The Victorian mind's eye : reading literature in an age of illustration / Julia Thomas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thomas, Julia, 1971- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English literature.

Illustration of books--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Illustration of books.

Magazine illustration--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Magazine illustration.

Visualization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2025]

Summary:

The Victorians lived in an age of illustration. In a matter of decades, words and images had become enmeshed and entangled, printed alongside each other in a spectacular array of printed forms. The exponential growth of illustration not only radically changed literature, but also changed the way that literature was read. This book offers a major conceptualisation of the difference that pictures made to the reading of words. Analysing an extensive range of illustrated material and drawing on the accounts of Victorian readers, reviewers, authors, artists, and psychologists, it describes how the Victorians characterised the effects of illustration, and how illustrations, in turn, elicited and anticipated responses from their readers.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgements

Contents

List of figures

Introduction: Reading Victorian illustration

The age of illustration

Reading illustrated literature

Reading and the mind's eye

1 Reading and the mind's eye: Victorian debates about illustration and mental imagery

About a boat: Francis Galton's experiment

Illustrative impediments to mental visualization

Illustrative aids to mental visualization

Thinking in illustrations

2 Out-of-order reading: How the Victorians put the pictures first

An illustrative overture

First impressions: frontispiece illustrations

Pre-viewing illustrations

The desire of the Victorian reader

3 Reading for (dis)pleasure

Double the pleasure

Grant Allen and the psychological pleasures of the illustrated text

The displeasures of the illustrated text

4 The networked reading of Victorian illustrations

Networks of illustrations

Material networks

The illustrator-function

Mobile networks: illustrated advertisements and penny dreadfuls

Stereotypes: reading mothers

5 Reading and memory: How the Victorians remembered illustrations

Memory and the mind's eye

Illustration as an art of memory

(Mis)remembering illustrations

Etched in the memory

Illustration and nostalgia

Illustrations memorialized: Dickens's Dream

Conclusion: Victorian reading now

The fall and rise of illustrative reading

Digital reading

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on November 14, 2024).

Other Format:

Print version: Thomas, Julia, 1971- Victorian mind's eye

ISBN:

9780198914631

0198914636

9780198914624

0198914628

9780198914617

019891461X

OCLC:

1468691063

Publisher Number:

CIPO000164207

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license