This issue of 19 celebrates the work of Professor Hilary Fraser who was Geoffrey Tillotson Chair of Nineteenth-Century Studies at Birkbeck, University of London from 2002 to 2020. The issue contains contributions from twenty scholars working across disciplines all of whom take the notion of Victorian beauty as a unifying theme through which to explore and respond to Hilary’s wide-ranging body of work. From the Victorian fascination with the luminous effects of fireflies to the reworking of notions of Victorian beauty in post-war British cinema, the issue traces the idea of Victorian beauty through a variety of different contexts that include the mass production of art objects and the impact of new technologies, women’s roles within the Victorian art world, shifting museum acquisition practices, the development of aesthetic thought and ecological critique, and non-Western  concepts of beauty and the Beautiful.

The cover image, chosen by Hilary, is Marie Spartali Stillman, Fiammetta Singing (detail), 1879, pencil, watercolour, and gouache, 75 × 100 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Editors: Victoria Mills (Guest Editor), Heather Tilley (Guest Editor)

Introduction

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Article

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Forum

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Gallery

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