shot without the least remorse!" he exclaims, and "knock[ed] his brains out!" (106). Boythorn is loud, aggressive, verbally vicious—and also, paradoxically, "a true gentleman" whose violent missives are actually "blank cannons [that] hurt nothing" (107). How does main character Esther Summerson come to this conclusion? Apparently it is because Boythorn is accompanied by "a very little canary, who was so tame" (108).Although its Victorian-era reputation is often lost on the modern reader, Dickens's
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallBoythorn's "Most Astonishing Bird": Canary Care Manuals in Charles Dickens's Bleak House2026-03-12text/htmlen-USBoythorn's "Most Astonishing Bird": Canary Care Manuals in Charles Dickens's Bleak House2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®166112026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12From Breeding to Breed: Proto-Eugenics in Mid-Century Marriage Manuals
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985001
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Francis Galton's interest in human heredity was inspired by domestic animal breeding. As Margaret Derry explains, Galton "was attracted to animal-breeding pedigrees because they supplied him with data that allowed for an assessment of various characteristics inherited over generations" (587). Galton has come to be regarded as the "father" of eugenics, yet calls for human selective breeding existed well before his articulation of the "science." As Sarah Wilmot explains, "cousins Charles Darwin and Francis Galton, in their contributions to the literature on human breeding, merely recapitulated the worries about … 'good breeding' that were widespread in popular culture" (404). One area in which the influence of these
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallFrom Breeding to Breed: Proto-Eugenics in Mid-Century Marriage Manuals2026-03-12text/htmlen-USFrom Breeding to Breed: Proto-Eugenics in Mid-Century Marriage Manuals2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®221842026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Post-Carbon Victorian Studies: Energy, Literature, and the Archaeology of Fossil Power
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985002
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Does all Victorian literature comprise an archive of energy? Given fossil power's ambit across modern modes of work, domesticity, circulation, and statecraft, it stands to reason that its signatures burned bright at industrialism's dawn. Yet it often hides in the shadows. Until late, energy has stayed "not so much invisible as unseen" in our literary archives and reading practices, Jennifer Wenzel writes (11). Its manifestations have seemed so basic and banal—so entwined with what John Stuart Mill termed the carnal stuff of "getting by"—as to go unnoted in the annals of global racial capitalism, patriarchal power, and sexual regulation (164). Consider a few of Victorian studies' touchstones. Walter Pater's
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallPost-Carbon Victorian Studies: Energy, Literature, and the Archaeology of Fossil Power2026-03-12text/htmlen-USPost-Carbon Victorian Studies: Energy, Literature, and the Archaeology of Fossil Power2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®771452026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Coal-Heaving and Logistical Labour
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985003
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The journey of a nineteenth-century piece of coal from the earth to the hearth required many hands. In British mines, "onsetters" loaded coal into cages, "winders" operated the engine that raised or lowered them, and"trappers" opened and closed doors to let coal tubs through. Harnessed to tubs, "hurriers" pulled coal from the face to the pit-bottom and human "thrusters" pushed the tubs, sometimes with their foreheads (Engels 249). On ships and in ports, "keelmen" piloted flat-bottomed boats full of coal; "basket men" placed coals in baskets and handed them to "coal whippers" or "up-and-down men," who would quickly fling them from the hold; "coal backers" and "coal heavers" carried coals in sacks along planks to the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallCoal-Heaving and Logistical Labour2026-03-12text/htmlen-USCoal-Heaving and Logistical Labour2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®923432026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Energy, Empire, and Colonial Assam's Tea Plantation Economy
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985004
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An advertisement from the United Kingdom Tea Company (UKTC hereafter) that ran in The Graphic, The Pall Mall Magazine, and The Illustrated London News in the 1890s depicts Britannia, the personification of the imperial nation, as a helmeted warrior goddess, as she lounges at a tea table pouring the beverage into her cup (fig. 1). European political and cultural discourse has long employed the language of energy, bodily sustenance, and physiological integrity to think about the constitution and the functioning of the nation or empire. In keeping with this humanist tradition of positioning a functioning physical body as a metonym for the state, this advertisement imagines the (gendered feminine) national body in a
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallEnergy, Empire, and Colonial Assam's Tea Plantation Economy2026-03-12text/htmlen-USEnergy, Empire, and Colonial Assam's Tea Plantation Economy2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®868492026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12George Eliot's Felix Holt and the "Mass Experience" of Energy
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985005
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During a moment of revolutionary upheaval across Europe, in a letter written to John Sibree in 1848, George Eliot praises the thoughtful and reflective French masses, conscious of their desires for reform:
I should have no hope of good from any imitative movement at home. Our working classes are eminently inferior to the mass of the French people. In France the mind of the people is highly electrified; they are full of ideas on social subjects; they really desire social reform—not merely an acting out of Sancho Panza's favourite proverb, "Yesterday for you, today for me". The revolutionary animus extended over the whole nation, and embraced the rural population—not merely, as with us, the artisans of the towns.
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallGeorge Eliot's Felix Holt and the "Mass Experience" of Energy2026-03-12text/htmlen-USGeorge Eliot's Felix Holt and the "Mass Experience" of Energy2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®755552026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12The Racialized Energy and Labour of Illicit Diamond Buyers in Colonial South Africa
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985006
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During a relatively early moment of the pugilistic hero Jack Senior's induction as an overseer on the Kimberley diamond fields in J.R. Couper's novel Mixed Humanity (1892), an African labourer is caught secreting a diamond into his mouth. Although he has only been working on the mines for six months, Senior is described as "experienced in the tricks" of his workers' diamond thieving with "[e]very dodge" in the "concealing of stolen diamonds" already tried on him. "All parts of the body" are used for this purpose by the workers: "ears, nose, stomach, hair—and they even made cuts into their legs to hide the precious stones" (45). When the worker is accosted by Senior, he "at once made an attempt to swallow the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallThe Racialized Energy and Labour of Illicit Diamond Buyers in Colonial South Africa2026-03-12text/htmlen-USThe Racialized Energy and Labour of Illicit Diamond Buyers in Colonial South Africa2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®716762026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Coal and Anti-Blackness in Thomas Hood's "The Demon-Ship"
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985007
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The advent of industrial coal and the increasing use of fossil fuel domestically polluted early nineteenth-century Britain. Beyond the real health and environmental consequences of burning coal, its residues also affected British bodies in a variety of other forms. Depending on job, class, and location, coal dust might have settled on clothes, begrimed hands, or even streaked faces. In some places, this grime would have been especially apparent—namely, on coal workers: miners, sailors, merchants, carriers, and others. Coal's residues coated workers' skin and infiltrated their pores, darkening their visages. According to some onlookers who aligned this pollution with developing discourses of race, coal-begrimed
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallCoal and Anti-Blackness in Thomas Hood's "The Demon-Ship"2026-03-12text/htmlen-USCoal and Anti-Blackness in Thomas Hood's "The Demon-Ship"2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®1032882026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Exchanges, Equations, and Inequalities: Energy in the Victorian Social World
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985008
<p></p>
In the 5 April 1873 issue of Valparaiso and West Coast Mail, an English-language newspaper published in Valparaiso, Chile, we find a curious story about the Victorian coal trade:
About three months ago a beardless, rosy-faced young person, of some eighteen summers, rigged out in regular Jack Tar habiliments, made application at a certain Whitby office to be apprenticed to a vessel belonging to that port. Articles were signed binding the "smart-looking young man" for the usual term of apprenticeship, and the sailor got safely lodged in his "bunk." Shortly after the vessel sailed from Whitby laden with coals for Malaga. During the voyage, which was a rough one, the new apprentice behaved "himself" like a man, doing
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallExchanges, Equations, and Inequalities: Energy in the Victorian Social World2026-03-12text/htmlen-USExchanges, Equations, and Inequalities: Energy in the Victorian Social World2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®185572026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Conrad's Decentered Fiction by Johan Adam Warodell (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985009
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In his monograph Conrad's Decentered Fiction, Johan Adam Warodell acknowledges that his focus on doodles, hats, and little sticks, along with his resistance to the kinds of categorizing and labelling he sees in Conrad scholarship, might make his critical work seem disjointed. Indeed, the book whizzes between wildly different topics, from the abstract shapes in Conrad's manuscripts to a "sentimental bat" in "The Planter of Malata" to the preponderance of detail in a Where's Wally? illustration. However, his explanation of the coherence of his organization is convincing and might even go so far as to be an example of the "delayed decoding" he explores in Conrad's fiction, as we're hit with the full effect by the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallConrad's Decentered Fiction by Johan Adam Warodell (review)2026-03-12text/htmlen-USConrad's Decentered Fiction by Johan Adam Warodell (review)2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®84772026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Anne Brontë and Lord Byron: Lost Echoes of Influence by Jessica Lewis (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985010
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The first sentence of the preface in Jessica Lewis's Anne Brontë and Lord Byron: Lost Echoes of Influence explains the immense challenge of writing a book on any of the Brontës: "In a field as popular as Brontë studies, the contribution of any new material appears a daunting prospect" (vii). Lewis, however, is up to the challenge, providing a fresh and illuminating study of several significant literary connections between Lord Byron and Anne Brontë. Lewis theorizes that this topic has not previously been explored because of Anne Brontë's reputation, curated by her sister Charlotte, which is "grounded in images of solemn religious didacticism" (vii). As Lewis notes, the thought was that "[n]o creature as pious and
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallAnne Brontë and Lord Byron: Lost Echoes of Influence by Jessica Lewis (review)2026-03-12text/htmlen-USAnne Brontë and Lord Byron: Lost Echoes of Influence by Jessica Lewis (review)2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®112602026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Victorian Literary Culture and Ancient Egypt ed. by Eleanor Dobson (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985011
<p></p>
The intersection of Victorian literary culture and the enduring allure of ancient Egypt has long intrigued scholars and general readers alike. The cultural afterlife of Egypt, manifested through mummies, hieroglyphs, and grandiose imaginings of pharaohs, finds fertile ground in Victorian literature and broader cultural discourses. Eleanor Dobson's edited volume Victorian Literary Culture and Ancient Egypt offers a compelling contribution to this field, situating the literary and cultural fascination with Egypt within the dynamic contexts of Victorianism. As Dobson asserts in her introduction, the volume seeks to "interrogate how Victorian writers and artists grappled with the cultural symbolism of Egypt and the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallVictorian Literary Culture and Ancient Egypt ed. by Eleanor Dobson (review)2026-03-12text/htmlen-USVictorian Literary Culture and Ancient Egypt ed. by Eleanor Dobson (review)2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®122852026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Lewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood by Diane Waggoner (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985012
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lewis carroll, or rather Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832–98), has gained a mythical status as a mid-nineteenth-century British photographer. Claims that he elevated photography from a technology to an imaginative art form are caveated by the fact that his photographs remained almost entirely private during his lifetime. Diane Waggoner adds to the burgeoning industry of Carroll studies but adds value through a set of thematic case studies. Positioning Dodgson's photography within the broader context of both Carroll studies and Victorian visual and social culture, Waggoner shows how he drew on images of childhood in painting and other media and engaged in the visual language of the Victorian theatre, amateur
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallLewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood by Diane Waggoner (review)2026-03-12text/htmlen-USLewis Carroll's Photography and Modern Childhood by Diane Waggoner (review)2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®128962026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Liturgy, Ritual, and Secularization in Nineteenth-Century British Literature by Joseph McQueen (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985013
<p></p>
Joseph mcqueen's book Liturgy, Ritual, and Secularization in Nineteenth-Century British Literature argues that the role of liturgy has been largely overlooked in the story of Victorian religion. His book is part of a growing challenge to the narrative of secularization, which reads the nineteenth century as a story of inevitable religious decline. Research in the past few decades has argued that secularization is itself an ideology that has shaped our concepts and conversations around religion. Postsecular scholarship argues for a more dynamic and complicated view of religion's presence in the nineteenth century, and McQueen's book joins a still-evolving postsecular conversation whose voices include Kirstie Blair
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallLiturgy, Ritual, and Secularization in Nineteenth-Century British Literature by Joseph McQueen (review)2026-03-12text/htmlen-USLiturgy, Ritual, and Secularization in Nineteenth-Century British Literature by Joseph McQueen (review)2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®120102026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12Editor's Note
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/985797
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The Victorian Review team has had a busy year. We've launched a new website, which we hope readers will find welcoming, attractive, and user-friendly. The content on the site is largely unchanged from our previous one, which had served us well but was due for a glow-up. Many thanks to Curt Rode (Texas Christian University) for his web design skills and for his patience with us last summer as we debated the merits of various themes, layouts, colours, typefaces, and so on.One thing that is new on the site is a statement about AI on our submissions page. It reads, "Victorian Review does not accept essay, forum, or book review submissions written with generative AI. Similarly, VR staff do not use AI assistance in our
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-16T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/508/image/coversmallEditor's Note2026-03-12text/htmlen-USEditor's Note2026-03-122026TWOProject MUSE®49512026-05-16T00:00:00-05:002026-03-12