Violent Victorians: Popular entertainment in nineteenth-century London
by Rosalind Crone
On This Page
Description
We are often told that the Victorians were far less violent than their forbears: over the course of the nineteenth century, violent sports were mostly outlawed, violent crime, including homicide, notably declined, and punishments were hidden from public view within prison walls. They were also much more respectable, and actively sought orderly, uplifting, domestic and refined pastimes. Yet these were the very same people who celebrated the exceptionally violent careers of anti-heroes such as show more the brutal puppet Punch and the murderous barber Sweeney Todd. By drawing attention to the wide range of gruesome, bloody and confronting amusements patronised by ordinary Londoners this book challenges our understanding of Victorian society and culture. From the turn of the nineteenth century, graphic, yet orderly, 're-enactments' of high level violence flourished in travelling entertainments, penny broadsides, popular theatres, cheap instalment fiction and Sunday newspapers. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
4 Works 31 Members
Rosalind Crone is Lecturer in History at the Open University, UK
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History
- DDC/MDS
- 306 — Society, government, & culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Social Behavior - Dating, Marriage, Divorce
- LCC
- DA683 .C95 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Great Britain History of Great Britain England Local history and description London
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 15
- Popularity
- 1,588,919
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
