Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture: Contexts for Criticism (Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature)

This collection includes twelve provocative essays from a diverse group of international scholars, who utilize a range of interdisciplinary approaches to analyze “real” and “representational” animals that stand out as culturally significant to Victorian literature and culture. Essays focus on a wide range of canonical and non-canonical Victorian writers, including Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Anna Sewell, Emily Bronte, James Thomson, Christina Rossetti, and Richard Marsh, and they focus on a diverse array of forms: fiction, poetry, journalism, and letters. These essays consider a wide range of cultural attitudes and literary treatments of animals in the Victorian Age, including the development of the animal protection movement, the importation of animals from the expanding Empire, the acclimatization of British animals in other countries, and the problems associated with increasing pet ownership. The collection also includes an Introduction co-written by the editors and Suggestions for Further Study, and will prove of interest to scholars and students across the multiple disciplines which comprise Animal Studies. Animals in Victorian Literature and Culture 4 Acknowledgments 6 Contents 7 List of Figures 9 1 Introduction 10 Notes 23 Works Cited 24 Part I Animals in the Victorians’ World 27 2 Collecting the Live and the Skinned 28 The Correspondence 29 Class 31 Methods of Acquisition 32 Packing and Shipping 39 Conclusion 44 Notes 45 Works Cited 46 3 Dickens, Household Words, and the Smithfield Controversy at the Time of the Great Exhibition 48 Notes 66 Works Cited 68 4 Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Reptiles: Anthony Trollope and the Australian Acclimatization Debate 71 Notes 84 Works Cited 86 5 Dogs’ Homes and Lethal Chambers, or, What Was it Like to be a Battersea Dog? 89 Lost Dogs: 1867 90 Lethal Chambers: 1895 95 Domesticated Killing 103 What was it Like to be a Battersea Dog? Reading Against the Grain with Percival’s Dog 105 Notes 108 Works Cited 110 Part II Animals in the Victorians’ Literature 112 6 Bull’s-eye, Agency, and the Species Divide in Oliver Twist: a Cur’s-Eye View 113 Notes 126 Works Cited 128 7 Performing Animals/Performing Humanity 133 Works Cited 149 8 “I Declare I Never Saw so Lovely an Animal!”: Beauty, Individuality, and Objectification in Nineteenth-Century Animal Autobiographies 151 Animals, Women, and the Meaning of Beauty 152 Beauty, Power, and Individuality 154 The Fragility of Beauty 158 The Fear of Complete Objectification 161 Critiques of Beauty 163 Conclusion: “I Wanted the Other Three, My Beautiful Tabbies” 166 Notes 167 Works Cited 168 9 Cathy’s Whip and Heathcliff’s Snarl: Control, Violence, Care, and Rights in Wuthering Heights 171 Relational Representations 171 Winking at Violence 174 Care and Property: “Who is to Look After the Horses?” 178 The Utility of “Horse-Fit Clatter” and the “Jealous Guardianship” of Alarming Barks 182 Gnashing and “Mad Dog” Foaming and the Choice Not to “Coom” at a “Whistle” 184 Citizen Animal 188 Note 190 Works Cited 190 10 Creatures on the “Night-Side of Nature”: James Thomson’s Melancholy Ethics 192 God and Other Problems 195 Evolution, “The Human,” and “The Animal” 198 “Down, Down to the Deepest Deep” 202 Animal Ethics in a Dark Ecology 208 Notes 211 Works Cited 212 11 “Come Buy, Come Buy!”: Christina Rossetti and the Victorian Animal Market 215 Works Cited 231 12 Black Beauty: The Emotional Work of Pretend Play 234 The Available 235 Horseplay 242 Notes 249 Works Cited 249 13 Insect Politics in Richard Marsh’s The Beetle 251 Introduction 251 Insects in the Long Nineteenth-Century Imagination 253 Insects and Politics 254 Britain’s Beetle Scare 256 Economy of Entomophobia in The Beetle 257 Becoming-Beetle, Becoming-Woman: Lessingham and Marjorie 260 Notes 265 Works Cited 266 Sources for Further Study 269 Index 278 Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-17 Front Matter....Pages 19-19 Collecting the Live and the Skinned....Pages 21-40 Dickens, Household Words, and the Smithfield Controversy at the Time of the Great Exhibition....Pages 41-63 Beasts, Birds, Fishes, and Reptiles: Anthony Trollope and the Australian Acclimatization Debate....Pages 65-82 Dogs’ Homes and Lethal Chambers, or, What Was it Like to be a Battersea Dog?....Pages 83-105 Front Matter....Pages 107-107 Bull’s-eye, Agency, and the Species Divide in Oliver Twist: a Cur’s-Eye View....Pages 109-128 Performing Animals/Performing Humanity....Pages 129-146 “I Declare I Never Saw so Lovely an Animal!”: Beauty, Individuality, and Objectification in Nineteenth-Century Animal Autobiographies....Pages 147-166 Cathy’s Whip and Heathcliff’s Snarl: Control, Violence, Care, and Rights in Wuthering Heights ....Pages 167-187 Creatures on the “Night-Side of Nature”: James Thomson’s Melancholy Ethics....Pages 189-211 “Come Buy, Come Buy!”: Christina Rossetti and the Victorian Animal Market....Pages 213-231 Black Beauty: The Emotional Work of Pretend Play....Pages 233-249 Insect Politics in Richard Marsh’s The Beetle ....Pages 251-268 Back Matter....Pages 269-289