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Hello, Henry James said if I may be allowed to edit realism is what in some shape or form we might encounter

Whereas romanticism is something we will never encounter

It's a useful starting point for the Victorians

Realism when used in novels describing events that people actually experienced was hugely popular

Victorian realist novels were devoured greedily by readers who became deeply engrossed in their subject matter

But why was the Victorian realist novel greeted with such enthusiasm?

What is driven by some form of religious impulse despite the growing secularization of society?

What is popularity connected to the growth in science and technology and what place does realist fiction have in our own time?

With me to discuss this is Phil Davis, region English literature at the University of Liverpool and author of the Victorians a volume of the Oxford English Literary history

Dr. Diner Birch a fellow and tutor in English at Trinity College Oxford and Anne Wilson Andrew Wilson novelist and author of the Victorians

Andrew Wilson. What do we mean by Victorian realism in the novel?

Well, let's start with a specific example

In the last Toronto to pass it by Anthony Schollop

There's a clergyman Thomas to Crawley who's basically doing a bit nuts and

He may or may not have

perpetrated a fraud with a check

And the drama of the novel really hangs on that this man's nervous breakdown and whether you believe he did or he didn't do this fiddle with the money

Now here you have something which is a bit like a dramatic episode of the archers and

While that was going on and while the novel was coming out and being read by everybody at the time

The whole nation it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say was gripped by the drama of it

...