Musical Women in England, 1870-1914 delineates the roles women played in the flourishing music world of late-Victorian and early twentieth-century England, and shows how contemporary challenges to restrictive gender roles inspired women to move into new areas of musical expression, both in composition and performance. The most famous women musicians were the internationally renowned stars of opera; greatly admired despite their violations of the prescribed Victorian linkage of female music-making with domesticity, the divas were often compared to the sirens of antiquity, their irresistible voices a source of moral danger to their male admirers. Their ambiguous social reception notwithstanding, the extraordinary ability and striking self-confidence of these women - and of pioneering female soloists on the violin, long an instrument permitted only to men - inspired fiction writers to feature musician heroines and motivated unprecedented numbers of girls and women to pursue advanced musical study. Finding professional orchestras almost fully closed to them, many female graduates of English conservatories performed in small ensembles and in all-female and amateur orchestras, and sought to earn their living in the overcrowed world of music teaching.

Eschewing the all-pervading contextual approach to literary criticism, this book takes a Lacanian view of several popular British fantasy texts of the late 19th century such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, revealing the significance of the historical context; the advent of a modern democratic urban society in place of the traditional agrarian one. Moreover, counter-intuitively it turns out that fantasy literature is analogous to modern Galilean science in its manipulation of the symbolic thereby changing our conception of reality. It is imaginary devices such as vampires and ape-men, which in conjunction with Lacanian theory say something additional of the truth about – primarily sexual – aspects of human subjectivity and culture, repressed by the contemporary hegemonic discourses.

This book conveys the excitement, diversity and richness of London at a time when the city was arguably at the height of its power, uniqueness and attraction. Balancing the social, the topographical and the visible aspects of the great city, author Andrew Saint uses buildings, architecture, literature and art as a way into understanding social and historical phenomena. While many volumes on Victorian London focus on poverty (an issue which is included in this book), the author here provides a broader picture of life in the city. It is enlivened with a rich line-up of colourful characters, including Baron Albert Grant; Henry Mayers Hyndman and his connections with Karl Marx, William Morris and George Bernard Shaw; John Burns; Octavia Hill; Aubrey Beardsley and the artistic bohemians; Alfred Harmsworth and the Garrett sisters, and includes insightful quotes on London by esteemed authors such as Trollope, Henry James and Rudyard Kipling. Topics covered include: the creation of new neighbourhoods and roads; how the Victorians dealt with their housing crisis; why certain architectural styles were preferred; and the fashion for focusing on certain types of building.

Frontcover -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgements -- Editorial Note -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1 The Context: Conductors in the British Marketplace (1870-1914) -- 2 Conducting the Philharmonic Societies of Liverpool and London (1867-1880s): Julius Benedict and William Cusins -- 3 Conducting the Royal Choral Society and the Leeds Festival (1880s-1890s): Joseph Barnby and Arthur Sullivan -- 4 Conducting the Philharmonic Society of London (1888-1900s): Frederic Cowen and Alexander Mackenzie -- 5 Conducting in Bournemouth, London and Birmingham (1890s-1914): Dan Godfrey Junior and Landon Ronald -- Conclusion -- Select Bibliography -- Index

This book examines the phenomena which explain the boom in sport among the middle classes in late Victorian England. The author focuses on the extent to which sport became an agent of the development of the middle classes and an instrument of their self-definition. The book does not set out to explain the making of the English middle classes; rather, it examines a significant part of that making.