Book excerpt: "Key concepts in Victorian Literature provides readers with an insight into the fascinating, but complex, Victorian Age and the literature that defined it. Discussing a variety of novels, poems and plays, the volume both explores Victorian anxieties and preoccupations and also introduces the significant critical and theoretical perspectives that underpin modern research into the age. Structured into three distinct sections, the book establishes the major concepts, themes and issues that characterize the literature of the period, guiding readers through the historical and cultural contexts in which the key works were written."--BOOK JACKET.