This open access book draws on conceptual resources ranging from medieval scholasticism to postmodern theory to propose a new understanding of secular time and its mediation in nineteenth-century technological networks. Untethering the concept of secularity from questions of religion and belief, it offers an innovative rethinking of the history of secularisation that will appeal to students, scholars, and everyone interested in secularity, Victorian culture, the history of technology, and the temporalities of modernity. Stefan Fisher-Hyrem (PhD) is a historian and Senior Academic Librarian at the University of Agder, Norway.

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, Ruhr-University of Bochum (Englisches Seminar), course: Victorian Britain, language: English, abstract: From today’s point of view the society of 19th century Victorian Britain is ei-ther regarded as having been secular or, indeed, very religious. Both claims have their shortcomings and neither conveys the whole and true complexity of Victorian society. The former claim that it must have been a secular society seems to be highly influenced by contemporary – i.e. secular – views on society focussing mainly on scientific progress. The latter claim concerning the reli-giousness of Victorian society is especially popular among scholars studying that period who often focus strongly on religious aspects. However, the majori-ty accepts the view that it is a combination of both aspects. Yet, it remains un-clear or vague and hard to grasp what the people in Victorian Britain thought about their own times. There are quite a few books which deal with the state of mind of certain individuals. However, there are only few books which connect the different notions of the Victorian mind on a broader level. Further research on this specific field of study seems to be necessary. This paper will focus on the Victorian frame of mind at the beginning of the 19th century and will to answer the question what the Victorian mindset actually looked like. I will examine whether it was in a stable condition or whether it was not and what people were concerned with. Therefore, the paper will mainly deal with questions about religious aspects and its opposites. In doing so, the role of religion, the state, and the industrialisation have to be tak-en into account as they had the biggest effect on the Victorian mind. I will show how the different classes of British society reacted towards new ap-proaches of critical thinking about the world and whether they embraced or rejected them. Furthermore, I will look at one possible explanation for the emergence of a critical mindset. The French Revolution will serve as an exem-plary case which heavily influenced the thinking of British liberal intellectuals. Finally, the conclusion will summarise the major findings on the Victorian state of mind and answer the question of its stability.

First published in 1981, Victorian Values is an investigation into the social causes behind the decline of the birth rate and the size of families in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. The author looks at the interplay of the rising standard of living, the emancipation of women, the attitude to children and education and the effects of the meritocratic ideal, and their interaction with religious ideas of sexual morality. He considers the pioneers of birth control, but other factors are considered which might contribute to the retreat from the very large families of an earlier period. The book is a brilliant example of how the sociologist can illuminate the problems of the social and economic historian, and at the same time contribute to developing ideas about future social policy.

Schlossberg (senior research associate, the Ethics and Public Policy Center) argues that by the time Victoria became queen in 1837, Victorian culture was already in place. Focusing on the period between the 1790s and the 1840s, he shows how the religious revival that took hold of England's culture constituted a "silent revolution" that formed the basis of Victorian culture. He describes various manifestations of the religious revival, focusing on the main renewal movements in the Church of England and the spread of evangelicalism to dissenting religious groups. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Literary histories of the novel tend to assume that religion naturally gives way to secularism, with the novel usurping the Bible after the Enlightenment. This book challenges that teleological conception of literary history by focusing on scenes in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century fiction where the Bible appears as a physical object. Situating those scenes in wider circuits of biblical criticism, Bible printing, and devotional reading, Seidel cogently demonstrates that such scenes reveal a great deal about the artistic ambitions of the novels themselves and point to the different ways those novels reconfigured their readers' relationships to the secular world. With insightful readings of the appearance of the Bible as a physical object in fiction by John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Sarah Scott, Frances Sheridan, and Laurence Sterne, this book contends that the English novel rises with the English Bible, not after it.

"Victorian England" is a classic historical essay by G. M. Young that provides a comprehensive overview of the Victorian era. Young's book is renowned for its clarity and authenticity and is considered one of the finest studies of the Victorian age.

Selected and annotated by Gertrude Himmelfarb, a distinguished historian of Victorian thought, the writings in this volume address a wide range of subjects, including religion, politics, history, science, art, socialism, and feminism, by eminent figures of the Victorian era.

Bringing together a group of international scholars from the disciplines of history, English literature, art history and cultural studies, this book identifies and assesses the principle influences on twentieth-century attitudes towards the Victorians.

Life in the Victorian period, focusing on the social, religious, scientific, and artistic movements that characterized the age.

"Victorian Values is an absorbing portrait of Victorian society and culture, presenting different aspects of the age through profiles of representative or pioneering figures - among them Dickens, Pugin, Mary Kingsley, Lord Leighton, Gladstone and Joseph Chamberlain. It illuminates Victorian attitudes to a range of issues from education, health and self-help to civic ideals and sexual identity. Widely used and enjoyed by students, teachers and general readers alike, it has now been extended with four new essays and the Introduction, comparing the Victorian age with our own, has been updated and rewritten."--