Description
Book SynopsisWhat fueled the Victorian passion for hair-jewelry and memorial rings? When would an everyday object metamorphose from commodity to precious relic? This title examines the role played by portable objects in persuading Victorian Britons that they could travel abroad with religious sentiments, family ties, and national identity intact.
Trade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009 "An intelligent, thought-provoking contribution to the current critical discussion of economics and the novel, this volume examines the 19th-century proliferation of 'portable property'--i.e., objects that are endowed with sentimental value and function as reminders of Englishness abroad--and their elaboration in, and homology to, the realist Victorian novel... With this analysis, Plotz makes a fascinating contribution to the history of the novel, economic literary theory, and postcolonial criticism."--D.K. Kreisel, Choice "Plotz ... offers a richly contextualized reading of the portability of value. As in his previous work, Plotz resists narrow ideological solutions to interpretive problems, and the complexity of his approach to Victorian culture pays off in extremely useful, often surprising readings."--Dianne F. Sadoff and John Kucich, Studies in English Literature "[T]his is a fine and subtle piece of work with something important to say about the ways in which particular kinds of 'English' culture were both constructed and perpetuated by the realist novel in the mid-Victorian period."--Clare Pettitt, Victorian Studies
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations xi Preface: Getting Hold of Portable Property xiii INTRODUCTION: The Global, the Local, and the Portable 1 CHAPTER ONE: Discreet Jewels: Victorian Diamond Narratives and the Problem of Sentimental Value 24 CHAPTER TWO: The First Strawberries in India: Cultural Portability Abroad 45 CHAPTER THREE: Someone Else's Knowledge: Race and Portable Culture in Daniel Deronda 72 CHAPTER FOUR: Locating Lorna Doone: R. D. Blackmore, F. H. Burnett, and the Limits of English Regionalism 93 CHAPTER FIVE: Going Local: Characters and Environments in Thomas Hardy's Wessex 122 CHAPTER SIX: Nowhere and Everywhere: The End of Portability in William Morris's Romances 144 CONCLUSION: Is Portability Portable? 170 Notes 183 Bibliography 235 Index 257
