The Longman Anthology of British Literature: Volume 2B: The Victorian Age

by David Damrosch, William Chapman Sharpe

The Longman Anthology of British Literature is the most comprehensive and thoughtfully arranged book on the market. Approaching literature from a broad cultural perspective, the anthology offers a rich selection of fiction, drama, and poetry by major British authors. The second edition of The Longman Anthology of British Literature includes key major additions of important works, an expanded illustration program, and new translation of Beowulf. Fresh and up-to-date introductions and notes are written by an editorial team whose members are all actively engaged in teaching and in current scholarship, and one hundred illustrations show both artistic and cultural developments from the medieval period through the 18th Century. Perspectives sections shed light on individual periods, but are also positioned to link with surrounding works. Companion readings provide additional context for and special insight into key readings.

Genres: School, Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Textbooks, College, Anthologies

925 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

A past president of the American Comparative Literature Association, David Damrosch has written widely on comparative and world literature from antiquity to the present. His books include The Narrative Covenant: Transformations of Genre in the Growth of Biblical Literature (1987), We Scholars: Changing the Culture of the University (1995), What Is World Literature? (2003), The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (2007), and How to Read World Literature (2008). He is the founding general editor of the six-volume Longman Anthology of World Literature (2004) and the editor of Teaching World Literature (2009) and co-editor of The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature (2009), The Routledge Companion to World Literature (2011), and Xin fangxiang: bijiao wenxue yu shijie wenxue duben [New Directions: A Reader of Comparative and World Literature], Peking U. P., 2010. He is presently completing a book entitled Comparing the Literatures: What Every Comparatist Needs to Know, and starting a book on the role of global scripts in the formation of national literatures.

Reviews

[Ana Mardoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Longman Anthology of British Literature, 2B / 0-321-10669-5

This anthology belongs to the three-volume set of The Longman Anthology of British Literature (Volumes 2A, 2B, 2C). Each volume contains gorgeous color plates of contemporary artwork and portraits. The authors are arranged not only by the dates they represent, but also by the causes that they provide perspective on. This arrangement makes the literary selections more meaningful when read as a group, and provides a great deal of insight on pertinent issues which influenced the authors' writings. This arrangement does mean, however, that many selections are scattered throughout the work, so if you wish to read all the selections by a specific author, then you will have to wade through the index to find the three or four places where their writings are located.

The authors represented in this volume are:
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Arnold, Matthew
- Ashford, Daisy
- Beerbohm, Max
- Beeton, Isabella
- Belloc, Hilaire
- Bird, Isabella
- Bronte, Anne
- Bronte, Charlotte
- Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
- Browning, Robert
- Burton, Sir Richard Francis
- Carlyle, Thomas
- Carroll, Lewis
- Clough, Arthur Hugh
- Cobbe, Frances Power
- Colenso, John William
- Darwin, Charles
- Dickens, Charles
- Disraeli, Benjamin
- Douglas, Lord Alfred
- Douglas, Lady Alfred (Olive Custance)
- Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan
- Eliot, George
- Ellis, Sarah Stickney
- Engels, Friedrich
- Fitzgerald, Edward
- Gaskell, Elizabeth
- Gilbert, W.S.
- Gosse, Sir Edmund
- Hardy, Thomas
- Hopkins, Gerard Manley
- Hughes, Thomas
- Huxley, Thomas Henry
- James, Henry
- Johnson, Lionel
- Kemble, Fanny
- Kinglake, Alexander William
- Kingsley, Charles
- Kingsley, Mary
- Kipling, Rudyard
- le Gallienne, Richard
- Lear, Edward
- Leverson, Ada
- Macaulay, Thomas Babington
- Mayhew, Henry
- Mill, John Stuart
- Morris, William
- Nesbit, Edith
- Newbolt, Sir Henry
- Newman, John Henry Cardinal
- Norton, Caroline
- Nightingale, Florence
- Pater, Walter
- Potter, Beatrix
- Rossetti, Christina
- Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
- Ruskin, John
- Stanley, Sir Henry Morton
- Stevenson, Robert Louis
- Strauss, David Friedrich
- Swinburne, Algernon Charles
- Symons, Arthus
- Trollope, Francis
- Whistler, James Abbott McNeill
- Wilde, Oscar

~ Ana Mardoll

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the more decent textbooks I've read. It is good addition to a Victorian Literature survey class.

[Gabby · Rating 5 out of 5]

College textbook

[NaResa Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I read about 300 pages of this anthology for class. Victorian literature is so cool!

[bella lagatta · Rating 4 out of 5]

For class

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the greatest anthology for me (I'm partial to the Nortons). It drove me crazy how sometimes they would cut off poems and put the final few lines on the next page. It was just annoying to read. I found the selection okay but I think there was a lot left out that could have made it into the book.

[Kels · Rating 3 out of 5]

Women had absolutely no existence back in the day.

[Janet Wilcox · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dreary sad story, of passions gone awry. Poor Tess..Maybe I'd appreciate it more now, but don't plan to reread it.

[haunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great choice if you're looking for an in depth overview of Victorian poetry and prose, along with very helpful, in depth analyses of the times, society, and Victorians themselves. A textbook, not a pleasure read, unless you really enjoy Victorian lit.