Transgressive Appetites. Deviant Food Practices in Victorian Literature and Culture

Drawing together established and emerging scholars, this collection seeks to address some of the most recent developments in the fields of food studies and Victorian culture. Contributors explore national and inter/intranational representations of food, by examining multiple texts ranging from “canonical” literature to popular culture and marginal sub-cultures. Focusing on the underside of Victorian society’s optimistic belief in progress, this volume suggests that the nineteenth century was not only marked by the dining etiquette and the culinary innovations promoted by manuals such as Isabella Beeton’s Book of Household Management. It was also a century of deviant food practices which gave voice to multifarious anxieties about ingestion and consumption. In line with the latest publications of the field, this collection investigates the transgressive facets of food in the representation of racial and gendered identities, in questions of taste and commodification, and more broadly, in the political, social and economic arena of the Victorian era.