9780691135168, 0691135169, 9780691146621, and 0691146624
Description:
xvii, 268 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliographic Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-255) and index
Contents:
Preface : getting hold of portable property -- Introduction : the global, the local, and the portable -- Discreet jewels : Victorian diamond narratives and the problem of sentimental value -- The first strawberries in India : cultural portability abroad -- Someone else's knowledge : race and portable culture in Daniel Deronda -- Locating Lorna Doone : R.D. Blackmore, F.H. Burnett, and the limits of English regionalism -- Going local : characters and environments in Thomas Hardy's Wessex -- Nowhere and everywhere : the end of portability in William Morris's romances -- Conclusion : is portability portable?
Summary:
"Portable Property examines how culture bearing objects came to stand for distant people and places, creating or preserving a sense of self and community despite geographic dislocation. Victorian novels - because they themselves came to be understood as the quintessential portable property - tell the story of this change most clearly. Plotz analyzes a wide range of works, paying particular attention to George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, Anthony Trollope's Eustace Diamonds, and R.D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone. He also discusses Thomas Hardy and William Morris's vehement attack on the very notion of cultural portability. The result is a richer understanding of the role of objects in British culture at home and abroad during the Age of Empire."-- Jacket