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William Matthews'British Diaries 1442–1942: An Annotated Bibliography offers an unparalleled exploration of British diary literature spanning five centuries. This meticulously compiled resource catalogs diaries from diverse perspectives—ranging from monarchs to farmers, scholars to soldiers, and clergy to craftsmen—providing a comprehensive cross-section of British society across eras. With annotations that highlight the unique content and context of each diary, the bibliography serves as an invaluable guide for scholars of history, linguistics, sociology, and cultural studies. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1950.

The Times hailed Richard Burdon Haldane as'one of the most powerful... intellects'British statesmanship had ever seen. His brother John, a great physiologist, invented the first gas masks used in World War One. Their sister Elizabeth was among the first women to become a senior public servant. Their mother Mary, friend and advisor to top politicians and churchmen, nurtured these exceptional minds. Mary's grandchildren swapped her traditional roots for radical socialism, but continued the brilliant family legacy. Naomi Mitchison was a doyenne of Scottish literature; one Nobel prizewinner called her brother, the geneticist J.B.S. Haldane,'the cleverest man I ever knew'. Like the Darwins and Keyneses, this clan of thinkers lived in rapidly changing times, and helped to remake the world around them. Drawing on extensive family interviews and previously unseen private papers, Serious Minds details scandal, tragedy and achievement within a dynasty that shaped modern Britain-from the welfare state, education system and military, to our understanding of energy, the human body, and the origins of life itself.

Details Lawrence's reception of Melville and reveals his underacknowledged role in the Melville Revival, while contributing to the history of the book and the study of the creative process.How Lawrence Read Melville is a highly focused account of D. H. Lawrence's discovery and reception of Herman Melville, from when he first read Moby-Dick as a young man to his final references to Melville in his late works. It shows Lawrence's initial reaction to Moby-Dick; how it led him to other works by Melville, namely Typee and Omoo; and how Melville affected Lawrence's critical and creative writing and shaped his philosophy.This book is a study of the creative process that shows how one great writer inspired another, but it also makes a major contribution to the history of the book and two of its subfields: the history of reading, and reception studies. By his death in 1891, Melville had been forgotten except by a small circle of English enthusiasts. That group put Lawrence onto Melville, whereupon he became a - until now largely unacknowledged - leader of the Melville Revival that rescued the great writer from obscurity. This Swiss army knife of a book will appeal to scholars and booklovers alike.

This book treads new ground by bringing the Evangelical and Dissenting movements within Christianity into close engagement with one another. While Evangelicalism and Dissent both have well established historiographies, there are few books that specifically explore the relationship between the two. Thus, this complex relationship is often overlooked and underemphasised. The volume is organised chronologically, covering the period from the late seventeenth century to the closing decades of the twentieth century. Some chapters deal with specific centuries but others chart developments across the whole period covered by the book. Chapters are balanced between those that concentrate on an individual, such as George Whitefield or John Stott, and those that focus on particular denominational groups like Wesleyan Methodism, Congregationalism or the ‘Black Majority Churches'. The result is a new insight into the cross pollination of these movements that will help the reader to understand modern Christianity in England and Wales more fully. Offering a fresh look at the development of Evangelicalism and Dissent, this volume will be of keen interest to any scholar of Religious Studies, Church History, Theology or modern Britain.

This volume examines the nineteenth century not only through episodes, institutions, sites and representations concerned with union, concord and bonds of sympathy, but also through moments of secession, separation, discord and disjunction. Its lens extends from the local and regional, through to national and international settings in Britain, Europe and the United States. The contributors come from the fields of cultural history, literary studies, American studies and legal history.

This is volume 3 of the set ^English Radicalism (1935-1961). Reissuing the epic undertaking of Dr S. Maccoby, these volumes cover the story of English Radicalism from its origins right through to its questionable end. By Combining new sources with the old and often long forgotten, the volumes provide an impressive history of radicalism and shed light on the course of English political development. The six volumes are arranged chronologically from 1762 through to the perceived end of British Radicalism in the mid-twentieth century.

First published to wide critical acclaim in 1987, Family Fortunes has become a seminal text in class and gender history, and its influence in the field continues to be extensive today. The book explores the middle-class family and its place in the development of capitalist society. It argues that gender and class need to be thought about together – that class was always gendered and gender always classed. Divided into three parts, the book covers religion and ideology, economic structure and opportunity, and gender in action across two main case studies: the rural counties of Suffolk and Essex and the industrial town of Birmingham. This third edition contains a new introductory section by Catherine Hall, reflecting on some of the major developments in historical thinking over the last fifteen years and discussing the evolution of key themes such as the family. Providing critical insight into the perception of middle-class society and gender relations between 1780 and 1850, this volume is essential reading for students of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British social history.

This book offers new perspectives on the origins and development of John Ruskin's political thought. Graham A. MacDonald traces the influence of late medieval and pre-Enlightenment thought in Ruskin's writing, reintroducing readers to Ruskin's politics as shaped through his engagement with concepts of natural law, legal rights, labour and welfare organization. From Ruskin's youthful studies of geology and chemistry to his back-to-the-land project, the Guild of St. George, he emerges as a complex political thinker, a reformer—and what we would recognize today as an environmentalist. John Ruskin's Politics and Natural Law is a nuanced reappraisal of neglected areas of Ruskin's thought.

This book is about the rise of a new ethos in British mountaineering during the late nineteenth century. It traces how British attitudes to mountains were transformed by developments both within the new sport of mountaineering and in the wider fin-de-siècle culture. The emergence of the new genre of mountaineering literature, which helped to create a self-conscious community of climbers with broadly shared values, coincided with a range of cultural and scientific trends that also influenced the direction of mountaineering. The author discusses the growing preoccupation with the physical basis of aesthetic sensations, and with physicality and materiality in general; the new interest in the physiology of effort and fatigue; and the characteristically Victorian drive to enumerate, codify, and classify. Examining a wide range of texts, from memoirs and climbing club journals to hotel visitors'books, he argues that the figure known as the ‘New Mountaineer'was seen to embody a distinctly modern approach to mountain climbing and mountain aesthetics.

This book, first published in 1989, recounts the changing perceptions of the countryside throughout the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries, helping us to understand more fully the issues that have influenced our view of the ideal countryside, past and present. Some of the chapters are concerned with ways in which Victorian artists, poets, and prose writers portrayed the countryside of their day; others with the landowners'impressive and costly country houses, and their prettification of ‘model'villages, reflecting fashionable romantic and Gothic styles. This title will be of interest to students of history.

The intention of this collection of essays, first published in 1971, is to explore the political aspects of some nineteenth century English writers. Under the influence of the great revolutionary upheavals of the period almost all its most important writers were involved, explicitly or otherwise, in political ideas. This is an exploratory volume, and will be of absorbing interest to anyone studying the interaction between literature and ideas in the nineteenth century.

First published in 1989, this is the first of three volumes exploring the changing notions of patriotism in British life from the thirteenth century to the late twentieth century and constitutes an attempt to come to terms with the power of the national idea through a historically informed critique. This volume deals with the role of politics, history, religion, imperialism and race in the formation of English nationalism. In chapters dealing with a wide range of topics, the contributors demystify the prevailing conceptions of nationalism, suggesting ‘the nation'has always been a contested idea, and only one of a number of competing images of collectivity.

First published in 1974, this book describes the religion of the East End, the West End, and the suburbs of London, where each section of society – as well as a variety of immigrant groups – has its own quarters, its own institutions, its distinctive codes of behaviour. While the main focus is on ideas, or unconscious assumptions, rather than institutions, two chapters examine the part played by the churches in the life of Bethnal Green, a very poor district, and of Lewisham, a prosperous suburb, and a third provides a picture of the church-going habits of each part of the city.The years 1880-1914 mark one of the most important transitions in English religious history. The latter part of the book examines the causes and consequences of these changes. This book will be of interest to students of history, and particularly those interested in issues of religion and class.

Philip Webb was a British architect known as a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement and also a key member of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. He had a long association with William Morris and was responsible for the design of the hugely influential Red House, Morris's first home. Webb's letters will be of interest to art and architecture historians.

Ernest Alfred Vizetelly (1853–1922) was an English journalist and author. Ernest republished some of his father's works about Émile Zola but modified them. Ernest was in France during the Franco-Prussian War and wrote a memoir of his experiences My days of adventure; the fall of France, 1870-71 which also contains an autobiographical introduction.

“We can begin with a kiss, though this will not turn out to be a love story, at least not a love story of anything like the usual kind.” So begins A Very Queer Family Indeed, which introduces us to the extraordinary Benson family. Edward White Benson became Archbishop of Canterbury at the height of Queen Victoria's reign, while his wife, Mary, was renowned for her wit and charm—the prime minister once wondered whether she was “the cleverest woman in England or in Europe.” The couple's six precocious children included E. F. Benson, celebrated creator of the Mapp and Lucia novels, and Margaret Benson, the first published female Egyptologist. What interests Simon Goldhill most, however, is what went on behind the scenes, which was even more unusual than anyone could imagine. Inveterate writers, the Benson family spun out novels, essays, and thousands of letters that open stunning new perspectives—including what it might mean for an adult to kiss and propose marriage to a twelve-year-old girl, how religion in a family could support or destroy relationships, or how the death of a child could be celebrated. No other family has left such detailed records about their most intimate moments, and in these remarkable accounts, we see how family life and a family's understanding of itself took shape during a time when psychoanalysis, scientific and historical challenges to religion, and new ways of thinking about society were developing. This is the story of the Bensons, but it is also more than that—it is the story of how society transitioned from the high Victorian period into modernity.

A history of the common people and the Industrial Revolution: “A true masterpiece” and one of the Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the twentieth century (Tribune). During the formative years of the Industrial Revolution, English workers and artisans claimed a place in society that would shape the following centuries. But the capitalist elite did not form the working class—the workers shaped their own creations, developing a shared identity in the process. Despite their lack of power and the indignity forced upon them by the upper classes, the working class emerged as England's greatest cultural and political force. Crucial to contemporary trends in all aspects of society, at the turn of the nineteenth century, these workers united into the class that we recognize all across the Western world today. E. P. Thompson's magnum opus, The Making of the English Working Class defined early twentieth-century English social and economic history, leading many to consider him Britain's greatest postwar historian. Its publication in 1963 was highly controversial in academia, but the work has become a seminal text on the history of the working class. It remains incredibly relevant to the social and economic issues of current times, with the Guardian saying upon the book's fiftieth anniversary that it “continues to delight and inspire new readers.”

Berwick-upon-Tweed was an important garrison town and regional centre, which, as befit its history, had a strong sense of duty, reflected in its proud martial traditions.During the catastrophic years of 1914-18 many Berwick families found themselves greatly affected by the war. Large numbers of Berwick men volunteered to serve in the forces and many were killed. During the first months of war the local barracks were overwhelmed by the number of men volunteering for the King's Own Scottish Borderers, while a great many Berwick lads served with the Northumberland Fusiliers. Others were less keen to serve and this book considers some of these cases, ranging from hairdressers to farmworkers, who were brought before the military tribunal at Berwick.For many of those left behind the war was a time of worry and hardship. Others saw the business opportunities, and this book includes the telling accounts of the Berwick women who were imprisoned for running brothels, which were used by the many soldiers in the town, along with accounts of petty theft and profiteering. Berwick also suffered from wartime policies and severe shortages and these issues are meticulously analysed throughout with a view to how they affected the people of Berwick. As a port, Berwick witnessed the aftermath of the sinking of merchant vessels and the people of the town were keenly aware of the sacrifices being made. They went to great efforts to provide support for those fighting the war, despite the shortages they themselves were suffering from. These efforts are explained in the book, which is a testimony to the bravery, self-sacrifice and determination of the people of Berwick during the Great War.

Winner of the Whitbread Biography Award: A “profoundly moving [and] definitive” portrait of George Orwell, author of 1984 and larger-than-life literary genius (The Daily Telegraph). It was not easy to bury George Orwell. After a lifetime of iconoclasm, during which he professed no interest in religion and no affiliation with any church, he asked to be buried in an Anglican churchyard—but none would have him. Orwell's friends fought for him to have a proper grave, however, and the author of 1984, Animal Farm, and Homage to Catalonia, among other brilliant works of prose, poetry, and journalism, was laid to rest in a quiet country cemetery. Almost immediately, his legacy was in dispute. Orwell did not want any biographies written of him, but that has not stopped scholars from trying. Of all those published since the author's death in 1950, D. J. Taylor's prize-winning book is considered the most definitive. Born in India, Orwell spent his forty-six years of life traveling the British Empire and confronting the world head on. From the trenches of Spain to the top of bestseller lists, Taylor presents Orwell fully—as a writer, social critic, and human being.

This third and final volume of Michael Watts's study of dissent examines the turbulent times of Victorian Nonconformity, a period of faith and of doubt. Watts assesses the impacts of the major Dissenting preachers and provides insights into the various movements, such as romanticism and the higher, often German, biblical criticism. He shows that the preaching of hell and eternal damnation was more effective in recruiting to the chapels than the gentler interpretations. A major feature of the volume is a thorough analysis of surviving records of attendance at Nonconformist services. He provides fascinating accounts of Spurgeon and the other key figures of Nonconformity, including of the Salvation Army. Dr Watts also provides a fresh discussion of the contribution which Nonconformity made to the politics of mid- to late-Victorian Britain. He examines such issues of reform as Forster's Education Act of 1871, temperance, and Balfour's Education Act of 1902, and considers Nonconformist interventions in such controversies as the Bulgarian Agitation, Home Rule for Ireland, the Armenian massacres of the mid 1890s, and the Boer War. The volume concludes with the Liberal landslide in the 1906 general election, which saw probably more Nonconformists elected than any time since the era of Oliver Cromwell.

An account of the intellectual and theological ferment of nineteenth-century Britain - the dynamic period when so many of the ideas and attitudes we take for granted today were first established (including the impact of biblical criticism upon traditional theology, and the belief in a social as well as a spirtual mission for the Church). Key figures include Coleridge, Newman Carlyle, Matthew Arnold and F. D. Maurice. Unavailable for some time, the reappearance of this updated Second Edition will be welcomed by theologians and intellectual and literary historians alike.

The British Biographical Index, 3rd cumulated and enlarged ed., contains information on more than 420,000 individuals from Great Britain and Ireland from the beginnings until the end of the 20th century. 760 sources, published between 1601 and 2002, have been cumulated.

Hugh Kearney's classic account of the history of the British Isles from pre-Roman times to the present is distinguished by its treatment of English history as part of a wider'history of four nations'. Not only focusing on England, it attempts to deal with the histories of Wales, Ireland and Scotland in their own terms, whilst recognising that they too have political, religious and cultural divides. This new edition endeavours to recognise and examine contemporary multi-ethnic Britain and its implications for'four-nations'history, making it an invaluable case study for European nationhood of the past and present. Thoroughly updated throughout to take into account recent social, political and cultural changes within Britain and examine the rise of multi-ethnic Britain, this revised edition also contains a completely new set of illustrations, including sixteen maps.

A study of William Robertson Nicoll, a non-conformist individual who had considerable influence in the late 19th Century. Originally a minister, he was considered a great leader and was also a theological conservative, and therefore committed to maintaining the orthodox stance of the Christian Churches, but at the same time, he encouraged many of the new ideas, which he felt would prove a useful and hopeful benefit for the Church. Due to health issues he was later forced to retire his position and focused on work as an editor and journalist, bringing with him the same sense of leadership he had previously been known for. The debate over his legacy continues and is addressed within this study using previously unstudied information on Nicoll's life.

First published in 1988, this encyclopedia serves as an overview and point of entry to the complex interdisciplinary field of Victorian studies. The signed articles, which cover persons, events, institutions, topics, groups and artefacts in Great Britain between 1837 and 1901, have been written by authorities in the field and contain bibliographies to provide guidelines for further research. The work is intended for undergraduates and the general reader, and also as a starting point for graduates who wish to explore new fields.

Connecting people with places, London's distinctive Blue Plaque scheme highlights the buildings where some of the most remarkable men and women in our history and culture have lived and worked. From Richard Burton to Karl Marx, Marie Stopes to Jimi Hendrix, this fully updated 4th edition of The London Blue Plaque Guide has over 900 entries and provides an essential companion to the famous people who have made their homes in the city. It includes updated maps and a useful list of names by profession as well as location. As the definitive guide to the fascinating historical figures who have lived in London, it will be invaluable to residents and tourists alike.

Connecting people with places, London's distinctive Blue Plaque scheme highlights the buildings where some of the most remarkable men and women in our history and culture have lived and worked. From Richard Burton to Karl Marx, Marie Stopes to Jimi Hendrix, this fully updated 4th edition of The London Blue Plaque Guide has over 900 entries and provides an essential companion to the famous people who have made their homes in the city. It includes updated maps and a useful list of names by profession as well as location. As the definitive guide to the fascinating historical figures who have lived in London, it will be invaluable to residents and tourists alike.

Charles Dickens died in 1870, the same year in which universal elementary education was introduced. During the following generation a mass reading public emerged, and the term'best-seller'was coined. In new and cheap editions Dickens's stories sold hugely, but these were progressively outstripped in quantity by the likes of Hall Caine and Marie Corelli, Charles Garvice and Nat Gould. Who has now heard of these writers? Yet Hall Caine, for one, boasted of having made more money from his pen than any previous author. This book presents a panoramic view of literary life in Britain over half a century from 1870 to 1918, teasing out authors'relations with the reading public and tracing how reputations were made and unmade. It surveys readers'habits, the book trade, popular literary magazines and the role of reviewers, and examines the construction of a classical canon by critics concerned about the supposed corruption of popular taste. Certain writers were elevated as national heroes, yet Britain drew its writers from abroad as well as from home. Authors became stars and celebrities, and a literary tourism grew around their haunts. They advertised products from cigarettes to toothpaste; they were fashion-conscious and promoted themsevles via profiles, interviews, and carefully posed photographs; they went on lecture tours to America; and their names were pushed by a new professional breed: the literary agent. Some angled for knighthoods, even peerages, and cut a figure in high society and London clubland. They debated public issues of the day and campaigned on all manner of things from questions of faith and women's rights to censorship and conscription. During the Great War they penned propaganda. Meanwhile the cinema was developing to challenge the supremacy of the written word over the imagination. Authors took to that too, as an opportunity for new adventure. Writers, Readers, and Reputations is richly entertaining and informative, amounting to a collective biography of a generation of writers and their world.

This collection offers the first detailed investigation of political life in nineteenth-century London. London politics did not share the free-trade and civil-equality preoccupations of the provinces which currently dominate scholarly literature. As these essays reveal, the capital remained more concerned with older struggles for political independence. By highlighting the inability of existing accounts to accommodate metropolitan distinctiveness, the collection aims to stimulate a major reappraisal not of London politics alone, but of Victorian political history more generally.

G. R. Searle's absorbing narrative history breaks conventional chronological barriers to carry the reader from England in 1886, the apogee of the Victorian era with the nation poised to celebrate the empress queen's golden jubilee, to 1918, as the'war to end all wars'drew to a close leaving England to come to term with its price - above all in terms of human life, but also in the general sense that things would never be the same again. This was an age of extremes: a period of imperial pomp and circumstance, with a political elite preoccupied with display and ceremony, alongside the growing cult of the simple life; the zenith of imperialism with its idealization of war on the one hand, the start of the Labour Party, a socialist renaissance, and welfare politics on the other; and a radical challenging of traditional gender stereotypes in the face of the prevailing cult of masculinity. Under Professor Searle's historical microscope, all the details of daily life spring into sharp relief. Half-forgotten figures such as Edward Carpenter, Vesta Tilley, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman take their place on stage beside Oscar Wilde, the Pankhursts, and Lloyd George. Motoring and aviation, to become such an intrinsic part of life within the next decades, had their beginnings in this period as pastimes for the rich. From the wretched slums of England's great cities to their bustling docks and factories, from the grand portals of Westminster to the violent political challenges of the Ulster Unionists and the militant suffrage movement, from Blackpool's tower and beach packed with holidaymakers to the trenches of the Western Front, the energy, creativity, and often destructive turmoil of the years 1886-1918 are brought into focus in this magisterial history. THE NEW OXFORD HISTORY OF ENGLAND The aim of the New Oxford History of England is to give an account of the development of the country over time. It is hard to treat that development as just the history which unfolds within the precise boundaries of England, and a mistake to suggest that this implies a neglect of the histories of the Scots, Irish, and Welsh. Yet the institutional core of the story which runs from Anglo-Saxon times to our own is the story of a state-structure built round the English monarchy and its effective successor, the Crown in Parliament. While the emphasis of individual volumes in the series will vary, the ultimate outcome is intended to be a set of standard and authoritative histories, embodying the scholarship of a generation.

Family Fortunes has become a seminal text in class and gender history. Published to wide critical acclaim in 1987, its influence in the field continues to be extensive. It has cast new light on the perception of middle-class society and gender relations between 1780 and 1850. This revised edition contains a substantial new introduction, placing the original survey in its historiographical context. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall evaluate the readings their text has received and broaden their study by taking into account recent developments and shifts in the field. They apply current perceptions of history to their original project, and see new motives and meanings emerge that reinforce their argument.

The complete Short Oxford History of The British Isles (series editor: Professor Paul Langford) will cover the history of the British Isles from the Roman Era to the present in eleven volumes. In each, experts write to their strengths tackling the key issues including society, economy, religion, politics, and culture head-on in chapters that will be at once wide-ranging surveys and searching analyses. Each book is specifically designed with the non-specialist reader in mind; but the authority of the contributors and the vigour of the interpretations will make them necessary and challenging reading for fellow academics across a range of disciplines. The nineteenth century was Britain's moment as a world power, not only in the narrow political sense, but with respect to a vast range of activities and achievements. This book sets out to describe the force and complexity of that experience, and to cover, in an interdisciplinary way, the political, economic, and cultural history of the British Isles between 1815 and 1901. It looks at the Victorian economy, that transforming great engine of change, as well as Victorian public life as a cultural and political narrative by including chapters on women and domesticity, the remarkable interplay of religion, intellect and science, art, architecture and the city, as well as literature, and the theatre and music of the time. This collection of works by eminent historians brilliantly depicts the nations of the British Isles at the height of Britain's world power.

In a rich survey encompassing music, art, literature, and architecture, Professor Davies studies the revolution in religious thought and worship in England during the Victorian era. One main trend, the return to conservatism, is revealed in the renascence of Roman Catholic worship, the Oxford Movement, and the search for traditional architecture and liturgy. This impetus was balanced by the drive toward innovation, through the Social Gospel, the Church's confrontation with science, and the new forms of worship sought by the Baptists, Congregationalists, and others. This is the fourth in a five-volume series.Originally published in 1962.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Victorians liked to refer to England as'a Christian country'. But what did this mean at the level of everyday life? The book begins with a social portrait of each of the characteristic forms of religion that flourished in Victorian England, including Anglican, Dissenters, Catholics, Jews, Secularists and the indifferent. It goes on to analyse, making extensive use of oral history, the pervasive and many-sided influence of Christianity before considering the limits of this influence. The forms of Christianity most typical of this time are then considered, with special emphasis on Evangelism at home and abroad and differences between male and female religiosity. Finally, there is an extended discussion on the religious crises of the later Victorian and Edwardian period.

First published in 1972, this volume shows the potency, and the limitations of Nonconformity in shaping the beginning of modern Britain. It draws upon a wide range of sources including the writings and discussions of Nonconformists themselves, their critics, and contemporary commentators.The extracts and the extensive introduction set Nonconformity in the broader context of social and political history, and address the ‘life'of the free Churches: their conflicts, internal and externals, their organization and spread, and their theology. The collection demonstrates the variety and diversity of Nonconformity as well as the controversies and debates of the period.This book will be an excellent reference for students of History, English and Theology, and will provide a starting point for those who wish to explore Nonconformist history.

Volume VII of The History of the University of Oxford completes the survey of nineteenth-century Oxford begun in Volume VI. After 1871 both teachers and students at Oxford were freed from tests of religious belief. The volume describes the changed mental climate in which some dons sought a new basis for morality, while many undergraduates found a compelling ideal in the ethic of public service both at home and in the empire. As the existing colleges were revitalized, and new ones founded, the academic profession in Oxford developed a peculiarly local form, centred upon college tutors who stood in somewhat uneasy relation with the University's professors. The various disciplines which came to form the undergraduate curriculum in both the arts and sciences are subject to major reappraisal; and Oxford's'hidden curriculum'is explored through accounts of student life and institutions, including organized sport and the Oxford Union. New light is shed on the social origins and previous schooling of undergraduates. A fresh assessment is made of the movement to establish women's higher education in Oxford, and the strategies adopted by its promoters to implant communities for women within the masculine culture of an ancient university. Other widened horizons are traced in accounts of the University's engagement with imperial expansion, social reform, and the educational aspirations of the labour movement, as well as the transformation of its press into a major international publisher. The architectural developments–considerable in quantity and highly varied in quality–receive critical appraisal in a comprehensive survey of the whole period covered by Volumes VI and VII (1800-1914). By the early twentieth century the challenges of socialism and democracy, together with the demand for national efficiency, gave rise to a renewed campaign to address issues such as promoting research, abolishing compulsory Greek, and, more generally, broadening access to the University. Under the terrible test of the First World War, still more deep-seated concerns were raised about the sider effects of Oxford's educational practices; and the volume concludes with some reflections on the directions which the University had taken over the previous fifty years. series blurb No private institutions have exerted so profound an influence on national life over the centuries as the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Few universities in the world have matched their intellectual distinction, and none has evolved and maintained over so long a period a strictly comparable collegiate structure. Now a completely new and full-scale History of the University of Oxford, from its obscure origins in the twelfth century until the late twentieth century, has been produced by the university with the active support of its constituent colleges. Drawing on extensive original research as well as on the centuries-old tradition of the study of the rich source material, the History is altogether comprehensive, appearing in eight chronologically arranged volumes. Together the volumes constitute a coherent overall study; yet each has a unity of its own, under individual editorship, and brings together the work of leading scholars in the history of every university discipline, and of its social, institutional, economic, and political development as well as its impact on national and international life. The result is a history not only more authoritative than any previously produced for Oxford, but more ambitious than any undertaken for any other European university, and certain to endure for many generations to come.

In this stimulating history of the ideas behind George Eliot's novels, Bernard Semmel explores Eliot's imaginative use of the theme of inheritance, as a metaphor for her political thinking. Through detailed analyses of Eliot's novels and other writings, and a study of the intellectual currents of the time, Semmel demonstrates how and why Eliot's views on inheritance provided central ideas for her fiction. Semmel uncovers Eliot's intent when she wrote of the obligations of inheritance both in the common meaning of the term, as in the transfer of goods and property from parents to children, and in the more metaphoric sense of the inheritance of both the benefits and burdens of the historical past, particularly those of the nation's culture and traditions. He believes Eliot's novels dwelt so insistently on the idea of inheritance in good part because she viewed herself as intellectually'disinherited,'writing as she did at a time when much of England was being transformed from a traditional community to an alienating modern society, and when, moreover, she suffered from a painful estrangement from her family. In this thought-provoking study, Semmel dissects the politics of Eliot's novels, including Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, Romola Felix Holt, and Adam Bede, and convincingly displays the relationship between Eliot's variations on the theme of inheritance and her acceptance of Britain's traditional policies of compromise and reform. All those interested in Victorian literature, history, and political thought will appreciate Semmel's George Eliot and the Politics of National Inheritance.

'It is now forty years,'Walter Houghton writes,'since Lytton Strachey decided that we knew too much about the Victorian era to view its culture as a whole.'Recently the tide has turned and the Victorians have been the subject of sympathetic'period pieces,'critical and biographical works, and extensive studies of their age, but the Victorian mind itself remains blurred for us—a bundle of various and often paradoxical ideas and attitudes. Mr. Houghton explores these ideas and attitudes, studies their interrelationships, and traces their simultaneous existence to the general character of the age. His inquiry is the more important because it demonstrates that to look into the Victorian mind is to see some of the primary sources of the modern mind. Walter Houghton is Sophie Hart Professor of English Literature at Wellesley College.