Introduction

I can’t speak for others, but I’ve had a lifetime of grappling emotionally and intellectually with the Victorian era, and have had to personally confront my inner Victorian in recent years. As much as I seem to disdain the cluttered drawing rooms, peacock feathers, and somber colors of the 19th Century, I notice my house looks far more Victorian than Midcentury Modern in its aspect. And throngs of Victorian-era writers, thinkers, and artists have been touchstones of my intellectual life since childhood. Victorian England especially saw an explosion of scientific, industrial, and political thought and activity that likely will prove as enduring as the Renaissance or Classical eras in its significance for human history.