Ends of History - Victorians and "The Woman Question" (Electronic book text)

Why were the Victorians so passionate about History?How did this passion relate to another Victorian obsession the woman question? In a brilliant and provocative study, Christina Crosby investigates the links between the Victorians fascination with history and with the nature of women.Discussing both key novels and non-literary texts Daniel Deronda and Hegels Philosophy of History; Henry Esmond and Macaulays History of England; Little Dorrit, Wilkie Collins The Frozen Deep, and Mayhews survey of labour and the poor; Villette, Patrick Fairburns The Typology of Scripture and Ruskins Modern Painters she argues that the construction of middle-class Victorian man as the universal subject of history entailed the identification of women as those who are before, beyond, above, or below history. Crosbys analysis raises a crucial question for todays feminists how can one read historically without replicating the problem of nineteenth century history?The book was first published in 1991.