{"product_id":"the-drunkard-in-victorian-fiction-and-culture-from-conviviality-to-cursed-thirst-9781399502221","title":"The Drunkard in Victorian Fiction and Culture: From Conviviality to Cursed Thirst","description":"This book explores the fictional figure of the drunkard and why it was so important to Victorian thinking about what it meant to be human. From Jos's life-changing hangover in \u003ci\u003eVanity Fair \u003c\/i\u003eto Henchard's twenty-one-year pledge of sobriety in \u003ci\u003eThe Mayor of Casterbridge\u003c\/i\u003e, habitual drunkards were defining characters in nineteenth-century novels and short stories, creating chaos, joy, comedy, suffering and often their own destruction in works by authors like Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Anne Brontë, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy and Anthony Trollope. Fiction played a key role in Victorian political discourses about the place of alcohol in society, fuelling the battle between temperance campaigners and defenders of moderation and pleasure, as well as disseminating and challenging new medical understandings of alcohol's effects on the body and mind. By examining gendered and classed representations of drunkenness, \u003ci\u003eThe Drunkard in Victorian Fiction and Culture\u003c\/i\u003e also documents how women and working-class drinkers were portrayed more harshly than their male and higher-class counterparts, reflecting wider religious and moral prejudices of the time. Pam Lock demonstrates the importance of studying literary drunkards both as evidence of Victorian attitudes to alcohol and as cautionary figures that remind us of the fragility and preciousness of life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Pam Lock\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Edinburgh University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/31\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSeries:\u003c\/b\u003e Gender and the Body in Literature and Culture\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 264\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.21lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.63d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781399502221","brand":"Edinburgh University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46858622238857,"sku":"9781399502221","price":120.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_f54c4985-45d1-4937-a792-7b9795144cf1.jpg?v=1780982603","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/the-drunkard-in-victorian-fiction-and-culture-from-conviviality-to-cursed-thirst-9781399502221","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}