Description
Book SynopsisAlthough people may not realize it, the modern Christmas book market carries on a Victorian legacy. An explosion of Christmas print matter reinvigorated and regularized the holiday during the mid-Victorian period, infusing Christmas with emotionally-charged expectations of reading.
Trade Review"Moore has usefully demarcated the terrain and tropes of a seasonal literature central to Victorian cultural experience. Of particular interest to students of the periodical press and nineteenth-century cultural studies, Moore's study demonstrates the very material connections between Christmas past and Christmas present, while setting the stage for Christmas studies yet to come." - Victorian Studies
"Through thoughtful incursions into the print culture of the nineteenth century, Stern revises mistaken assumptions about the Victorian Christmas. Her probing analysis of Victorian writing and reading explodes the myths of an exclusively Dickensian Christmas while at the same time acknowledging the ghost of Charles Dickens in Christmases past and present. Here is a fine read for any student of Christmas culture." - Barbara T. Gates, Alumni Distinguished Professor of English and Women s Studies, University of Delaware
Table of ContentsIntroduction Books for Christmas, 1822-1860 How Victorians Read Christmas How Mr. Punch Stole Christmas: The Evolution of the Holiday in Periodicals Ghost Stories at Christmas The Expansion of Christmas Consumerism: Gifts and Commodities The Poetry of Christmas Modern Marketing of the Victorian Christmas
