Observing the Past in Victorian Britain

Abstract

In the “Preface” to In the Olden Time, Andrew Sanders, Professor Emeritus at the University of Durham, informs readers that his book has been twenty years in the making. It is a labor of such sweeping scope that his account is not difficult to believe. Sanders painstakingly addresses every conceivable facet of Victorian attitudes toward British history from the Early Modern Age to the 1830s, linking literature and historical writing to the visual arts. Sanders provides detailed, perceptive interpretations of art, literature, music, and architecture, illustrating his nuanced readings with abundant and wide-ranging specimens, including extensive excerpts from canonical Victorian histories and novels. His study examines Victorians’ attitudes toward their historical past, from the early Modern Age, a time most Victorians found familiar but different from the present, to the 1820s and 1830s, when many first-generation Victorian writers and artists were impressionable children. Sanders draws meticulously from popular, contemporary materials, including histories, handbooks of London and the countryside, and books on art.