Rereading the Nineteenth Century: Studies in the Old Criticism from Austen to Lawrence

From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, this book offers a fresh look at the relation of the nineteenth-century writer to the reader. Moving beyond the revolutions in theory and criticism of the last several decades, Igor Webb offers a rereading of the development of the nineteenth-century English novel. Close readings shed new light on the history of the reading of Mary Barton; on the impact of unprecedented social realities on Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit; and on how we might today enter the far more religious world of the nineteenth century through fresh approaches to Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.