Victorian Literature and Film Adaptation

Movies began during the Victorian age. Through even the earliest years of filmmaking, Victorian literature provided a ready stock of familiar stories about colorful characters caught up in mystery, fantasy, adventure, sensation, and domestic conflict. Among the earliest films are adaptations of works by Victorian writers like Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy, and even Alfred, Lord Tennyson. With the proliferation of volumes on adaptation, work is needed that provides theoretical and practical approaches for those who think about literature together with film adaptations whether as scholarship, part of classroom study, or general enjoyment. By bringing together many different approaches to the topic of adaptation, this book provides an important overview of the subject of the adaptation of nineteenth-century British literature, as well as an examination of the constructive and creative use of film adaptations in the classroom. Although a wide range of critical approaches are included, the primary emphasis is on what specific adaptations reveal about the ways in which nineteenth-century British texts are understood, responded to, and analyzed based on particular cultural contexts. This book provides a basis for rethinking adaptation and a template for future discussions and academic courses. They orient the reader within a popular field of study that is currently in need of both greater focus and of practical direction.