The Nineteenth-Century Present

The nineteenth-century present explores the multiple ways in which history was understood, structured, and reassessed in literary, theological, and political contexts across the nineteenth century. This scope of the chapters covers a range of British authors from Walter Scott to G.K. Chesterton, demonstrating how the issues raised regarding historicity in recent methodological debates in all aspects of society, including social hierarchies, religion, science, gender, and burgeoning mass media were already concerns in the nineteenth century. The book questions the opposition between state-sanctioned narratives and counter-histories, the challenges of scientific breakthroughs, and the political and metaphysical tensions between the idea of open-ended continuity and the expectation of an ending. Employing a range of methodologies and welcoming a diversity of representations, these wide-ranging case studies demonstrate the diversity of writing (about) history in nineteenth-century literary texts and its continuities, as well as differences with twentieth and twenty-first century historiographical approaches.