"The book traces the early history of the self-help genre and the literary depiction of ambition in Victorian British fiction. Stories of hardworking characters who bring themselves out of rags to riches abound in the Victorian era. In chapters featuring the works of novelists, the author demonstrates that Victorian fiction dramatized ambition and problematized it as well"--

Intertwining the methodologies of disability studies and ecocriticism, Material Ambitions persuasively unmasks the longstanding myth that ambitious individualism can overcome disadvantageous systematic and structural conditions.

Pocket edition of original volumes 4 through 6. Individual volumes not sold separately