Victorian Age & Literature

• Engels
• Voortgezet speciaal onderwijs
• Leerroute 4

Reading in the Victorian Age

Content

• Reading and class system
• Video: Reading in the Victorian Age
• Children's Literature
• Non-Fiction
• Fiction
• Detectives
• Gothic Novel
•  Fun facts in the library
• Questions

Lower Class

Middle Class

Upper Class

Few of them could read, write or even count

They worked 10 to 12 hours a day

Had two or three servants

They had money and spare time to spend on reading

They donated libraries to their home town to show their wealth

Both males and females speak several languages

Children's Literature

* New

 * Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland

* Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Peter Rabbit

                                                 Fiction

                                                                                          Charles Dickens:

                                                                                            The Christmas Carol

                                                                                        Oliver Twist

The Detective Novel

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes

Next slide: What made the Detective Novel so popular? 

True or false.....

TRUE!

FALSE!

The detective characters were popular on television

were almost always in the shape of short stories

Men started to read more

The readers loved suspense, thriller and mystery

People had gaslights, so they could read after dark

The installments are cheap to print

The Gothic Novel

Characteristics of the Gothic Novel:

• Death and decay
• Dark and mysterious atmosphere
• Supernatural
• Insanity

Light

Gaslight: to read at night

Science

Science became accessible to all readers.

Female Authors

At the start of the Victorian Age females wrote under a male pseudonym, later they published under their own name.

Newspapers

Jack the Ripper: a real life gothic story! Newspapers were sold out with the Jack the Ripper stories. The unidentified and unknown serial killer raped and mutilated prostitutes in the City of London. 

Reforms Acts

Queen Victoria passed new laws to ensure children learned to read and write. This, together with public libraries, made knowledge accessible

Are there any questions?