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Public perception of arsenic in nineteenth-century Britain encompassed a variety of things: criminal poison, useful medicine, and a raw material for manufacturing an array of goods. During this era, Henry Carr tested wallpaper and fabric samples sent in by private individuals and manufacturers, as part of an early effort in gathering scientific data to inform and protect consumers against chronic arsenic poisoning. In 2022, eight wallpaper samples that Carr had tested were acquired by Winterthur Library. These samples were analyzed by polarized light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence, and Raman spectroscopy to identify the presence of arsenic. Of the eight wallpaper swatches, seven suggested trace-to-elevated levels of both arsenic and copper. Two swatches were confirmed as having the arsenical pigment emerald green (copper acetoarsenite) specifically. Research into these wallpaper samples furthers the legacy of knowledge gathering and sharing in order to protect everyday users by contributing to toxicology research in library and archives materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a close reading of Charles Dickens's Christmas novella, The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home (1845), through the lens of fairy tales and disability studies. One of the main characters of the story is Bertha Plummer, a blind doll's dressmaker. Since her father deceives and hides the truth from her, Bertha is unaware of the real nature of her economic and social circumstances as a disabled, working-class woman. Her disability is crucial to the plot as it is strongly connected to the novella's themes of domestic infidelity, disguise, and the lack of perspective or understanding. The paper analyzes how Dickens explores these ideas through Bertha's blindness with the use of fairy tales. It relies on academic sources written about Bertha, fairy tales, as well as disability and Victorian gender roles. (GyK) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henry Fawcett (1833–84), though largely unknown today, was renowned in the Victorian period first as a Liberal parliamentarian and then as Postmaster General. Upon his death in 1884, he was widely celebrated as a hero. This article explores how Fawcett comes to signify a particularly Victorian notion of heroism distinct from its Romantic forbearers and Modernist followers. It is his blindness—an impairment that might seem to disqualify Fawcett from certain versions of robust heroism—that in fact enables his heroism to be understood and emulated. Focusing on Leslie Stephen's The Life of Henry Fawcett (1884) and an 1872 portrait of Henry and Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett by Ford Madox Brown, this article demonstrates how practices of biography and portraiture co-evolve in such a way as to render the blind politician an exemplary and imitable hero for his time and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) is one of the most culturally significant writers in British history. From A Christmas Carol to Oliver Twist, his writings shape geographical imaginaries of social issues like poverty and child labour to such an extent, that the term ‘Dickensian’ has now become synonymous with poor social conditions. Despite the recent upsurge in references to Dickens and ‘Dickensian’ in the press and amongst policymakers, there has been almost no critical engagement with how the term is being used in the contemporary, how it has evolved or how it functions as a social critique. In response, this paper traces the shifting definition of ‘Dickensian’ over time and introduces the idea of the Dickensian as a discourse. It argues that as an assemblage of linguistic signs, symbols and practices, the Dickensian performs a specific reality of ‘the Victorian’ in the geographical imagination, one underscored by precarity. It is these precarious affects, this paper argues, which give the Dickensian such broad appeal in the contemporary and enable its functioning as a tool of social critique. By using discourse as a theoretical framework, this paper aims to further understandings of how literature and cultural forms more broadly, construct geographical knowledge and imaginaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five historical green dyes from the Historische Farbstoffsammlung, Technical University of Dresden, have been analysed by liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry (LC-MS). The dyes were determined to be formed by the alkylation of either crystal violet or rosaniline and contained both doubly and singly charged ions. One sample had a spread of higher molecular weight doubly charged ions reminiscent of the alkylation of a Hofmann violet. Malachite green was the dye present in one sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the connection between the late Victorian lost world novel and the fraudulent or flawed maps that frequently punctuate its narratives. Drawing on sociological risk theory, it argues that the model of adventure structuring these texts is one of liminality and 'experiential tension,' and that their fraudulent geographies are a spatial counterpart to this liminal model. They promote an adventure characterized by perpetual potential and possibility, one we might more accurately term 'meta-adventure.' This model was central to both the imperialist enterprise during the late nineteenth century and to the discourse of 'hypothetical masculinity' that helped bolster and uphold it. The problematic geographies of these texts illuminate the ways in which fiction, masculinity, and adventure were mutually productive processes during the fin de siècle, and the ways in which this interrelationship was facilitated, at least in part, by the 'unmapping' of adventurous space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delves into the world of collecting, collections, and collectors during the nineteenth century. It focuses on the English inclination to amass objects and the intricate networks that arose from this practice. The article explores how collecting encompassed a wide range of objects and served as both a material and intellectual pursuit, reflecting a desire for organization and display. It also delves into the connections between collecting and empire, material culture, natural history, and the origins of museums. The essays in the special issue cover various topics, including gender dynamics in collecting, the role of travel writing in understanding Japanese culture, and the intellectual practice of music collecting. The text further examines different aspects of collecting and curating in the nineteenth century, such as the aesthetic value of tobacco in gardens, the legacy of botanical illustrator Anna Atkins, the literary function of museums, the Ottoman Imperial Museum, the material and emotional aspects of collecting, and the curation of texts in a digital archive. The essays shed light on the complexities and contradictions inherent in collecting and curating, emphasizing the importance of critically examining these practices. [Extracted from the article]

This thesis examines the vicissitudes of masculinity as it presents across three late-Victorian novels in order to unpack the anxieties produced by the shift of power from aristocratic to professional communities and the tensions this shift produced between and within those communities. The various models of masculinity on display in the examined works of Gothic literature operate on ideas that came into play during the period surrounding sexuality and gender structures. Furthermore, each work takes on a particular perspective on masculinity as it works on the physical body and how that body interacts with others of its kind. The common themes of mutation, metamorphosis, and bodily decay or degeneration stand in relief to the ideal of masculinity they implicitly reference, which points toward the focal point of power relations between men and the world they inhabit as well as between each other.Chapter One examines the world of the Victorian professional man as it exists in Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This formulation of masculinity is modeled both on a rejection of aristocracy in favor of a professional cohort of male socialization and on an implicit moral structure which works on a continuum of degeneracy to sophistication. Chapter Two focuses on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and its portrayal of the late-Victorian aristocratic man in the form of the dandy. This text, of the three, comes closest to incorporating an explicit homosexual valence into the interactions of the male characters, so the analysis here will adapt Eve Sedgwick’s adaptation of René Girard’s work on “erotic triangles.” However, instead of the typical formulation (as seen in Dracula) of two male rivals competing for the female romantic/erotic object, Dorian Gray’s triangle consists of three men, blurring the lines between homosocial desire and homoerotic desire. Chapter Three traces the reification of heterosexual masculinity in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Chartist songs, and the movement's culture more generally, have received growing scholarly attention in recent decades. This article uses a case study of the many Chartist songs written to the tune of Robert Burns's 'Scots wha hae' to explore the ways in which Chartist songwriters participated in the reworking of radical culture and ideas taking place in the 1830s and 1840s. These Chartist versions of 'Scots wha hae' – new words to an old tune – engaged in a conscious and creative dialogue between the Chartist present and the radical past. As such, they are an ideal source for exploring continuity and change in nineteenth-century radicalism, a topic of sustained historical controversy since the 1980s. Rather than indicating continuity, these re-writes of 'Scots wha hae' reveal how the Chartists saw themselves as a new phase of radicalism, facing novel political and economic challenges, appealing to broader constituencies of nationality, class and gender, and foregrounding working-class, rather than gentlemanly, leadership. Moreover, the act of showcasing this plebeian musical creativity on a scale unmatched by previous radical movements illustrates Chartism's commitment to songwriting as both a key form of democratic activism and an innovative challenge to the cultural hierarchies of Victorian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay shows how newspapers in the postbellum United States invoked the memory of the ancient Spartan woman to express visions of women's place in the emergent American republic that deviated from the Victorian ideal. Journalists and social commentators from the Western, Southern, and Northern United States found in the fit, patriotic, and stoic demeanor of Spartan women, a model for the politically active and publicly involved the "new woman" that they increasingly desired. While primarily targeting middle-class white women, these newspapers and commentators hinted that one could venerate these qualities in females of other classes and social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If there is one poet who has been widely represented under a legendary light, it is Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861), mostly through the figure of a secluded invalid. Barrett Browning's illness and death have been romanticised ever since her own time, with multiple rumours and theories mostly focusing on the fact that her illness was 'miraculously dispelled' by 'love' and only reappeared gradually to take the poet's life. This article proposes yet another and quite different diagnosis for Barrett Browning's illness, theorising on the possibility that Barrett Browning's ailment was a pulmonary congenital malformation, which remained misdiagnosed due to the lack of medical technology at the time. Several of the diagnoses given to Barrett Browning by her medical practitioners, contemporary and posthumous biographers and other scholars are presented and compared, alongside my own hypothesis. In addition, Barrett Browning's arguable morphine dependency is reassessed in order to explore its impact on her illness, with the possibility that it exacerbated or even caused some of her symptoms. This reassessment also explores the role that morphine played in Barrett Browning's death, suggesting an accidental overdose possibly overlooked by Robert Browning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will make an effon to present a critique of female characters of two prominent novels in the canon of English literature named Frankenstein: or the Modem Prometheus (ISIS) by Mary Shelley and wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte. Both novels are considered as feminist texts. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: or The Modem Prometheus can be studied from theoretical lens of Feminism as Shelley has exposed a critique of conventional gender roles through the male and female characters of the novel. The female characters such as Sithe. Elizabeth. Margaret. Justine and Agatha are found to be submissive. passive and selfless but essentially crucial and significant for constructing the entire narrative of the novel. Further. being in the centre of the society the male characters specially the protagonist. victor Frankenstein are problematic from feminist perspective and, eventually, disastrous problems originated due to his insensitive using of power and desire. The novel is a representation of Men-contemporatypatriarchal English society. On the other hand, the uovelWuthering Heights by Emily Bronte can be analysed for its subversive representation of victoriangender norms in 19th century England through the female protagonist of the novel named Catherine Eamshaw. Other female characters. for instance Isabella. Nelly-the narrator, and Cathy(daughter) are projected with a feminine temperament of the Victorian society in a setting where men must be powerful and authontative while women must be stereotypicallypure and submissive. Bronze's feminist mindset is reflected through the characters of Catherine and Isabella. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

London experienced rapid urban growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with much of its housing built speculatively. These houses have often been regarded as an example of vernacular architecture, made by craftsmen using standard templates, so-called pattern books, without an architect or otherwise professional design. This article investigates the question of who designed these buildings by evaluating a sample of recently catalogued building applications in Richmond between 1886 and 1939. The study sheds new light on roles and relationships in the design of speculative housing of the period, which can be seen as part of a broader process of professionalisation in construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Irish perspectives on Italy in the nineteenth century through the writings of James Whiteside, Lady Morgan, and Francis Mahony. Whiteside, in Italy in the Nineteenth Century, extols Rome as the "City of the Soul," reflecting a deep reverence for its historical grandeur and the enduring influence of its past on the present. His Romantic approach portrays Rome as a living embodiment of its ancient glory, bridging the past with contemporary inspiration. In contrast, Lady Morgan's Italy offers a critical view of Italian society, juxtaposing its historical beauty with contemporary political and social challenges. Her travelogue reveals her dissatisfaction with Italian governance and highlights her broader social justice and reform concerns. Mahony's satirical writings, known for their wit and critical lens, provide another facet of the Irish perspective, adding to the discourse on Italian cultural and political issues. While Whiteside's work emphasizes a spiritual connection to Rome's historical legacy, Lady Morgan's writing critiques the gap between Italy's past splendour and present realities. Together, these accounts illustrate the diverse Irish responses to Italy, blending admiration with critical analysis and providing insights into nineteenth-century Italy's cultural and political dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Charlotte Brontë is considered one of the foremost nineteenth-century writers of Gothic psychological realism, scholars have paid little attention to how a reading of the psychologies of her characters may impact readers' thoughts on their own identity and mental state. This article redresses this gap by combining the field of Gothic Studies with narrative empathy studies to posit that Brontë's use of Victorian Gothic motifs in her novel Villette (1853), such as the doppelgänger, excess and the abject, prompts readers into considering the struggles of their psychological well-being and how it affects their identity. Through entering a reflection on personal psychological adversity, readers are encouraged to consider how Villette teaches audiences the power of understanding how psychological maladies impact selfhood. This article will analyse how Lucy's narration, her relationship with the Nun and the novel's ending connect to Lucy's psychology and, therefore, create empathetic connections with readers who can better understand their own experiences and mental well-being after reading Villette. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News of the discoveries of natural grottos filled the pages of newspapers and journals throughout the nineteenth century. Additionally, artificial grottos opened regularly for the entertainment of the public and were commonplace in the cultural and literary products of the period. In this article, I analyse neo-Victorian appropriations of nineteenth-century grottos as Foucauldian heterotopias through two case studies: Sonia Overall’s The Realm of Shells (2006) and Essie Fox’s Elijah’s Mermaid (2012). Overall’s and Fox’s novels illustrate how the heterotopic features of the Victorian grotto are expanded in neo-Victorian fiction as counter-spaces of emplacement that enable heterochronic forms of resistance.

The paintings of the Victorian era in England and the paintings of Orientalism are regarded as a kind of historical and documentary monitoring of the significant details of each Britain's social and significant life through analysis of Victorian paintings, as well as several Arab countries and cities through analysis of Orientalist paintings, even though the monitoring of Arab countries is for various and varied reasons and motives. The paintings served as a visual record of the customs, significant occupations, and modes of entertainment of both cultures, as well as the characteristics of fashion in the various social classes, the roles of persons, the forms of buildings, furniture, and landscapes for both societies. By virtue of the two schools' shared historical context and aesthetic objectives, as well as the fact that many of the same Victorian school artists also belonged to the list of orientalists, each artistic style also belonged to the romantic school. Given that England was the most extensive empire at the time, the exporter of Western culture, and a source of contemporary trends and ideas, and similarly to England in European history and cultural influence, Egypt is also the focus of cultural and political life in the Arab world, which has received a significant amount of studies and orientalists' exploration of the oriental world, it is possible to compare the manifestations of the two societies through the analysis and study of the paintings.

Shaw scholars have long hesitated to label Shaw a Victorian writer. Although almost half of his life overlapped Queen Victoria's reign, Shaw's challenges to nineteenth-century morals and mores tend to mark him as an outlier. This article advocates a fresh approach: perhaps we have been taking the "Victorian" question too literally. Postmodern critics have long urged us to look for diverse and contradictory elements in literary works that seem to be staid and classical. In this article, the author looks for commonalities between Shaw's Getting Married and three nineteenth-century novels (Eight Cousins, Great Expectations, and Jane Eyre). Do theatrical strategies and fictional writing techniques ever change places? Do the characters in Victorian novels ever explore Shavian ideas? And can we use those commonalities to rethink some of our assumptions about the Victorian era? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the exhibition "Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design" at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The exhibition explores the use of color in Victorian art, fashion, and design, challenging the perception of Victorian Britain as a gloomy and monochromatic place. It showcases a range of colorful art and artifacts from the museum's collection and loans from other institutions, highlighting the interdisciplinary connections between science, technology, and culture during the Industrial Revolution. The exhibition also examines the scientific and social implications of color, including the development of synthetic dyes and their impact on fashion and society. The article also mentions that the exhibition explores the connections between color and race, gender, and colonialism, featuring works that depict the skin tones of enslaved African women and the color associations of colonial hierarchies. It also highlights the use of color in the Aesthetic and Decadent movements, as well as in photography and film. The exhibition acknowledges the complexities of Victorian society but primarily focuses on collaboration, experimentation, and innovation. [Extracted from the article]

In this two-part interview, I discuss Blackeyed Theatre's production of The Valley of Fear, an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1915 Sherlock Holmes novel, with writer-director Nick Lane and actor Luke Barton. In the first half, I go over, with Lane, some of the changes that he makes to the novel's form to put Holmes on centre stage, his tantalization of audience members with ciphers, and his emphasis on the detective's and his biographer-cum-sidekick Dr Watson's friendship, on which so much relies. In the second half, I discuss, with Barton, his return to Holmes and how he has kept each of his performances of the detective distinct. We explore the detective's thought processes and how he displays them on stage and, for the recording, on camera; his limited but meaningful engagements with Moriarty, whose appearances in the Holmes canon are few and far in between; and finally, the decisions that the detective makes in relation to Birdy Edwards's case. This conversation is a sequel to our earlier one (Ue 2021) and it advances scholarship by celebrating Blackeyed Theatre's significant contributions to Holmes's afterlife. It shows the insight and care that is put into each adaptation; it examines Lane's and Barton's creative decisions in yet another fine project; and it reveals how a novel, one which has never ranked amongst Conan Doyle's finest, can profit from a second life on stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways Gothic fairy tales and fairy-tale feminism interact are not always clear. An undercurrent of feminist studies of fairy tales is fueled by the 1970s Lurie-Lieberman debate, which focused on the question of whether fairy tales liberate or repress women. Meanwhile, critics such as Lorna Piatti-Farnell and Lucie Armitt have offered studies of the interplay between Gothic horror and fairy tales. However, these studies have limits, often emphasizing the violence, self-mutilation, and cannibalism of women, like those in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s versions of “Cinderella” and “Snow White”. This paper argues that “Rapunzel” (1812) is key for understanding the Gothic and feminist discourses of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). Firstly, this paper argues that a self-reflexive and self-productive relationship between subjectivity and desire shapes and disrupts the Gothic, fairy-tale, and feminist discourses of Jane Eyre, resulting in a specular feminine-I that has inspired pluralistic readings of the text. Secondly, an analysis of the Rapunzelian metaphors of ‘wicked’ hunger and ideological towers unmasks the double consciousness that not only fetters feminine subjectivity but delimits the domestic structures of marriage and home. Multiplying the ways nineteenth-century Gothicism, fairy tales, and feminism may interact, Brontë’s specular study of feminine desire makes way for a productive and agential feminine speaking-I.

The museum is not a neutral container, a passive collection of art and artifacts. Rather the museum is itself a historical argument, using objects and their relations to write our collective stories. This essay shows how the museum, as it developed within nineteenth‐century European imperialism, directs meaning both within and beyond literature. The museum integrates readers into its collections and its narratives, directing them figuratively and literally through exhibits. Nineteenth‐century literature, I argue, capitalizes on this dynamic interplay among the collection, the viewing subject, and the museum's ideologies. In both poetry and prose the museum appears as a place, a concept, and a form. For example, William Thackeray's "May Day Ode" shows how the Crystal Palace and the 1851 Great Exhibition facilitate an imperialist agenda. The galleries in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Charlotte Brontë's Villette, meanwhile, are not just places the characters go; they also exert control over how characters (and readers) experience and evaluate collections. Across these texts, the museum is setting and theme. But, I argue, the museum also works as form, curating the collections, the characters who visit them, and the readers who access the narrative through museum logics. In conjunction with literary examples and an overview of scholarly conversations around nineteenth‐century museum studies, I consider how the museum continues to direct bodies, interpretations, and ideas today by drawing on my experiences using museums in the college classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reads Anna Atkins's Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843–1853) as an example of Victorian imitative art by reading it through the lens of Victorian domestic handicraft. It does so in order to resituate Atkins's work within the history of scientific visualization and to contribute to the increasing complexity scholars of visual culture and of the scientific image have added to prevailing accounts of the rise of the "objective" scientific image in the nineteenth‐century. Building on the work of historians of photography, art, science, and literature, it argues that her cyanotypes point toward an alternative history of scientific image as a form of craft and collection that resonates with recent calls in the study of the scientific image and scientific practices to move "beyond representation." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ways Gothic fairy tales and fairy-tale feminism interact are not always clear. An undercurrent of feminist studies of fairy tales is fueled by the 1970s Lurie-Lieberman debate, which focused on the question of whether fairy tales liberate or repress women. Meanwhile, critics such as Lorna Piatti-Farnell and Lucie Armitt have offered studies of the interplay between Gothic horror and fairy tales. However, these studies have limits, often emphasizing the violence, self-mutilation, and cannibalism of women, like those in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's versions of "Cinderella" and "Snow White". This paper argues that "Rapunzel" (1812) is key for understanding the Gothic and feminist discourses of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847). Firstly, this paper argues that a self-reflexive and self-productive relationship between subjectivity and desire shapes and disrupts the Gothic, fairy-tale, and feminist discourses of Jane Eyre, resulting in a specular feminine-I that has inspired pluralistic readings of the text. Secondly, an analysis of the Rapunzelian metaphors of 'wicked' hunger and ideological towers unmasks the double consciousness that not only fetters feminine subjectivity but delimits the domestic structures of marriage and home. Multiplying the ways nineteenth-century Gothicism, fairy tales, and feminism may interact, Brontë's specular study of feminine desire makes way for a productive and agential feminine speaking-I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If there is one poet who has been widely represented under a legendary light, it is Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861), mostly through the figure of a secluded invalid. Barrett Browning’s illness and death have been romanticised ever since her own time, with multiple rumours and theories mostly focusing on the fact that her illness was ‘miraculously dispelled’ by ‘love’ and only reappeared gradually to take the poet’s life. This article proposes yet another and quite different diagnosis for Barrett Browning’s illness, theorising on the possibility that Barrett Browning’s ailment was a pulmonary congenital malformation, which remained misdiagnosed due to the lack of medical technology at the time. Several of the diagnoses given to Barrett Browning by her medical practitioners, contemporary and posthumous biographers and other scholars are presented and compared, alongside my own hypothesis. In addition, Barrett Browning’s arguable morphine dependency is reassessed in order to explore its impact on her illness, with the possibility that it exacerbated or even caused some of her symptoms. This reassessment also explores the role that morphine played in Barrett Browning’s death, suggesting an accidental overdose possibly overlooked by Robert Browning.

Far from being a mere rebuttal against romanticized views of the Middle Ages, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court engages constructively with the medievalist milieu of the late-Victorian fin-de-siècle. Twain depicts sixth-century England as a time of squalor, but he extends a level of appreciation to the selflessness of King Arthur. Framing time-traveling rabble-rouser Hank Morgan as a symbol of both Enlightenment reformism and self-aggrandizing authoritarianism that justifies wanton violence through abstract claims of societal progress, Twain is as critical of industrial commercialism as of medieval feudalism. This article argues Twain engages with the same questions as the more overtly medievalist writers of the fin-de-siècle, specifically William Morris. While Morris was more laudatory toward the medieval period, this article asserts they both staunchly criticized the solipsism and obsession with technology they believed defined the industrial age without desiring merely to re-create the hierarchies of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay brings Achille Mbembe's intellectually trenchant theory of necropower to bear on the early Victorian era's most despised and iconic institution, known as the workhouse, arguably one of the most preeminent emblems of democracy's nocturnal body located within Britain. Regarded by many of its critics as enacting the Utilitarian, inhumane, and 'mechanistic' treatment of the poor (Crowther, 'Workhouse' 194), the workhouse was frequently portrayed using the Gothic mode as a necropolitical institution, a death manufactory that monstrously combined prison, factory, asylum, slaughterhouse, and dead house – some of society's most dehumanizing, disciplinary, and dreaded locales. Taking posters, illustrations, broadside ballads, penny dreadfuls, and novels as its primary sources – cultural productions with working and lower-middle class readerships for whom the workhouse and the Anatomy Act posed the greatest threat – this essay examines the workhouse through socio-political, economic, and theological lenses, and relevant scholarship in the rapidly expanding, interdisciplinary field of Thanatology Studies. It contextualises Workhouse Gothic in relation to Victorian Christian beliefs and attitudes towards death, dying, mourning, and memorialisation, phenomena and concerns that span both sides of the grave, and discusses what was at stake in those cultural narratives in relation to domestic and national values, and the development of working-class identity, subjectivity, and class consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the deliberate invocation and communication of ideas of 'magnificence' by Catholic building projects across Ireland between 1850 and 1900. Through an analysis of the rhetoric and discourse surrounding the construction of three case studies in Tipperary, Limerick, and Armagh, the article identifies shared concerns with articulating architectural magnificence through drawing attention to the site, on architectural detail and formal style, and the high quality of building materials. This emphasis on magnificence is examined in terms of the need to justify and legitimate expansive and expensive building and re-building projects, which often relied heavily on fundraising from communities already under financial pressure. The symbolic importance of magnificence is also explored in the context of the increased focus on the church as the central location of Catholic life and worship in the second half of the nineteenth century. Finally, the decision by Catholics to invest in magnificent architectural styles that referenced the medieval cathedrals of France and the classical grandeur of Catholic Rome is repositioned. Rather that framing this as a diffuse architectural eclecticism, the use of these diverse historical exemplars is considered as part of the need to rebuild a ruptured Catholic architectural traditional in Ireland, and to create an architectural identity that expressed triumph over past adversity, as well as confidence in Ireland's role in spreading the Catholic faith around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the representation of machinery by industrial workers in the Victorian period, and argues that their writings have a qualitatively different literary approach to machinery than that found in the work of established Victorian authors. It uses little-known poems by Scottish and Northern working-class writers to investigate how they use language and form to reflect upon the place of machinery in their working lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]