Portable Property by John Plotz
What fueled the Victorian passion for hair-jewelry and memorial rings? When would an everyday object metamorphose from commodity to precious relic? This title examines the role played by portable objects in persuading Victorian Britons that they could travel abroad with religious sentiments, family ties, and national identity intact.
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009 "An intelligent, thought-provoking contribution to the current critical discussion of economics and the novel, this volume examines the 19th-century proliferation of 'portable property'--ie., objects that are endowed with sentimental value and function as reminders of Englishness abroad--and their elaboration in, and homology to, the realist Victorian novel... With this analysis, Plotz makes a fascinating contribution to the history of the novel, economic literary theory, and postcolonial criticism."--D.K. Kreisel, Choice "Plotz ... offers a richly contextualized reading of the portability of value. As in his previous work, Plotz resists narrow ideological solutions to interpretive problems, and the complexity of his approach to Victorian culture pays off in extremely useful, often surprising readings."--Dianne F. Sadoff and John Kucich, Studies in English Literature "[T]his is a fine and subtle piece of work with something important to say about the ways in which particular kinds of 'English' culture were both constructed and perpetuated by the realist novel in the mid-Victorian period."--Clare Pettitt, Victorian Studies
John Plotz is associate professor of Victorian literature at Brandeis University. He is the author of "The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics".
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780691146621 |
| ISBN 10 | 0691146624 |
| Title | Portable Property |
| Author | John Plotz |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Princeton University Press |
| Year published | 2009-12-13 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Choice Magazine Outstanding Reference/Academic Book Award 2009 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |