Victorian Afterlives The Shaping of Influence in Nineteenth-century Literature

This major study examines a Victorian obsession with 'influence', the often unpredictable after-effects of words and actions, in fields as diverse as mesmerism and theology, literary theory, and sanitation reform. For writers such as Tennyson, FitzGerald, and Dickens, the idea is both a theoretical and a practical problem. Survival is not only what their writing critically examines, but also what it sets out to achieve.