This book presents the contexts that generated Victorian literature as we know it: religious dilemmas, new discoveries in science, the advent of industrialisation and the emergence of a new class, growing awareness of women’s rights, and the spread of education. The reign of Queen Victoria was a time of change like it never was before. This book looks at those precincts of change which led to the growth of a new literary creativity encompassing and taking into account the religious, scientific and industrial challenges of the times.

Pradipta Borgohain is Professor and Head, Department of English, Gauhati University. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his areas of specialisation are Victorian fiction, modern fiction and northeast literature.

About the series editor
Pramod K. Nayar teaches at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad. His most recent books include The Indian Graphic Novel: Nation, History and Critique (2016), The Transnational in English Literature: Shakespeare to the Modern (2015), Citizenship and Identity in the Age of Surveillance (2015) and The Postcolonial Studies Dictionary (2015). His forthcoming works include Human Rights and Literature and The Extreme in Contemporary Culture: States of Vulnerability.

  Introduction
1. The Crisis in Religion
2. Darwin and Others: The Triumphant March of Science
3. The Industrial Revolution, Mercantilism, Class and the City
4. Empire and Race in Victorian England
5. The Woman Question
6. Education in Victorian England
Timeline
Index