Reveals how the literary voice of the Victorian age gives expression to a culminating crisis of the Western conscience. This work demonstrates how the power of Victorian literature lies in its gift of asking questions about society and the individual, democracy and industrialism, the existence of God, and the purpose of human life.

Illustrations ; Introduction ; 1. Rural to Urban 1830-1850 ; 2. Nature ; 3. Religion ; 4. Mind ; 5. Conditions of Literary Production ; 6. The Drama ; 7. Debatable Lands: Variety of Form and Genre in the Early Victorian Novel ; 8. Alternative Fictions ; 9. High Realism ; 10. Lives and Thoughts ; 11. Poetry ; Conclusion ; Author Bibliographies ; Suggestions for Further Reading ; Index

`Review from previous edition Highly impressive.' The Tennyson Research Bulletin `The Victorians, one of the first volumes to appear in the new series, is a brilliant book. It would be a pity if contemporary scepticism about literary history meant that Philip Davis doesn't get the credit he deserves for dealing in such a masterly way with the vast quantity of material he tackles ... Anyone with a serious interest in the period will find it immensely rewarding.' Charlotte Mitchell, The Spectator `OELH may be an anagram of its forbear OHEL, but its agenda is very different. These are not survey volumes, and they historicize and extend the boundaries of the literary, often through attention to the impact of institutions and institutional thought on literary production.' TLS `Is it possible to contain the literary history of the Victorians within a single volume? Philip Davis has risen to the challenge with passionate energy. Authors, texts, ideas and observations crowd the pages of this dense book ... Running through Philip Davis's scholarship is a winningly partisan advocacy of the moral seriousness of Victorian writing. He does not stand aloof from the challenges he describes. The result is a book that animates a bank of information with the force of personal commitment. It will stand as a persuasive affirmation of why the Victorians are still worth reading.' Dinah Birch, Times Literary Supplement `This is an imaginative, penetrating, often idiosyncratic history, written with brio ... Davis has written a book of breathtaking depth as well as breadth.' Ben Schwarz, Atlantic Monthly `The intelligent and discriminating overview presented by this early volume bodes well for the overall quality of the [Oxford English Literary History] series. Davis presents a neat survey of the key social, economic, and intellectual trends which shaped the Victorian periods literature. The volume is especially noteworthy for the generous place granted to the voices of contemporary writers and thinkers.' Virginia Quarterly Review `[A] Magnificent work of literary engagement and partisanship ... The development and mission of realism in the novel make up only one of the areas on which Davis sheds light, and he has marvelous chapters on nature, mind, religion, publishing, theatre, and poetry. His prose possesses an insistent spiritual vigor and is free of the ham-fisted parlance and empty cunning of "lit-crit".' Katherine Powers, Boston Globe

Launching the 21st-century successor to the Oxford History of English Literature, this and its companion volume inaugurate a new era in literary history, with an emphasis not just on canonical texts and authors but on the contexts in which literature was written, and its relationship to its period. The General Editor is Jonathan Bate, King Alfred Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool, and a major scholar of both the Renaissance and the Romantic periods. This volume is fresh and broadranging assessment of fifty years in which literature flourished and science, thought, and belief were revolutionized. Davis shows Victorian writers engaged with serious enquiry - into society and the individual, morality and the market, democracy, and the existence of God and the purpose of human life. Covers all main genres, and writers as diverse as Tennyson and Wilkie Collins, Darwin and Newman, the Brontës and J. S. Mill, George Eliot and Hopkins, and many less canonical figures. A major contribution to our understanding of the period's significance in the culminating crisis of the Western conscience.

Jon Bate (General Editor): FBA, Professor of English Literature, Warwick University, well known as a scholar of Shakespeare and the Renaissance, and of the Romantic period. The UK's leading exponent of ecocriticism. Most recent books: Shakespeare and Ovid, the Arden Titus Andronicus, The Genius of Shakespeare, a novel about William Hazlitt called The Cure for Love and The Song of the Earth. General Editor of the Oxford English Literary History, for which he is writing the volume on the Elizabethans. He is also writing a major biography of John Clare.

Launching the 21st-century successor to the Oxford History of English Literature, this and its companion volume inaugurate a new era in literary history, with an emphasis not just on canonical texts and authors but on the contexts in which literature was written, and its relationship to its period. The General Editor is Jonathan Bate, King Alfred Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool, and a major scholar of both the Renaissance and the Romantic periods. This volume is fresh and broadranging assessment of fifty years in which literature flourished and science, thought, and belief were revolutionized. Davis shows Victorian writers engaged with serious enquiry - into society and the individual, morality and the market, democracy, and the existence of God and the purpose of human life. Covers all main genres, and writers as diverse as Tennyson and Wilkie Collins, Darwin and Newman, the Brontës and J. S. Mill, George Eliot and Hopkins, and many less canonical figures. A major contribution to our understanding of the period's significance in the culminating crisis of the Western conscience.