The Ends of History: Victorians and "the Woman Question"

Why were the Victorians so passionate about "History"? How did this passion relate to another Victorian obsession the "woman question"? In a brilliant and provocative study, Christina Crosby investigates the links between the Victorians' fascination with "history" and with the nature of "women." Discussing both key novels and non-literary texts Daniel Derondaand Hegel's Philosophy of History; Henry Esmondand Macaulay's History of England; Little Dorrit, Wilkie Collins' The Frozen Deep, and Mayhew's survey of "labour and the poor"; Villette, Patrick Fairburn's The Typology of Scriptureand Ruskin's Modern Painters she argues that the construction of middle-class Victorian "man" as the universal subject of history entailed the identification of "women" as those who are before, beyond, above, or below history. Crosby's analysis raises a crucial question for today's feminists how can one read historically without replicating the problem of nineteenth century "history"?