Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-275) and index.
Contents:
Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction : Victorian Britain -- Evaluating and interpreting primary documents -- Chronology -- Documents of Victorian Britain : Politics and parliament : 1. "We demand universal sufferage" : the national petition (1839) -- 2. "Choose your motto : 'advance' or 'recede'" : Prime Minister Robert Peel's speech supporting repeal of the Corn Laws (1846) -- 3. "Every man shall ... be entitled to be registered as a voter" : the Reform Act of 1867 -- 4. "The sympathy of the colonies for the mother country" : Benjamin Disraeli's "Crystal Palace speech" (1872) -- 5. "No great day of hope for Ireland" : Prime Minister William Gladstone's House of Commons speech proposing Irish home rule (1886) -- Society and economy : 6. "Children having begun to work before they are nine" : Second report of the Children's Employment Commission (1843) -- 7. "It is the custom of 'society' to abuse its servants" : Isabella Beeton's Book of household management (1861) -- 8. "Barely a day's march ahead of actual want" : Samuel Smiles's Self-help (1861) -- 9. "I thought such young men could not manage the bank" : Walter Bagehot's Lombard Street : a description of the money market (1873) -- 10. "Grey tones overcast the mind" : Charles Booth's Life and labour of the people in London (1893) Religion and science : 11. "The truth of these propositions cannot ... be disputed" : Charles Darwin's On the origin of species (1859) -- 12. "Mr. Darwin's daring notion" : Samuel Wilberforce's review of Darwin's On the origin of species (1860) -- 13. "Man is ... one with the brutes" : T. H. Huxley's Evidence as to man's place in nature (1863) -- 14. "My own soul was my first concern" : Cardinal John Henry Newman's Apologia pro vita sua (1861) -- 15. "There is an Athenian love of novelty abroad" : J. C. Ryles's Holiness : its nature, hindrances, difficulties and roots (1877) -- Literature and poetry : 16. "What I want is facts ... nothing but the facts" : Charles Dickens's Hard times (1854) -- 17. "Into the valley of death" : Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1854) -- 18. "And you wish to serve the Queen?" : Anthony Trollope's The three clerks (1858) -- 19. "Has he got any heart?" : George Eliot's Middlemarch (1874) -- 20. "The captains and the kings depart" : Rudyard Kipling's "Recessional" (1897) Empire and war : 21. "Murderous volley of grape and canister" : W. H. Russell's eyewitness account of the Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) -- 22. "We were at a loss what to do" : Edward Vibart's The Sepoy mutiny, a memior of the Indian Rebellion (1857) -- 23. "No one living escaped" : Frances Colenso's History of the Zulu War, an account of the British defeat at Isandlwana (1879) -- 24. "Dreadful news after breakfast" : letters of the Queen and Prime Minister Gladstone reacting to the death of General Gordon (1885) -- 25. "Your unauthorized and most improper proceeding" : telegrams and accounts relating to the Jameson Raid (1895-1896) -- Women and family : 26. "The highest tone of moral feeling" : Sarah Stickney Ellis's The women of England (1839) -- 27. "These proceedings would cost you ℗Đ1,000" : Judge William Henry Maule describes the procedure for dissolving an early Victorian marriage (1855) -- 28. "A married woman in England has no legal existence" : Caroline Norton's A letter to the Queen (1855) -- 29. "The court for divorce and matrimonial causes" : the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act (1857) -- 30. "The gravest interests of women" : Frances Power Cobbe's "Why women desire the franchise" (1877) The Queen and her family : 31. "My life as a happy one is ended!" : The Queen's letters on meeting, losing, and living without Prince Albert (1836, 1861, 1871) -- 32. "What I suffered I cannot describe!" : the Queen's description of the "Bedchamber Crisis" (1839) -- 33. "We'll send him home and make him groan" : public distrust of Prince Albert during the Crimean War (1854) -- 34. "Let woman be what God intended" : letters of Queen Victoria on the role of women (1870) -- 35. "It is a terrible humiliation" : letters relating to the Prince of Wales's Involvement in the Tranby Croft and Lady Brooke Affairs (1890-1891) -- Interesting odds and ends : 36. "This is not the Republic I came to see" : letter to Charles Dickens recording his impressions of the United States (1842) -- 37. "It is a wonderful place" : comments by Charlotte Bronte, Charles Babbage, and "Mr. Punch" on the Crystal Palace and the Great Exposition (1851) -- 38. "One who was so devoted" : the Queen's special servants--John Brown and the Munshi (1870s-1901) -- 39. "My knife's so nice and sharp" : the supposed letters of Jack the Ripper (1888) -- 40. "Socialism, communism, or whatever one chooses to call it" : Oscar Wilde's "The soul of man under socialism" (1891) -- Appendix 1 : Biographical sketches of important individuals mentioned in text -- Appendix 2 : Glossary of terms mentioned in text -- Appendix 3 : Victorian ministries, 1835-1902 -- Select bibliography -- Index.
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