Mastery and Slavery in Victorian Writing

Taking Hegel's famous " Master-Slave Dialectic " as its starting point, this wide-ranging book examines portrayals of masters, slaves and servants in works by Carlyle, Dickens, Eliot, Collins and others. The questions raised about modern mastery and slavery are pursued in relation to intriguing nineteenth-century figures as the American slave-holder, the musician, the demagogue and the Jew.

Introduction Capitalists, Castrators and Criminals: Violent Masters and Slaves in Wilkie Collins's The Women in White 'Servants' Logic and Analytical Chemistry; Intellectual Masters and Servants in George Eliot and Charles Dickens Slaveholders and Democrats: Combined Masters and Slaves in Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens's American Notes and Frederick Douglass's Narrative Heroes, Hero-Worshippers and Jews: Music Masters, Slaves and Servants in Thomas Carlyle, Richard Wagner, George Eliot and George Du Maurier Stump Orators, Phantasm Captains and Mutual Recognition: Popular Masters and Masterlessness in Dickens's Hard Times and Thomas Carlyle's Stump-Orator Afterword, After Slavery, After Shooting Niagara Bibliography Endnotes Index

JONATHAN TAYLOR is Lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He also composes music, and has written a radio play about Joseph Emidy, the Cornish composer.