Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England

by Ian Ward

Overview

The Victorians worried about many things, prominent among their worries being the 'condition' of England and the 'question' of its women. Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England revisits these particular anxieties, concentrating more closely upon four 'crimes' which generated especial concern amongst contemporaries: adultery, bigamy, infanticide and prostitution. Each engaged questions of sexuality and its regulation, legal, moral and cultural, for which reason each attracted the considerable interest not just of lawyers and parliamentarians, but also novelists and poets and perhaps most importantly those who, in ever-larger numbers, liked to pass their leisure hours reading about sex and crime. Alongside statutes such as the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act and the 1864 Contagious Diseases Act, Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England contemplates those texts which shaped Victorian attitudes towards England's 'condition' and the 'question' of its women: the novels of Dickens, Thackeray and Eliot, the works of sensationalists such as Ellen Wood and Mary Braddon, and the poetry of Gabriel and Christina Rossetti. Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England is a richly contextual commentary on a critical period in the evolution of modern legal and cultural attitudes to the relation of crime, sexuality and the family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849462945
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/07/2014
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Ian Ward is Professor of Law at Newcastle University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Dark Shapes 1

Angels in the House 4

At Home with the Dombeys 9

The Disease of Reading 16

Pleasing and Teaching 24

1 Criminal Conversations 29

One Person in Law 32

Newcome v Lord Highgate 38

Carlyle v Carlyle 46

Oh Reader! 51

2 Fashionable Crimes 58

The Sensational Moment 61

Fashionable Crimes 66

Mrs Mellish's Marriages 73

The Shame of Miss Braddon 81

3 Unnatural Mothers 88

The Precious Quality of Truthfulness 90

Hardwicke's Children 95

R v Sorrel 101

The Lost and the Saved 108

4 Fallen Angels 118

Walking the Streets 121

The Murder of Nancy Sikes 127

Contemplating Jenny 134

Because Men Made the Laws 142

Index 149

Editorial Reviews

Ward successfully provides a legal and legislative context to texts that both shaped and reflected the Victorian psyche...this book would be an excellent addition to an academic library as it has broad appeal to those studying law, literature, history, and gender studies.” —Canadian Law Library Review

“...Ward's book provides law students and scholars alike not only with an interesting exploration of mid-Victorian fiction and legal reform, but also an insight into how literature may be used to challenge existing scripts and engender alternative ways of viewing and thinking about the law's attempt to regulate female sexuality.” —Legal Studies

“Through the interweaving of issues of law, violence, sex, criminality and misogyny, Ward produces a book 'about' much more than a nation's salaciousness.” —LSE Review of Books

From the Publisher