Vice and the Victorians

Description

Vice and the Victorians explores the ways the Victorian world gave meanings to the word 'vice', and the role this complex notion played in shaping society. Mike Huggins provides a richer and more nuanced understanding of a term that, despite its vital importance to the Victorians, has thus far lacked a clear definition. Each chapter explores a different facet of vice. Firstly, the book seeks to define exactly what vice meant to the Victorians, exploring how the language of vice was used as a tool to beat down opposition and dissent. It considers the cultural geography and spatial dimensions of vice in the public and private spheres, before moving on to look at specific vices: the unholy trinity of drink, sex and gambling. Finally, it shifts from vice to virtue and the efforts of moral reformers, and reassesses the relationship between vice and respectability in Victorian life. In his lively and engaging discussion, Mike Huggins draws on a range of theory and exploits a wide variety of texts and representations from the periodical press, parliamentary reports and Acts, novels, obscene publications, paintings and posters, newspapers, sermons, pamphlets and investigative works. This will be an illuminating text for undergraduates studying Victorian Britain as well as anyone wishing to gain a more nuanced understanding of Victorian society.

Mike Huggins is Emeritus Professor of Cultural History at the University of Cumbria, UK.

... This is a very accessible book and one which I think should be on the reading list of everyone interested in the period ... A highly enjoyable book, warmly recommended. * Ripperologist * "...[A] good primer for student and undergraduate researchers studying Victorian culture and history. Huggins relies on primary research and his own analysis rather than only secondary sources in his well-written, well-organized book. An introductory piece on vice and the culture surrounding it leads into the many primary sources the author consults. Vice must be examined in the context of the times, and Huggins does an admirable job of painting a cultural picture. He also examines how different classes viewed vice and how each reacted to another. The book's sources are a gold mine for scholars of any tier interested in more information about Victorian-era vices." * CHOICE * Huggins's central contribution is bringing together a range of historiographical interpretations and sources, revealing the world of vice and virtue to be more muddled and contested than the book's intended audience might realize ... Vice and the Victorians encourages a heightened attention not only to the methods and limitations of moral reform campaigns, but also to spatial components of respectability and morality. * Journal of British Studies * Huggins has written a lively and well-researched study of vice during the reign of one of our noblest queens. Exploring the darkest corners of the nineteenth-century city, and taking in drunkenness, gambling, pornography and prostitution, Huggins shows that Victorian Values were not always as Margaret Thatcher imagined them to be. Although pressure against being led into temptation came from churches, charities, educators, employers, and the forces of law and order, many Victorians struggled with the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. Huggins tells his stories of Victorian vice with great skill. * Mark Clapson, University of Westminster, UK * A lively and valuable work of both colour and substance, providing a richly detailed cultural cartography of Victorian deviance and twilight pleasures. Mike Huggins' synthesis tops up and illuminates the extensive literature on vice and its challenges with impressive aplomb. * Peter Bailey, Professor Emeritus, University of Manitoba *