Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture

Laurence W. Mazzeno is President Emeritus of Alvernia University, USA. He is the author of critical reception studies on a number of British and American authors, editor of several essay collections, reviews editor for Nineteenth-Century Prose and academic editor for two editions of the fourteen-volume Masterplots series. Ronald D. Morrison is Professor of English at Morehead State University, USA.  He is co-editor, with Laurence W. Mazzeno, of Victorian Writers and the Environment: Ecocritical Perspectives (2016).  He has published essays on Thomas Hardy, Christina Rossetti, and Richard Jefferies, among other authors.

Introduction.- Part I: Animals in the Victorians’ World.- 1. Ann C. Colley, “Collecting the Live and the Skinned”.- 2.Ronald D. Morrison, “Dickens, Household Words, and the Smithfield Controversy at the Time of the Great Exhibition”.- 3. Grace Moore, “‘Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Reptiles’: Anthony Trollope and the Australian Acclimatization Debate”.- 4. Susan Hamilton, “Dogs’ Homes and Lethal Chambers, or, What was it like to be a Battersea Dog?”.- Part II: Animals in the Victorians’ Literature.- 5. Jennifer McDonell, “Bull’s-eye, Agency and the Species Divide in Oliver Twist: a Cur’s-Eye View”.- 6. Antonia Losano, “Performing Animals/Performing Humanity”.- 7. Monica Flegel, “‘I declare I never saw so lovely an animal!’: Beauty, Individuality, and Objectification in Nineteenth-Century Animal Autobiographies”.- 8. Susan Pyke, “Cathy’s Whip and Heathcliff’s Snarl: Control, Violence, Care,and Rights in Wuthering Heights”.- 9. John Miller, “Creatures on the ‘Night-Side of Nature’: James Thomson’s Melancholy Ethics”.- 10. Jed Mayer, “‘Come buy, come buy!’: Christina Rossetti and the Victorian Animal Market”.- 11. Kathyrn Yeniyurt, “Black Beauty: The Emotional Work of Pretend Play”.- 12. Elizabeth Effinger, “Insect Politics in Richard Marsh’s The Beetle”.- Sources for Further Study.- Editors and Contributors.- Index.