Bentham and the Arts considers the sceptical challenge presented by Bentham’s hedonistic utilitarianism to the existence of the aesthetic, as represented in the oft-quoted statement that, ‘Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry. If the game of push-pin furnish more pleasure, it is more valuable than either.’ This statement is one part of a complex set of arguments on culture, taste, and utility that Bentham pursued over his lifetime, in which sensations of pleasure and pain were opposed to aesthetic sensibility. Leading scholars from a variety of disciplines reflect on the implications of Bentham’s radical utilitarian approach for our understanding of the history and contemporary nature of art, literature, and aesthetics more generally.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 edition. Excerpt: ... xiii. the convict establishment at portland. When I left my two convicts to work out the period of their second stage of servitude at Pentonville Prison, I remarked that one of them, at least, probably looked forward with some hope to his removal to the Government establishment in the island of Portland. Had he known how large a measure of liberty would be secured by attaining this third stage his anticipations would have been even more pleasant; or, on the other hand, I may wrong him by not having taken into consideration the likelihood that he had heard all about it from some acquaintance who had recalled the pleasant memories of this penal settlement long after obtaining that "ticket," of which he found it difficult to make any practical use. However this may be, it is certain that in this last and considerably longest stage the thraldom of separate confinement and silent labour, commenced at Millbank and rather refined than mitigated at Pentonville, is virtually abandoned. Increased diet, healthy work in the open, bracing air, and companionship (which includes conversation) during the hours of labour, must make Portland a sort of paradise, where imprisonment is abolished in favour of friendly guardianship and wholesome restraint. This would doubtless be the impression upon the mind of a convict on whom his previous discipline had produced the desired effect, and who came out into the corridor at Pentonville on the morning of his removal, chastened, reformed, and repentant; that it is really the opinion of a very large majority of the eleven hundred and fifteen felons, most of whom are now quarrying stones for Portland Breakwater, would be too much to expect. The faces of the eight men who have just been assembled in the prison-yard...

Presents a representative body of Romantic and early Victorian crime literature. This work contains ephemeral material ranging from gallows broadsides to reports into prison conditions. It is suitable for those studying Literature, Romantic and Victorian popular culture, Dickens Studies and the History of Criminology.

This is a collection of primary materials on the metropolitan poor. It includes the writings of urban travellers and social reformers, and contains writings from the last five years of the 18th century, that is, from the time when the poor were first discovered as endemic to the nation.

From the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author of The Invention of Murder, an extraordinary, revelatory portrait of everyday life on the streets of Dickens' London. The nineteenth century was a time of unprecedented change, and nowhere was this more apparent than London. In only a few decades, the capital grew from a compact Regency town into a sprawling metropolis of 6.5 million inhabitants, the largest city the world had ever seen. Technology—railways, street-lighting, and sewers—transformed both the city and the experience of city-living, as London expanded in every direction. Now Judith Flanders, one of Britain's foremost social historians, explores the world portrayed so vividly in Dickens' novels, showing life on the streets of London in colorful, fascinating detail.From the moment Charles Dickens, the century's best-loved English novelist and London's greatest observer, arrived in the city in 1822, he obsessively walked its streets, recording its pleasures, curiosities and cruelties. Now, with him, Judith Flanders leads us through the markets, transport systems, sewers, rivers, slums, alleys, cemeteries, gin palaces, chop-houses and entertainment emporia of Dickens' London, to reveal the Victorian capital in all its variety, vibrancy, and squalor. From the colorful cries of street-sellers to the uncomfortable reality of travel by omnibus, to the many uses for the body parts of dead horses and the unimaginably grueling working days of hawker children, no detail is too small, or too strange. No one who reads Judith Flanders's meticulously researched, captivatingly written The Victorian City will ever view London in the same light again.