The Ends Of History

The book is about how the Victorians were passionate about history and how this passion related to the woman question. Christina Crosby argues that the construction of middle-class Victorian man as the universal subject of history entailed the identification of women as those who are before, beyond, above, or below history. This raises a crucial question for today's feminists - how can one read historically without replicating the problem of nineteenth century history?

Why were the Victorians so passionate about History ? How did this passion relate to another Victorian obsession - the woman question ? In a brilliant and provocative study, Christina Crosby investigates the links between the Victorians' fascination with history and with the nature of women. Discussing both key novels and non-literary texts - Daniel Deronda and Hegel's Philosophy of History; Henry Esmond and Macaulay's History of England; Little Dorrit, Wilkie Collins' The Frozen Deep, and Mayhew's survey of labour and the poor ; Villette, Patrick Fairburn's The Typology of Scripture and Ruskin's Modern Painters - she argues that the construction of middle-class Victorian man as the universal subject of history entailed the identification of women as those who are before, beyond, above, or below history. Crosby's analysis raises a crucial question for today's feminists - how can one read historically without replicating the problem of nineteenth century history ? The book was first published in 1991.