261. (Mary Douglas)

For a while, I tried to think through Mary Douglas’ “cultural theory” in relation to attitudes towards waste in nineteenth-century … More

254. (William Makepeace Thackeray)

Thackeray’s Vanity Fair doubles that charge: the novel is braced by a simultaneous awareness of Regency and Victorian foibles, of … More

When Henry James, looking back on the novels that had marked the turn from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries, insisted … More

The George Eliot in me (there’s one in all of us) would turn over as a subject for a novel … More

Tennyson, haunted by the memory of Arthur Hallam, must look down from atop that long staircase to the stars (the … More

In “The Bishop Orders His Tomb,” it is difficult to believe that the Bishop’s children are listening attentively to all … More

Something happens to attention in works of literature during the early stages of the Victorian era—I had wanted to say … More

Bagehot, a man in the know, confides to his readership: “One of his greatest admirers once owned to us that … More

Among things I’d like to use the blog for: a drafting board. In March, I’ll be giving a talk on … More