The Ends of History

Why were the Victorians so passionate about "History"? How did this passion relate to another Victorian obsession the "woman question"? In a brilliant and provocative study, Christina Crosby investigates the links between the Victorians fascination with "history" and with the nature of "women." Discussing both key novels and non-literary texts Daniel Deronda and Hegels Philosophy of History; Henry Esmond and Macaulays History of England; Little Dorrit, Wilkie Collins The Frozen Deep, and Mayhews survey of "labour and the poor"; Villette, Patrick Fairburns The Typology of Scripture and Ruskins Modern Painters she argues that the construction of middle-class Victorian "man" as the universal subject of history entailed the identification of "women" as those who are before, beyond, above, or below history. Crosbys analysis raises a crucial question for todays feminists how can one read historically without replicating the problem of nineteenth century "history"? The book was first published in 1991.