The Victorian Supernatural

by Edited by Nicola Bown , Carolyn Burdett , Pamela Thurschwell

• ISBN13: 9780521810159
• ISBN10: 0521810159
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-15
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This collection brings together essays by scholars from literature, history of art and history of science which explore the diversity of Victorian fascination with the supernatural: ghosts and fairies, table-rappings and telepathic encounters, occult religions and the idea of reincarnation, visions of the other world and a reality beyond the everyday. These essays demonstrate that the supernatural was not simply a reaction to the "post-Darwinian loss of faith", but was embedded in virtually every aspect of Victorian culture.

Table of Contents

Preface Gillian Beer

Illustrations

Notes on contributors

Part I. Supernatural Science: 1. Spiritualism, science, and the supernatural in mid-Victorian Britain Richard Noakes

2. Investigations and fictions: Charles Dickens and ghosts Louise Henson

Part II. Invisible Women: 3. Spectral politics: the Victorian ghost story and the domestic servant Eve Lynch

4. George Eliot's prophecies: coercive second sight and every-day thought reading Pamela Thurschwell

Part III. Raising the Dead: 5. Browning, the dramatic monologue and the resuscitation of the dead Adam Roberts

6. Barron Corvo and the key to the underworld Colin Cruise

Part IV. Envisioning the Unseen: 7. What is the stuff that dreams are made of? Nicola Bown

8. Holman Hunt, William Dyce and the image of Christ Michaela Giebelhausen

Part V. Imperial Occult: 9. Knowledge, belief and the supernatural at the imperial margin Roger Luckhurst

10. Romance, reincarnation and Rider Haggard Carolyn Burdett

Part VI. Haunted modernism: 11. The origins of modernism in the haunted properties of literature Geoffrey Gilbert

Afterword Steven Connor.