The Routledge Handbook of Victorian Scandals in Literature and Culture

The Routledge Handbook of Victorian Scandals in Literature and Culture exposes, explores, and examines what Victorians once considered flagrant breaches of decorum. Infringements that were fantasized through artforms or were actually committed exceeded entertaining parlor gossip; once in print they were condemned as socially contaminative but were also consumed as delightfully sensational. Written by scholars in diverse disciplines, this volume: Demonstrates that spreading scandals seemed to have been one of the most entertaining sources of activities but were also normative efforts made by the Victorians to ensure conformity of decorum. Provides a broad spectrum of infractions that were considered scandalous to the Victorians. Identifies Victorian transgressions that made the news and that may still shock modern readers. Covers a gamut of moral infractions and transgressions either practiced, rumored, or fantasized in art forms. This handbook is an invaluable resource about Victorian literature, art, and culture which challenges its readers to ponder perplexing questions about how and why some scandals were perpetrated and propagated in the nineteenth century while others were not, and what the controversies reveal about the human condition that persists beyond Victoria’s reign of propriety.

List of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: Let’s Talk Scandal Brenda Ayres   Part 1: Scandalous Victoriana  Chapter 1: The Afterlives of Victorian Scandals Lesley A. Hall    Chapter 2: “Her only fear is convention”: The Bohemian Girl in Victorian Art and Life Anne Anderson, Bohemians in Paris, Anglo-Bohemia Chapter 3: Reading Between the Lines: “Town Jottings” from the Savage Club in the Brighton Guardian, 1877 Catherine Layton   Chapter 4: Scandalous Stupor: Chloroform and Robbery in Victorian Periodicals Ashlee Simon   Chapter 5: Suicide as Scandal: Representations from Victorian Life and Art Catherine J. Golden               Chapter 6: Scandalous Women Wearing Cloaks of Religion Brenda Ayres   Chapter 7: The Darwin Scandal Tony Schwab             Part 2: Scandalous Parties   Chapter 8: Victorian Atheists: Cultivating Scandal as a Way of Life David Nash   Chapter 9: Scandals in a Religious Sect: Agapemone Catherine Layton             Chapter 10: “A Scandalous and Painful Case”: Marriage, Libel, and the Church, 1873–1895 Ginger Frost             Chapter 11: The Cause Célèbre of the Year, If Not the Decade: May, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland Catherine Layton   Chapter 12: Regina v. Dunn: Lady Angela Burdett-Coutts and the Irish Annoyance Daniel Stuart Chapter 13: A Poor Gamble: The Disastrous Elopement of the “Pocket Venus” (Lady Florence Paget) Catherine Layton   Chapter 14: A “Voice from the Grave”: Lady Flora Hastings, Queen Victoria, and the Scandal of Pregnancy Suzanne Daly             Chapter 15: Poisonous Words: Criminal Rhetoric and the Trials of Mary Ann Cotton and Florence Maybrick Katherine Anne Gilbert and Cheryl Blake Price   Chapter 16: “I am a woman all alone”: The Case of Mrs. Manning Catherine Layton   Chapter 17: Lady Lincoln and the Lesser Life of the 1850 Lincoln Divorce Gail Savage   Chapter 18: Women in the Military and Their Heraldry in the Press Claire Cookson-Hills   Chapter 19: Virtue v. Heroism: Kate Dickinson’s Case Against Colonel Valentine Baker Catherine Layton   Chapter 20: Monstrous Martyrdom: The Trials of Oscar Wilde Tom Ue and Aaron Eames             Part 3: Scandalous Reading and Delightfully Despicable Novels   Chapter 21: Edith Cooper’s Sin: Mapping the Wilful Bodies of Michael Field Sharon Bickle             Chapter 22: “Let us adore spilled blood”: Swinburne and the Scandal of Poems and Ballads  Michael Craske           Chapter 23: Edith J. Simcox and the Scandal of Queer Form Kellie Holzer Chapter 24: Scandalous Exogamy in Anthony Trollope’s The Prime Minister Lauren Cameron Chapter 25: Ouida: Her Scandalous Life and Scandalous Novels Catherine Layton   Chapter 26: The Scandalous Deconstruction of Victorian Morals in Anna Lombard: What Made Victoria(ns) Cross? Purna Banerjee Chapter 27: Daddy’s Little Angel in the House: The Managing Daughter and the Incest Taboo Emily Dotson             Chapter 28: The Nineteenth-Century Sex Worker: Avoiding Surveillance, Stereotypes, and Scandal    Hollie Geary-Jones   Chapter 29: Sexy Dirt: Homosexual Scandal and Late-Victorian Social Reform S. Brooke Cameron   Chapter 30: A Confusion of Discourses: Scandal and Degeneracy at the Fin de Siècle Sarah E. Maier              Index

Brenda Ayres is retired from full-time residential teaching but currently teaches nineteenth-century English literature and professional writing online for several universities. Sarah E. Maier is Professor of Englishand Comparative Literature at the University of New Brunswick.