The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain, 1789-1837

by Ben Wilson

Book Overview

Ben Wilson's The Making of Victorian Values is the history of an era rather like our own-a time when dissenters and rebels were hemmed in by conformists and hardheaded authoritarians, a time when a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594201161
• ISBN13: 9781594201165
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Penguin Press
• Length: 445 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.5" x 9.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The transition into a new era...

If you want answers to the question, "How did the British Victorian Age come about, culturally?", this is a good book for you to read. The author for the vast majority of the book skillfully negotiates the various factions and cultural ideas at the time to document the transformation from the much more hedonistic late 18th century to the well-known Victorian Age. At times, the author loses his focus a bit, hence the four stars instead of five. (I found myself repeating a few pages). However, I grant that cultural histories are by their very nature a bit messy. It's an interesting story, how religious, economic, geographical, and genealogical changes caused the transformation, and how a number of literary and (gasp) older-generation people pushed back. Lessons on modern day values debates can be transferred from these pages. Narrow focus, but if you are interested, it's worth it.

Those Virtuous Victorians

Ben Wilson's book, "The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain: 1789-1837," is very good, with a few weaknesses; and I recommend it. Ben Wilson helps to explain how British mores developed from the profligacy and loucheness of the late eighteenth century to the refinement and respectability of the Victorian era. His book resolved some questions I've had ever since I read Amanda Foreman's book about the late-eighteenth-century Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The duchess's behavior was very different from the typical (or at least ideal) Victorian behavior, and it highlights the changes that happened during the pre-Victorian period. Wilson argues that the rise of respectability and refinement was a result of the alliance between evangelical reformers and secular utilitarians, as well as the economic prosperity and upward mobility of the middle class (who benefited especially from the Industrial Revolution). The middle class doesn't really come under discussion until the eleventh chapter, so its condition in the early part of the period at hand is not clear. Early in the book there is one amusing anecdote that sheds light on the state of the middle class: The sovereigns who had defeated Napoleon visited London in 1814 and supposedly asked where "the people" were. Apparently the crowds surrounding them seemed much too well-dressed to be "common folk." Wilson's book is rich in detail from primary sources, if a little weak on analysis. The thread of his argument is not very tight throughout the body of the book, but he nicely profiles a number of writers and other influential people of the era. There was one particular oversight, namely almost no discussion of Princess (later Queen) Victoria's upbringing. By contrast, he spends several pages on Princess Charlotte's (who never ascended the throne). Yet there is only one tantalizing hint about the nature of Victoria's rearing: in 1822, the chaplain to the duchess of Kent (Victoria's mother) considered Thomas Bowdler's "Family Shakespeare" to be offensive--so he bowdlerized it! It is of course, simplistic to say that the sovereign dictated the social mores, but no doubt Queen Victoria's respectability was influential, especially in contrast to her disreputable predecessors. Overall, this is an enjoyable book that will appeal especially to students of nineteenth-century Britain. Chapter summaries: Preface: Reasons for being interested in the development of Victorian values, especially desires to revive them by current politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. Prologue: Two points of view on the the change under discussion: the rise of politeness and decline of coarseness vs. the rise of hypocrisy and cant and decline of sincerity and authenticity. Intro to part I, "Hypochondria: 1789-1815": Economic prosperity was intermittent; fearful and uncertain Britons took refuge in religion. 1: It became fashionable to suffer from nervous complaints (the Duchess of Bedford claimed