The Routledge Handbook of Victorian Scandals in Literature and Culture

This handbook demonstrates that spreading scandals seemed to have been one of the most entertaining source of activities but also and normative efforts made by the Victorians to ensure conformity of decorum. Whether to initiate female nurses into what had been male-dominated professions in medicine and military or for women to assert authority under the guise of spiritual dispensation or for women to murder their husbands and wives or for men to desire men and women to desire women, this handbook of Victorian scandals covers a gamut of moral infractions and transgressions either practiced, rumored, or fantasized in art forms. Although there have been others who have written on Victorian scandals, this handbook provides a broad spectrum of infractions that were considered scandalous to the Victorians and has been written by scholars in diverse disciplines. This handbook identifies Victorian transgressions that made the news and that may still shock modern readers. Evoking both moral outrage and popular entertainment, Victorian scandals, as analyzed in this handbook, will give readers a telescopic view of the lives and attitudes that the Victorians effected to govern themselves and each other.