![]() | Bleak Houses: Marital Violence in Victorian Fiction Subjects: English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Marriage in literature; Domestic fiction English -- History and criticism; Family violence in literature; Abused women in literature; Child abuse in literature; Violence in literature; The Offenses Against the Person Act of 1828 opened magistrates' courts to abused working-class wives. Newspapers in turn reported on these proceedings, and in this way the Victorian scrutiny of domestic conduct began. But how did popular fiction treat "private" family violence? Bleak Houses: Marital Violence in Victorian Fiction traces novelists' engagement with the wife-assault debates in the public press between 1828 and the turn of the century. |
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