Product Description

The Victorians are remembered for their propriety and stolid middle-class manners—in sharp contrast to the libertine spirit of Byron, Shelley, and the Romantics of the generation just prior. In The Making of Victorian Values, Ben Wilson—only in his twenties but already hailed in Britain as heir to the great radical historians of the twentieth century—offers a brilliant and provocative portrayal of how rebels and dissenters were quashed by authoritarians and imperialists and how mindless materialism and capitalism rolled over them all. In so doing, Wilson’s eloquently written account also illuminates the startling parallels between the pre- Victorian era and our own.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1233639 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-15
• Released on: 2007-03-15
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this stimulating cultural history, Britain starts out vulgar, drunken, plain-spoken, unruly and sexually relaxed, but ends up prim, abstemious, euphemistic, conformist and sexually repressed—a reversal that was bitterly contested at every step. British historian Wilson links the sea change to fears of French invasion, domestic revolution and the demands of a burgeoning but unstable industrial capitalism. In response to these upheavals, he contends, a Scroogeian alliance of evangelical philanthropists, secular utilitarians and free-market ideologues blamed individual moral turpitude for crime, poverty and social turmoil, insisting that only imposed values of sexual propriety, hard work, self-denial and refined manners could save society. But creeping Victorianism, Wilson notes, was resisted by populists, Romantics and those "nostalgic for the free and easy, tolerant and gregarious culture of previous generations." These resisters denounced moral reformers as snobs, joyless Puritans, bullies and champions of a hypocritical "age of cant." Wilson's heart is with these dissidents, though his head doesn't entirely reject high-minded proto-Victorian impulses. He traces the conflict through a discursive, elegantly written survey of a wide range of subjects, from quack patent medicines to aristocratic sex scandals to London theater riots. The result is an insightful portrait of a culture war that's strongly reminiscent of modern-day America's. Photos. (Mar. 19)
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Review
“A conscientiously researched history, but . . . [also] as gripping as a heavily flogged, trashy page turner.”
—Slate.com

“Wilson marshals a vast number of entertaining stories of reaction and rebellion.”
—The New Yorker

“An insightful portrait of the culture war that’s strongly reminiscent of modern-day America’s.”
—Publishers Weekly

“The material discussed in [Wilson’s] account is so rich and varied that it might have overwhelmed a lesser writer. Mr. Wilson’s elegant prose keeps it beautifully under control. . . . It is an impressive achievement.”
—The Economist

About the Author
Ben Wilson is a graduate of Cambridge University.

Customer Reviews

Those Virtuous Victorians
Ben Wilson's book, "The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain: 1789-1837," is very good, with a few weaknesses; and I recommend it.

Ben Wilson helps to explain how British mores developed from the profligacy and loucheness of the late eighteenth century to the refinement and respectability of the Victorian era. His book resolved some questions I've had ever since I read Amanda Foreman's book about the late-eighteenth-century Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The duchess's behavior was very different from the typical (or at least ideal) Victorian behavior, and it highlights the changes that happened during the pre-Victorian period. Wilson argues that the rise of respectability and refinement was a result of the alliance between evangelical reformers and secular utilitarians, as well as the economic prosperity and upward mobility of the middle class (who benefited especially from the Industrial Revolution).

The middle class doesn't really come under discussion until the eleventh chapter, so its condition in the early part of the period at hand is not clear. Early in the book there is one amusing anecdote that sheds light on the state of the middle class: The sovereigns who had defeated Napoleon visited London in 1814 and supposedly asked where "the people" were. Apparently the crowds surrounding them seemed much too well-dressed to be "common folk."

Wilson's book is rich in detail from primary sources, if a little weak on analysis. The thread of his argument is not very tight throughout the body of the book, but he nicely profiles a number of writers and other influential people of the era.

There was one particular oversight, namely almost no discussion of Princess (later Queen) Victoria's upbringing. By contrast, he spends several pages on Princess Charlotte's (who never ascended the throne). Yet there is only one tantalizing hint about the nature of Victoria's rearing: in 1822, the chaplain to the duchess of Kent (Victoria's mother) considered Thomas Bowdler's "Family Shakespeare" to be offensive--so he bowdlerized it! It is of course, simplistic to say that the sovereign dictated the social mores, but no doubt Queen Victoria's respectability was influential, especially in contrast to her disreputable predecessors.

Overall, this is an enjoyable book that will appeal especially to students of nineteenth-century Britain.

Chapter summaries:

Preface: Reasons for being interested in the development of Victorian values, especially desires to revive them by current politicians on both sides of the Atlantic.

Prologue: Two points of view on the the change under discussion: the rise of politeness and decline of coarseness vs. the rise of hypocrisy and cant and decline of sincerity and authenticity.

Intro to part I, "Hypochondria: 1789-1815": Economic prosperity was intermittent; fearful and uncertain Britons took refuge in religion.

1: It became fashionable to suffer from nervous complaints (the Duchess of Bedford claimed to be immune, as she "was born before nerves were invented"). Physicians Thomas Trotter and Thomas Beddoes viewed the society's and the body's health to be intertwined and advised sexual restraint. A quack (Samuel Solomon) played on people's shame to sell his Balm of Gilead.

2: Widespread fear of revolution; the crudeness of the lower classes. Beginning of profiles of Francis Place (who rose from the lower middle class to affluence) and Patrick Colquhoun (the census analyst who attributed the lower classes' poverty to extravagance and laziness).

3: Jeremy Bentham and the effort to reform the Poor Laws and the poor (by teaching thrift and discipline). Colquhoun encouraged the rich to be rational (some people heard "coldly inhumane") in response to the problems of the poor, and not just give them money.

4: The establishment of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, and a profile of John Bowles, complete with his corruption.

5: The scandalous behavior and resulting lawsuits of the upper classes; the disconnect between love and marriage.

6: Upper classes' amusements and fashions. Profile of Beau Brummell, the trendsetting dandy who claimed to get the famous shine of his boots from champagne.

7: The protest when the Covent Garden Theatre remodeled and enclosed the boxes, thus making it impossible for people to see and be seen (especially gentlemen and their escorts).

Intro to part II, "The Arts of Peace: 1815-1821": Relief after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.

8: More efforts to reform poor relief and the Mendicity Committee's portrayal of beggars as living secretly in luxury. In reality, begging was usually preferable to the cruelty and indignity of the parish relief system. One reformer in particular viewed poverty as caused by impiety and immorality.

9: The amateur policing system, licensing of public houses, and drinking habits (subsidized gin was cheaper than the more nutritious beer).

Intro to part III, "Rich and Respectable: 1821-1837": Wealth and the speculative bubble (which burst in 1925). Progress and cant--the progress of cant, and the cant of progress.

10: Byron's publication of "Don Juan," the public outrage, and his exile. The actor Thomas Kean's rise to celebrity and subsequent fall.

11: Progress due to the Industrial Revolution, and the gentrification of the middle classes. The advent of the suit meant that a wide range of middle and upper class men all looked the same, which contributed to etiquette. Also contributing was the idea (or delusion) of upward mobility: "the impression that it [rank] was obtainable by following the fashion and obeying rules of etiquette persisted." Explains how wealth led to sexual restraint.

12: The apparent increase in crime was actually an increase in enforcement of laws against petty crimes, punishments for which had been reduced from death to hard labor.

13: Conclusion.

The transition into a new era...
If you want answers to the question, "How did the British Victorian Age come about, culturally?", this is a good book for you to read. The author for the vast majority of the book skillfully negotiates the various factions and cultural ideas at the time to document the transformation from the much more hedonistic late 18th century to the well-known Victorian Age. At times, the author loses his focus a bit, hence the four stars instead of five. (I found myself repeating a few pages). However, I grant that cultural histories are by their very nature a bit messy. It's an interesting story, how religious, economic, geographical, and genealogical changes caused the transformation, and how a number of literary and (gasp) older-generation people pushed back. Lessons on modern day values debates can be transferred from these pages. Narrow focus, but if you are interested, it's worth it.