2. Victorian Age
• The Victorian era is generally extended
during the reign of Queen Victoria
(1837-1901)
• It was a tremendously exciting period
when many artistic styles, literary schools,
as well as, social, political and religious
movements prospered.
• It was a time of prosperity, broad imperial
expansion, and great political reform
• Known as the Second English
Renaissance
3. England
• The social classes of England were newly reforming,
and fomenting.
• There was a churning disorder of the old hierarchical
order, and the middle classes were steadily growing.
• Added to that, the upper classes' composition was
changing from simply hereditary aristocracy to a
combination of nobility and an emerging wealthy
commercial class.
• The definition of what made someone a gentleman or
a lady was, therefore, changing at what some thought
was an alarming rate.
• By the end of the century, it was silently agreed that
a gentleman was someone who had a liberal public
(private) school education no matter what his
antecedents might be.
4. World Status
• The Conditions of the working class
were still bad, though, through the
century.
• Contrasting to that was the horrible
reality of child labor which persisted
throughout the period.
• When a bill was passed stipulating
that children under nine could not
work in the textile industry, this in no
way applied to other industries, nor
did it in any way curb rampant
teenaged prostitution.
5. World Events
• It was a time of tremendous scientific progress and ideas.
• Darwin took his Voyage of the Beagle, and posited the
Theory of Evolution. (1851)
• The radical thought associated with modern psychiatry
began with men like Sigmund Feud
• About the end of the era, and radical economic theory,
developed by Karl Marx and his associates, began a
second age of revolution in mid-century.
• The ideas of Marxism, socialism, feminism churned and
bubbled along with all else that happened.
6. Main Events Victorian Era 1837–1901
• The period of Queen Victoria's reign June 1837 - January
1901
• Profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as
from industrial improvements at home, allowed an
educated middle class to develop.
• Pax Britannica (economic, colonial, and industrial
consolidation).
• The Crimean War
• Irish Home Rule played a great part in politics
• The Easter Rising of 1916 and the subsequent domino effect
that would play a large part in the fall of the empire.
• Charles Dickens (7 February 1812–9 June 1870),the most
popular English novelist of the Victorian era.
• In 1833, Dickens' first story, A Dinner at Poplar Walk was
published in the London periodical, Monthly Magazine.
• This led to the serialization of his first novel, The Pickwick
Papers, in March 1836. He continued to contribute to and
edit journals throughout his literary career.
7. Most Important Writers
• Sir Walter Scott
• Emily Bronte
• Anne Bronte
• Charlotte Bronte
• Anthony Trollope
• George Eliot
• Oscar Wilde
• Charles Dickens.
