"This amazing book shows how seemingly trivial things - title pages, prefaces, and footnotes in Victorian history books - can become fascinating source material in the hands of a talented scholar. With a characteristic mix of erudition and elegance, Elise Garritzen makes a case for paratexts serving as arenas for historians' collective self-fashioning in a culture where only few could derive scholarly authority from institutional affiliation. No one before has shown so convincingly that book history and the history of historiography have much to offer to each other." - Herman Paul, Leiden University What constitutes a historian? What skills and qualities should a historian cultivate? Who is entitled to define historians' "physiognomy"? Victorians sought to answer these questions as history transformed from a Romantic literary pursuit into a modern discipline during the second half of the nineteenth century. This book offers a novel interpretation of this critical historiographical period by tracing how historians forged themselves a collective scholarly persona that legitimized their new disciplinary status. By combining historiography and book history, Elise Garritzen argues that historians appropriated titles, prefaces, footnotes, and other paratexts as an institutionalized space for fashioning the persona. Yet, historians did not have a monopoly on the persona as readers and reviewers offered their interpretations of the persona, and publishers influenced the paratextual presentation of the persona. By ascribing agency to paratexts and the literary marketplace, Garritzen makes an important shift in the way we perceive the formation of scholarly personae and modern disciplines. The book offers a novel approach to the role which scholarly virtues held in the Victorian society, the formation of scholarly communities, the commodification of knowledge, and the management of scientific reputations. It provides new insights for scholars interested in the history of humanities, science, and knowledge, book history, and Victorian culture. Elise Garritzen is an Academy of Finland researcher at the University of Helsinki. Her research revolves around European historiography, cultural history, and book history.

This book traces the transformation of history from a Romantic literary pursuit into a modern academic discipline during the second half of the nineteenth century, and shows how this change inspired Victorians to reconsider what it meant to be a historian. This reconceptualization of the ‘historian’ lies at the heart of this book as it explores how historians strove to forge themselves a collective scholarly persona that reflected and legitimised their new disciplinary status and gave them authority to speak on behalf of the past. The author argues that historians used the persona as a replacement for missing institutional structures, and converted book parts to a sphere where they could mould and perform their persona. By ascribing agency to titles, footnotes, running heads, typography, cover design, size, and other paratexts, the book makes an important shift in the way we perceive the formation of modern disciplines. By combining the persona and paratexts, it offers a novel approach to themes that have enjoyed great interest in the history of science. It examines, for example, the role which epistemic and moral virtues held in the Victorian society and scholarly culture, the social organization and hierarchies of scholarly communities, the management of scholarly reputations, the commercialization of knowledge, and the relationship between the persona and the underpinning social, political, economic, and cultural structures and hierarchies. Making a significant contribution to persona studies, it provides new insights for scholars interested in the history of humanities, science, and knowledge; book history; and Victorian culture.

Reimagining Dinosaurs argues that transatlantic popular literature was critical for transforming the dinosaur into a cultural icon between 1880 and 1920

Over a century after the death of Queen Victoria, historians are busy re-appraising her age and achievements. However, our understanding of the Victorian era is itself a part of history, shaped by changing political, cultural and intellectual fashions. Bringing together a group of international scholars from the disciplines of history, English literature, art history and cultural studies, this book identifies and assesses the principal influences on twentieth-century attitudes towards the Victorians. Developments in academia, popular culture, public history and the internet are covered in this important and stimulating collection, and the final chapters anticipate future global trends in interpretations of the Victorian era, making an essential volume for students of Victorian Studies.

Understanding the Victorians paints a vivid portrait of an era of dramatic change, combining broad survey with close analysis and introducing students to the critical debates on the nineteenth century taking place among historians today. The volume encompasses all of Great Britain and Ireland over the whole of the Victorian period and gives prominence to social and cultural topics alongside politics and economics and emphasizes class, gender, and racial and imperial positioning as constitutive of human relations. This third edition is fully updated with new chapters on emotion and on Britain’s relationship with Europe as well as added discussions of architecture, technology, and the visual arts. Attention to the current concerns and priorities of professional historians also enables readers to engage with today’s historical debates. Starting with the Queen Caroline Affair in 1820 and coming up to the start of World War I in 1914, thematic chapters explore the topics of space, politics, Europe, the empire, the economy, consumption, class, leisure, gender, the monarchy, the law, arts and entertainment, sexuality, religion, and science. With a clear introduction outlining the key themes of the period, a detailed timeline, and suggestions for further reading and relevant internet resources, this is the ideal companion for all students of the nineteenth century. Discover more from Susie by exploring our forthcoming Routledge Historical resource on British Society, edited by Susie L. Steinbach and Martin Hewitt. Find out more about our Routledge Historical resources by visiting https://www.routledgehistoricalresources.com.

"Victorian England" is a classic historical essay by G. M. Young that provides a comprehensive overview of the Victorian era. Young's book is renowned for its clarity and authenticity and is considered one of the finest studies of the Victorian age.

Hesketh challenges accepted notions of a single scientific approach to history. Instead, he draws on a variety of sources – monographs, lectures, correspondence – from eminent Victorian historians to uncover numerous competing discourses.