Key Concepts in Victorian Studies

Key Concepts in Victorian Studies is a comprehensive and accessible resource for students of the long nineteenth century. The volume is divided into a number of cross-referenced sections which address the preoccupations and historical events of this crucial period in recent history and culture. Central to the book’s function as a durable reference work is an extensive A-Z glossary which clarifies Victorian terminology and explains key historical and political events. This is supplemented with a chronology listing significant domestic, imperial and international events from 1837 to 1901; a tabulation of British Prime Ministers in office during Queen Victoria’s reign; a succinct but detailed survey of the most important acts of Parliament in the period; an explanation of pre-decimal British coinage; and a useful chart which converts imperial measurement into their metric equivalents. This book is an essential reference for scholars of Victorian literature and history from undergraduate to postgraduate level.

William Hughes is Professor of Literature in English at the University of Macau, where he leads teaching in Victorian studies and Gothic literature. He is the author of more than twenty books in the fields of Victorian studies, the Gothic and medical history, including The Dome of Thought: Phrenology and the Victorian Popular Imagination (Manchester University Press, 2022), Key Concepts in the Gothic (Edinburgh University Press, 2018) and That Devil’s Trick: Hypnotism and the British Popular Imagination (Manchester University Press, 2015). He has also co-edited a number of important essay collections, including, with Andrew Smith, Suicide and the Gothic (Manchester University Press, 2019) and with Ruth Heholt, Gothic Britain: Dark Places in the Margins and Provinces of the British Isles (University of Wales press, 2018).