Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references (pages 447-466) and index
The discourse of taste in Waverley -- A room with a viewer : the evolution of a Victorian topos -- Resources and performance : Mansfield Park and Emma -- The improvement of the estate : J.C. Loudon and some spaces in Dickens -- Charlotte Brontë : sweetness and colour -- North and South : 'stately simplicity' -- The importance of being consistent : culture and commerce in Middlemarch
"Drawing on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Marjorie Garson discusses a number of Victorian texts that treat aesthetic refinement as an essential mark of proper middle-class subjectivity. She situates each text in its historical moment and considers it in the light of contemporary anxieties, providing insights into why certain ways of representing and endorsing tastefulness remained serviceable for many decades. In addition, this study demonstrates how the discourse of taste engenders a wider discourse about middle-class subjectivity and entitlement, national character, and racial identity in the period."--Jacket
