Sir Leslie Stephen's Mausoleum Book

Sir Leslie Stephen's Mausoleum Book

Trev Lynn Broughton takes an in-depth look at the developments within Victorian auto/biography, and asks what we can learn about the conditions and limits of male literary authority. Providing a feminist analysis of the effects of this literary production on culture, Broughton looks at the increase in professions with a vested interest in the written Life; the speeding up of the Life-and-Letters industry during this period; the institutionalization of Life-writing; and the consequent spread of a network of mainly male practitioners and commentators. This study focuses on two case studies from the period 1880-1903: the theories and achievements of Sir Leslie Stephen and the debate surrounding James Anthony Froude's account of the marriage of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle.

This is a fascinating account of the influence of evangelicalism upon eminent Victorians. Recording family life was an important ritual in Victorian households, and out of this habit grew a new literary genre, the domestic biography, extolling individual piety and domestic virtue. Using documents from the archives of the Macaulay, Stephen, Wilberforce, and Thornton families, Dr Tolley analyzes the biographical tradition and its lasting effects upon "family values."

The first serious academic study of obituaries, this book focuses on how societies remember. Bridget Fowler makes great use of the theories of Pierre Bordieu, arguing that obituaries are one important component in society's collective memory. This book, the first of its kind, will find a place on every serious sociology scholar's bookshelves.