Invisible Architecture in Nineteenth-Century Literature: Rethinking Urban Modernity

Ben Moore presents a new approach to reading urban modernity in nineteenth-century literature, by bringing together hidden, mobile and transparent features of city space as part of a single system he calls 'invisible architecture'. Resisting narratives of the nineteenth-century as progressing from concealment to transparency, he instead argues for a dynamic interaction between these tendencies. Across two parts, this book addresses a range of apparently disparate buildings and spaces. Part I offers new readings of three writers and their cities: Elizabeth Gaskell and Manchester, Charles Dickens and London, and ﾉmile Zola and Paris, focusing on the cellar-dwelling, the railway and river, and the department store respectively. Part II takes a broader view by analysing three spatial forms that have not usually been considered features of nineteenth-century modernity: the Gothic cathedral, the arabesque and white walls. Through these readings, the book extends our understanding of the uneven modernity of this period.

Author: Ben Moore
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Published: 01/12/2024
Series: Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture
Pages: 272
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9781399508483