Culture, Class and Gender in the Victorian Novel

Download or read book Culture, Class and Gender in the Victorian Novel written by Arlene Young and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1999-09-11 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the interrelation of social class and its literary representation in Victorian Britain, focusing for the first time on the emergence of the lower middle class as a social and cultural phenomenon. It places the evolution of the lower middle class and its relation to other classes within the social structure of nineteenth-century England and within the historical context of changing perceptions of the idea of the gentlemen and the changing role of women, especially during the second half of the century. Arlene Young traces popular attitudes towards various representative class and cultural types through the examination of novels, comic sketches, and contemporary nineteenth-century social commentaries.