The Victorian Baby in Print: Infancy, Infant Care, and Nineteenth-Century Popular Culture

This is the first study to focus exclusively on the baby in nineteenth-century literature and culture. In tracing the emergence of competitive baby care in Victorian popular culture, The Victorian Baby in Print explores an issue that is still pressing and controversial today. Situated at the cusp of new developments in the study of the modern family and changing parenting realities, as well as historical childhoods, this book presents new research by focusing on the figure of the baby. While targeting the academic markets comprising advanced students and scholars of Victorian literature, nineteenth-century cultural history, and the history of childhood, it also addresses concerns that are of interest to general readers. In addition, the analyses of individual works make an important contribution to the study of Victorian fiction, including still seldom discussed women writers and the sensation genre, as well as canonical writers such as Charles Dickens.