Victorian Ecology

Abstract

As it has moved into the critical mainstream, ecocriticism has regularly focused on British Romantic literature; although somewhat less common, insightful ecocritical readings of Victorian literature have also begun to appear in recent years. Both of these new books represent valuable contributions to nineteenth-century literary studies, and both convincingly demonstrate that a broadly conceived ecocriticism has become extraordinarily useful in opening new avenues for the study of literature from this era. These books exemplify distinctly different approaches to how ecocriticism might be practiced, but they nicely complement each other and suggest productive new directions for the study of Romantic and Victorian literature.