This lecture course introduces students to Victorian literature in its rich cultural, historical, and intellectual contexts. Covering the period from the 1830s to the turn of the twentieth century, the lectures examine how writers responded to the profound social transformations of the age – which include industrialization, urbanization, scientific discovery, imperial expansion as well as changing ideas about gender, class, and religion. The readings to be discussed comprise poetry, fiction, prose, and drama by authors such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Matthew Arnold, Thomas Hardy, and Oscar Wilde. The lecture series offers an overview of the period’s major literary forms and situates these against the historical, social, political, and economic backgrounds of Victorian Britain. It will also cover a wide range of non-literary manifestations of culture (e.g. art and architecture, photography, and popular culture).