Research Catalog

The Victorian visitors : culture shock in nineteenth-century Britain

Title
The Victorian visitors : culture shock in nineteenth-century Britain / Rupert Christiansen.
Author
Christiansen, Rupert.
Publication
New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, [2001]

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Book/TextUse in library DA533 .C57 2001Off-site

Details

Description
271 pages; 24 cm
Summary
  • "London in 1820 was a city of extraordinary creative dynamism and big money. Rupert Christiansen has marshaled the experiences of a set of remarkable foreign visitors to England, chronicling their impact on British culture and its impact upon them. These stories reveal the great French painter Gericault, who had come to London to show his Raft of the "Medusa," recording the climax of a public execution and the finish of the Derby; Richard Wagner guffawing at anti-Semitic jokes in the restaurant of the Victoria & Albert Museum; Ralph Waldo Emerson driving Thomas Carlyle to distraction with his 'moonshine' philosophy.
  • Also included are the stories of the inexplicable powers of the American medium Daniel Home and his disastrous involvement with an elderly Cockney widow; the demon Australian bowler Frederick Spofforth who changed the course of English cricket; and the pirouetting Italian ballerinas who captivated the young Bernard Shaw and roused music-hall audiences to a collective erotic frenzy. In vividly readable and often hilarious detail, The Victorian Visitors tells of the remarkable foreigners who traveled to Britain in the nineteenth century and left influential marks on all aspects of its culture."--Jacket.
Uniform Title
Visitors
Alternative Title
Visitors
Subject
  • 1800-1901
  • Visitors, Foreign > Great Britain > History > 19th century
  • Culture shock > Great Britain > History > 19th century
  • Culture shock
  • Manners and customs
  • Visitors, Foreign
  • Great Britain > Social life and customs > 19th century
  • Great Britain > History > Victoria, 1837-1901
  • Great Britain
Genre/Form
History.
Note
  • Originally published: The visitors. London : Chatto & Windus, 2000.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-254) and index.
Contents
1 Theodore Gericault, Painter 6 -- 2 Richard Wagner, Composer 42 -- 3 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philosopher 82 -- 4 Psychic Cloud: Yankee Spirit-rappers 130 -- 5 Sporting Chances: Australian Cricketers 159 -- 6 Teetotum Spin: Exotic Dancers 191.
ISBN
  • 0871137909
  • 9780871137906
LCCN
00065057
OCLC
  • ocn123283665
  • 123283665
  • SCSB-14103062
Owning Institutions
Princeton University Library