Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England

Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England PDF Author: Ian Ward
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782253696
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
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.

Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England

Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England PDF Author: Ian Ward
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782253696
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book

Book Description
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.

Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England

Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England PDF Author: Ian Ward
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178225370X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Book Description
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.

Criminal Conversations

Criminal Conversations PDF Author: Judith Rowbotham
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
ISBN: 0814209734
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
"The essays in this book set out to explore the ways in which Victorians used newspapers to identify the causes of bad behavior and its impacts, and the ways in which they tried to "distance" criminals and those guilty of "bad" behavior from the ordinary members of society, including identification of them as different according to race of sexual orientation. It also explores how threats from within "normal" society were depicted and the panic that issues like "baby-farming" caused." "Victorian alarm was about crimes and bad behavior which they saw as new or unique to their period - but which were not new then and which, in slightly different dress, are still causing panic today. What is striking about the essays in this collection are the ways in which they echo contemporary concerns about crime and bad behavior, including panics about "new" types of crime. This has implications for modern understandings of how society needs to understand crime, demonstrating that while there are changes over time, there are also important continuities."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Victorian Murderesses

Victorian Murderesses PDF Author: Mary S. Hartman
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486780473
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Riveting combination of true crime and social history examines a dozen famous cases, offering illuminating details of the accused women's backgrounds, deeds, and trials. "Vividly written, meticulously researched." — Choice.

Death at the Priory

Death at the Priory PDF Author: James Ruddick
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802139740
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Details the unsolved murder of successful attorney Charles Bravo, a cruel man who tormented his wife Florence, in a mystery that paints a portrait of Victorian culture and one woman's fight to exist in this repressive society.

Law and Society in England 1750-1950

Law and Society in England 1750-1950 PDF Author: William Cornish
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509931260
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
Law and Society in England 1750–1950 is an indispensable text for those wishing to study English legal history and to understand the foundations of the modern British state. In this new updated edition the authors explore the complex relationship between legal and social change. They consider the ways in which those in power themselves imagined and initiated reform and the ways in which they were obliged to respond to demands for change from outside the legal and political classes. What emerges is a lively and critical account of the evolution of modern rights and expectations, and an engaging study of the formation of contemporary social, administrative and legal institutions and ideas, and the road that was travelled to create them. The book is divided into eight chapters: Institutions and Ideas; Land; Commerce and Industry; Labour Relations; The Family; Poverty and Education; Accidents; and Crime. This extensively referenced analysis of modern social and legal history will be invaluable to students and teachers of English law, political science, and social history.

The Invention of Murder

The Invention of Murder PDF Author: Judith Flanders
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250024889
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 570

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Book Description
"Superb... Flanders's convincing and smart synthesis of the evolution of an official police force, fictional detectives, and real-life cause célèbres will appeal to devotees of true crime and detective fiction alike." -Publishers Weekly, starred review In this fascinating exploration of murder in nineteenth century England, Judith Flanders examines some of the most gripping cases that captivated the Victorians and gave rise to the first detective fiction Murder in the nineteenth century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama-even into puppet shows and performing dog-acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other-the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P.D. James and Patricia Cornwell. In this meticulously researched and engrossing book, Judith Flanders retells the gruesome stories of many different types of murder in Great Britain, both famous and obscure: from Greenacre, who transported his dismembered fiancée around town by omnibus, to Burke and Hare's bodysnatching business in Edinburgh; from the crimes (and myths) of Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper, to the tragedy of the murdered Marr family in London's East End. Through these stories of murder-from the brutal to the pathetic-Flanders builds a rich and multi-faceted portrait of Victorian society in Great Britain. With an irresistible cast of swindlers, forgers, and poisoners, the mad, the bad and the utterly dangerous, The Invention of Murder is both a mesmerizing tale of crime and punishment, and history at its most readable.

Women, Crime and Custody in Victorian England

Women, Crime and Custody in Victorian England PDF Author: Lucia Zedner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England

Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England PDF Author: Louise A. Jackson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134736649
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Child Sexual Abuse in Victorian England is the first detailed investigation of the way that child abuse was discovered, debated, diagnosed and dealt with in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The focus is placed on the child and his or her experience of court procedure and welfare practice, thereby providing a unique and important evaluation of the treatment of children in the courtroom. Through a series of case studies, including analyses of the criminal courts, the author examines the impact of legislation at grass roots level, and demonstrates why this was a formative period in the legal definition of sexual abuse. Providing a much-needed insight into Victorian attitudes, including that of Christian morality, this book makes a distinctive contribution to the history of crime, social welfare and the family. It also offers a valuable critique of current work on the history of children's homes and institutions, arguing that the inter-personal relationships of children and carers is a crucial area of study.

Double Jeopardy

Double Jeopardy PDF Author: Virginia B. Morris
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813163765
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Murder fascinates readers, and when a woman murders, that fascination is compounded. The paradox of mother, lover, or wife as killer fills us with shock. A woman's violence is unexpected, unacceptable. Yet killing an abusive man can make her a cultural heroine. In Double Jeopardy, Virginia Morris examines the complex roots of contemporary attitudes toward women who kill by providing a new perspective on violent women in Victorian literature. British novelists from Dickens to Hardy, in their characterizations, contradicted the traditional Western assumption that women criminals were "unnatural." The strongest evidence of their view is that the novelists make the women's victims deserve their violent death. Yet the women characters who commit murder are punished because their sympathetic Victorian creators had internalized the cultural biases that expected women to be passive and subservient. Fictional women, like their real-life counterparts, were doubly guilty: in defying the law, they also defied their gender role. Because they were "unwomanly," they were thought worse than male criminals -- more vicious and more incorrigible. At the same time, they often got special treatment from the police and the courts simply because they were women. These contradictory attitudes reveal the critical significance of gender in defining criminal behavior and in fixing punishments. Morris provides literary and historical background for the novelists' ideas about women killers and traces the evolving notion that abused or misused women were capable of using justifiable -- if unforgivable -- violence. She argues that the criminal women in Victorian literature epitomize the ambivalent position of women generally and the particular vulnerability of a deviant minority. Her book is a valuable resource for readers concerned with criminology, literature, and feminist studies.