Philip Davis 
Why Victorian Literature Still Matters 

Why Victorian Literature Still Matters is a passionate
defense of Victorian literature’s enduring impact and
importance for readers interested in the relationship between
literature and life, reading and thinking.

* Explores the prominence of Victorian literature for
contemporary readers and academics, through the author’s
unique insight into why it is still important today

* Provides new frames of interpretation for key Victorian works
of literature and close readings of important texts

* Argues for a new engagement with Victorian literature, from
general readers and scholars alike

* Seeks to remove Victorian literature from an entrenched set of
values, traditions and perspectives – demonstrating how vital and
resonant it is for modern literary and cultural analysis

Table of Content

Introduction: The Victorian Bump and Where to Find It 1

1 Victorian Hard Wiring 9

2 Isaiah and Ezekiel – But What About Charley? 35

3 Not So Straightforward: Realist Prose and What It Hides Within
Itself 54

4 A Literature In Time 81

5 Individual Agents 112

6 A Few of My Favorite Things: A Glove, a Sandal, and Plaited
Hair 138

Notes 161

Index 168

About the author

Philip Davis is Professor of English Literature in the School of English, University of Liverpool, UK. He is the author of The Victorians and, most recently, Bernard Malamud: A Writer’s Life. His other books include The Experience of Reading; Real Voices: On Reading, and Memory and Writing: from Wordsworth to Lawrence, as well as works on Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson. He is also editor of The Reader, a non-academic literary magazine aimed at the serious reader.