Bodies and Things in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

"This remarkable collection of essays makes an important contribution to the study of material culture in the nineteenth century, querying not just the obsessive prevalence of 'things' in the literature of the period but also the limits and margins of that material world." Journal of Victorian Culture

"Isobel Armstrong contributes a brilliantly wide-ranging first chapter which forges fascinating connections between (among other things) Jane Eyre's favourite plate, Karl Marx's commoditized table, and several grotesque vases from the Great Exhibition... Bodies and Things is worth picking up for Armstrong's essay alone, but the rest of the collection does not disappoint in taking up the questions she sets out... These works by historians, art historians, and scholars of literature and culture are well marshalled into a collection that makes a significant intervention into the study of the object in the nineteenth century." Beth Palmer, Modern Language Review