Invisible architecture in nineteenth-century literature : rethinking urban modernity / Ben Moore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Moore, Ben, 1985, author.

Series:

Edinburgh critical studies In Victorian culture.

Edinburgh critical studies In Victorian culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature, Modern--19th century--History and criticism.

Literature, Modern.

Architecture in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 267 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2024.

Summary:

Ben Moore presents a new approach to reading urban modernity in nineteenth-century literature, by bringing together hidden, mobile and transparent features of city space as part of a single system he calls 'invisible architecture'. Resisting narratives of the nineteenth-century as progressing from concealment to transparency, he instead argues for a dynamic interaction between these tendencies. Across two parts, this book addresses a range of apparently disparate buildings and spaces. Part I offers new readings of three writers and their cities: Elizabeth Gaskell and Manchester, Charles Dickens and London, and Émile Zola and Paris, focusing on the cellar-dwelling, the railway and river, and the department store respectively. Part II takes a broader view by analysing three spatial forms that have not usually been considered features of nineteenth-century modernity: the Gothic cathedral, the arabesque and white walls. Through these readings, the book extends our understanding of the uneven modernity of this period.

Contents:

Intro

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Mobility, Concealment, Transparency

Part I Writers and Cities

1. The Hidden City: James Kay, Friedrich Engels and Mary Barton's Cellars

2. The Unstable City: Rivers, Railways and Houses in Dombey and Son and Our Mutual Friend

3. The Transparent City: Mansions, Montage and Commodity Architecture in The Kill and The Ladies' Paradise

Part II Spatial Forms

4. Gothic Architecture and Urban Modernity

5. The Arabesque City

6. The Whiteness of the City

Conclusion: The Invisible Architecture of New York

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 07 Mar 2025).

ISBN:

1-3995-0851-2

1-3995-0850-4