Centre for Studies in Literature (CSL)

Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

The Centre's research in the area of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture covers British, American and European writing. Members of this subject area are currently engaged in research projects on Victorian visual culture; the relationship between literature and C19th material culture; empire writing; science, evolutionary theory, and ecology; transatlantic literature, European literary decadence and fin-de-siècle culture. Monographs have been published on Vernon Lee and Emily Dickinson; and Victorian detective fiction, as well as edited collections on Vernon Lee; Neo-Victorian literature; and Transatlantic Decadence.

Several researchers are also engaged in projects that focus on Portsmouth's rich literary history, and have been involved in producing publications, arranging events, and setting up websites that relate to writers such as Dickens, Conan Doyle and Tennyson all of whom had connections with Portsmouth and/or the Isle of Wight (see links provided below), drawing on the area’s wealth of nineteenth-century resources such as the Richard Lancelyn Green, Conan Doyle collection at the Portsmouth City Museum, the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum and  City Archives.  Members also have strong links with the Julia Margaret Cameron Trust: Dimbola Museums and Galleries.

Researchers working in this area are:

• Charlotte Boyce
• Paraic Finnerty
• Mark Frost
• Christopher Pittard
• Patricia Pulham

Links

Dickens and the Victorian City: http://www.dickens.port.ac.uk/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dickens-Victorian-City-Patricia-Pulham/dp/0957107498

Tennyson’s Celebrity Circle: http://tennysonscelebritycircle.port.ac.uk/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tennysons-Celebrity-Circle-Charlotte-Boyce/dp/0956874363

Afterlives: Mrs Dickens in Fact and Fiction: