A Very Queer Family Indeed

A Very Queer Family Indeed
Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Total Pages : 344
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780226393810
ISBN-13 : 022639381X
Rating : 4/5 (10 Downloads)

Book Synopsis A Very Queer Family Indeed by : Simon Goldhill

Download or read book A Very Queer Family Indeed written by Simon Goldhill and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-10-03 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “We can begin with a kiss, though this will not turn out to be a love story, at least not a love story of anything like the usual kind.” So begins A Very Queer Family Indeed, which introduces us to the extraordinary Benson family. Edward White Benson became Archbishop of Canterbury at the height of Queen Victoria’s reign, while his wife, Mary, was renowned for her wit and charm—the prime minister once wondered whether she was “the cleverest woman in England or in Europe.” The couple’s six precocious children included E. F. Benson, celebrated creator of the Mapp and Lucia novels, and Margaret Benson, the first published female Egyptologist. What interests Simon Goldhill most, however, is what went on behind the scenes, which was even more unusual than anyone could imagine. Inveterate writers, the Benson family spun out novels, essays, and thousands of letters that open stunning new perspectives—including what it might mean for an adult to kiss and propose marriage to a twelve-year-old girl, how religion in a family could support or destroy relationships, or how the death of a child could be celebrated. No other family has left such detailed records about their most intimate moments, and in these remarkable accounts, we see how family life and a family’s understanding of itself took shape during a time when psychoanalysis, scientific and historical challenges to religion, and new ways of thinking about society were developing. This is the story of the Bensons, but it is also more than that—it is the story of how society transitioned from the high Victorian period into modernity.


A Very Queer Family Indeed Related Books

A Very Queer Family Indeed
Language: en
Pages: 344
Authors: Simon Goldhill
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-10-03 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“We can begin with a kiss, though this will not turn out to be a love story, at least not a love story of anything like the usual kind.” So begins A Very Qu
A Very Queer Family Indeed
Language: en
Pages: 344
Authors: Simon Goldhill
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-10-03 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The family that wrote itself -- Sensation! -- Wooing mother -- Bringing up the subject -- Fifty ways to say I hate my father -- Tell the truth, my boy -- A map
Queer Kinship after Wilde
Language: en
Pages: 301
Authors: Kristin Mahoney
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-10-06 - Publisher: Cambridge University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Queer Kinship after Wilde investigates the afterlife of the Decadent Movement's ideas about kinship, desire, and the family during the modernist period within a
The Happiness Philosophers
Language: en
Pages: 454
Authors: Bart Schultz
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-04-24 - Publisher: Princeton University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A colorful history of utilitarianism told through the lives and ideas of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and its other founders In The Happiness Philosophers,
The Routledge Companion to Victorian Literature
Language: en
Pages: 753
Authors: Dennis Denisoff
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-11-11 - Publisher: Routledge

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Routledge Companion to Victorian Literature offers 45 chapters by leading international scholars working with the most dynamic and influential political, cu