Street urchins, sociopaths and degenerates : orphans of late-Victorian and Edwardian fiction / David Floyd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Floyd, William David, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Orphans in literature.

English literature--19th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

English literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Physical Description:

264 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Cardiff : University of Wales Press, [2014]

Summary:

From the notable emergence of orphan figures in late eighteenth-century literature, through early- and middle-period Victorian fiction and, as this book argues, well into the fin de siecle, this potent literary type is remarkable for its consistent recurrence and its metamorphosis as a register of cultural conditions. The striking ubiquity of orphans in the literature of these periods encourages inquiry into their metaphoric implications and the manner in which they function as barometers of burgeoning social concerns, and the overwhelming majority of criticism focusing on orphans centres particularly on the form as an early- to middle-century convention, primarily found in social and domestic works. In effect, the non-traditional, aberrant, at times Gothic orphan of the fin de siècle has been largely overlooked, if not denied outright, and this oversight has given rise to the need for a study of this potent cultural figure as it pertains to preoccupations characteristic of more recent instances. David Floyd's book examines the noticeable difference between orphans of genre fiction of the fin de siècle and their predecessors in works including first-wave Gothic and the majority of Victorian fiction, and the variance of their symbolic references and cultural implications. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

2 Renfield's 'Agonized Confusion' 37

3 Rebellious Orphans 61

4 The Orphaning Island 87

5 Orphans of Empire 121

6 Orphans in Haunted Arcadia 151

7 Conclusion 195.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-258)and index.

ISBN:

9781783160105

1783160101

OCLC:

870164016