Mary Gladstone and the Victorian Salon, 1876-1883

FAIN: FB-57965-15

Phyllis Weliver
St. Louis University (St. Louis, MO 63103-2097)

This intellectual history of nineteenth-century Britain accesses a trove of unpublished archival material that reveals how the daughter of a long serving prime minister (W.E. Gladstone) acted as a leader in the musical community (supporting the new Royal College of Music) and in literature (working closely with Tennyson). In the process, Mary Gladstone assisted political aspects of her father's work. This study sheds important new light on Tennyson's poetry, the founding of the Royal College of Music, Edward Burne-Jones's painting, and a broad plane of British culture generally, including political liberalism and women, sociability, musical diplomacy and aesthetic democracy. The published monograph will reconfigure scholars' views of Victorian literary salons and political culture by explicating the transformative role of music. A wide range of sources and critical frameworks (musical, literary, theoretical) suggests synergies among disciplines and opens up further areas of research.

Associated Products

Mary Gladstone and the Victorian Salon: Music, Literature, Liberalism (Book)
Title: Mary Gladstone and the Victorian Salon: Music, Literature, Liberalism
Author: Phyllis Weliver
Abstract: The daughter of one of Britain's longest-serving prime ministers, Mary Gladstone was a notable musician, hostess of one of the most influential political salons in late Victorian London, and probably the first female prime ministerial private secretary in Britain. Pivoting around Mary's initiatives, this intellectual history draws on a trove of unpublished archival material that reveals for the first time the role of music in Victorian liberalism, explores its intersections with literature, recovers what the high Victorian salon was within a wider cultural history, and shows Mary's influence on her father's work. Paying close attention to literary and biographical details, the book also sheds new light on Tennyson's poetry, George Eliot's fiction, the founding of the Royal College of Music, the Gladstone family, and a broad plane of wider British culture, including political liberalism and women, sociability, social theology and aesthetic democracy.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/mary-gladstone-and-the-victorian-salon-music-literature-liberalism/oclc/1005057310
Primary URL Description: Worldcat
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781107184800
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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