By T. T.
1872 was the year that George MacDonald’s published his children’s novel, The Princess and the Goblin, sparking the imaginations of both adults and children who were invited to enter a fantasy realm of subterranean creatures, fire fuelled by roses and invisible magic thread. It is no wonder then that the central emphasis in the novel is the power of believing in the seemingly unfathomable; as Princess Irene’s grandmother stresses, “seeing is not believing—it is only seeing” (MacDonald 173).
Yet, Victorians were deeply engaged in a hungry pursuit for knowledge, and scientific disciplines dependent on concrete facts were growing at an exponential rate. To satiate this hunger, Victorians turned to weekly newspapers such as The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, which was noted as one of the “leading critical opinion[s]” of the time (Bevington VII). Founded in London in 1855 by A.J.B. Beresford Hope, the Saturday Review was published until 1938, and was graced with renowned contributors including Oscar Wilde, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and George Bernard Shaw (Bevington 16). Continue reading
Dickens to Eliot 