Acts of Memory: The Victorians and Beyond

As various critics have noted, the concept of memory was a topic of immense importance for the Victorians; be it in the form of remembrance, nostalgia, amnesia, or mourning. This is nowhere more evident than in the literature of the period where acts of memory provide the focal point in numerous Victorian literary texts. For the Victorians, it seems, the act of memory was indissociable from the art of literature. Acts of Memory: The Victorians and Beyond engages with the interconnections that existed between literature and memory in the nineteenth century with nine lively, informative, and accessible essays written by a combination of established academics and up-and-coming scholars, as well as an "Afterword" by Professor Roger Ebbatson. The essays in this collection arise from an international conference held in Birmingham in 2007, which generated considerable academic interest and vibrant new work, and from selected papers a refined and considered collection has been produced. Discussing well-known literary figures, texts, and movements (as well as some less well-known), alongside key theoretical, psychological, and philosophical works, the essays in this collection offer a rich, stimulating, and diverse exploration of the concept of memory within (and at times beyond) the Victorian era.

About the Author :
Dr. Ryan Barnett completed his Ph.D. at Birmingham City University, where he also worked as a visiting lecturer. He has an essay forthcoming in Dickens Quarterly.Serena Trowbridge completed her Ph.D. at Birmingham City University, where she is a visiting lecturer. Her thesis is entitled "Christina Rossetti's Fractured Gothic", and she is the editor of the Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society. She is co-editor of a book on Pre-Raphaelite Masculinities, currently under consideration, and has contributed a chapter to a forthcoming book, Dante in the Nineteenth Century (Peter Lang), and is a regular contributor to the Annotated Bibliography of English Studies.

Review :
'The conception of Acts of Memory opens the discussion of memory and the Victorians both temporally and spatially, offering new perspectives and insights on both well-known and lesser-known authors...the strength of Acts of Memory lies in the desire it evokes to re-engage with the Victorians from a new perspective.'- Folkert Degenring, University of Kassel, Germany'Overall this is a book with an interesting remit and one which will be of use and interest both to family historians and also to historians of the family.' - Alysa Levene, Oxford Brookes University 'Acts of Memory is a book about how memory shaped the Victorians' understanding of themselves and how we can use this theme as a way of looking back and remembering them ourselves.' - Andrew Mangham