Illustrations, Optics and Objects in Nineteenth-Century Literary and Visual Cultures

This book explores the encounter between verbal and visual forms through a material aesthetic in which perception is shaped by the tangible qualities of the media. The contributors map a new critical approach in which typography and design play an important role as well as the images represented or evoked in the text.

LUISA CAL is Lecturer in the School of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, UK.

PATRIZIA DI BELLO is Lecturer in History and Theory of Photography in the School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media at Birkbeck, University of London, UK.

Contents
Notes on contributors
Foreword--H.Fraser
Introduction--L.Cal &--P. Di Bello
PART I: BLINDING VISIONS
Ekphrasis and Terror: Shelley, Medusa, and the Phantasmagoria--S.Thomas
Wordsworth's Glasses and Blindness--H.Tilley
PART II: PHOTOGRAPHS AND THEIR PLEASURES
The Wont of Photography, or, The Pleasure of Mimesis--L.Smith
Aesthetic Encounters: The Erotic Vision of John Addington Symonds and Wilhelm Von Gloeden--S.Evangelista
PART III: ILLUSTRATIONS AND LATENT IMAGES
'Latent Preparedness': Literary Association and Visual Reminiscence in 'Daisy Miller'--G.Smith
A Modern Illustrated Magazine: The Yellow Book's Poetics of Format--L.J.Kooistra
PART IV: PRECIOUS OBJECTS
Dandyism, Visuality and the 'Camp Gem': Collections of Jewels in Huysmans and Wilde--V.Mills
The Book Beautiful: Reading, Vision, and the Homosexual Imagination in Late Victorian Britain--M.Hatt
Index