Why Victorian Literature Still Matters

"Philip Davis's Blackwell manifesto offers a spirited, polemical defence of Victorian literature in general, and Victorian realism in particular, against its modernist and postmodernist detractors." (Oxford Journals, 1 June 2011)

"In Why Victorian Literature Still Matters, Davis writes as a reader.  Readers, as he defines them, are different from scholars and critics. Who distance themselves from the worlds before them by turning to history or theory instead.  Readers, by contrast, do not distance themselves at all, but rather seek ever more closeness." (Victorian Studies, Winter 2010)"Philip Davis's [book] ... Was fascinating about Victorian writing, and one of the best books written about how novels can work." (The Guardian, November 2008)

“This book argues fearlessly and passionately for the relevance of Victorian literature to contemporary society, addressing a question too rarely asked in literary study: why should we care?”
–Marion Thain, University of Birmingham