Description
About the Author
Ruth Livesey is Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Thought in the Department of English, Royal Holloway, University of London. She is the author of Socialism, Sex, and the Culture of Aestheticism in Britain, 1880-1914 (OUP, 2007), and co-editor of The American Experiment and the Idea of Democracy in British Culture, 1776-1914 (Ashgate, 2013). She was an editor of Journal of Victorian Culture from 2008 to 2015.
Reviews
...overall, an excellent and intricately considered work. Livesey's impressive study makes a convincing case for the integration of the stage and mail coach into critical understandings of nineteenth-century transport. * Nicola Kirkby, The Journal of Transport History *
Ruth Livesey argues that Victorians spatialized the recent past, conceiving it as nonlinear. This temporal mapping, Livesey contends, was achieved by understanding the nation not in terms of the homogenizing effects of rail travel but in terms of the localism preserved by the stagecoach. * Andrea Henderson, Studies in English Literature *
Firm scholastic foundations underpin Livesey's thesis; she engages with numerous critics and theorists, and is meticulous and generous in her referencing. * Kathy Rees, Dickens Quarterly *
Livesey's argument is complex yet highly rewarding, and the energy of the writing makes the reading as enjoyable as it is informative. Not least, the book will make readers wish to revisit nineteenth-century fiction, pausing in those places where the stage coach makes its appearance, however fleeting. * Karin Koehler (Bongor University), The Modern Language Review *
Writing the Stage Coach Nation is recommended reading for anyone interested in the way that the nineteenth-century novel theorizes time and space, imagines the region or nation, or responds to the new and old technologies of transportation that moved people, letters, and ideas from place to place... The book also makes frequent reference to relevant eighteenth-century contexts and influences. * Ruth M. McAdams (Bogazici University), The Hazlitt Review *
...Writing the Stage Coach Nation does what it sets out to do admirably, returning us to the original novels with a new sense of the cultural work that their evocation of the past performed for a nation that felt itself to be hurtling into the future. * Nicholas Daly, Victorian Studies *
Livesey's willingness to work across literary periods in this way greatly enriches the value of this excellent and eloquently written study. One hopes that this aspect of Livesey's scholarship, and the integration of literary criticism, cultural history, and mobilities studies that her book models, will inspire other researchers to follow her lead. * Christopher Donaldson, The BARS Review *
Livesey handles the literary texts and the socio-historical context with equal assurance and her study brings the two into fruitful conjunction.The web of connections between text and context is finely spun...this scholarly study, whose arguments are supported by reference to the latest scholarship, will prove highly rewarding. * John Rignall, George Eliot Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198769439
Author Ruth Livesey
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 420g
Dimensions(mm) 222mm * 137mm * 20mm