Steph Alder

Department: Humanities
Discipline: English
Research Centre/Unit: Victorian Studies

Project Summary

My thesis explores the relationship between informal literary censorship and the Victorian novel. I am particularly interested in the role played by  Mudie's Select Library and how its brand of informal censorship, far from silencing the literary community, galvanised writers such as George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and Ouida to radically engage with issues of sexuality and class. Paradoxically, I argue that censorship was far from a negative force in the nineteenth century but actually helped produce the literature we know and love today! 

Supervisory Team

I am supervised by Professor Angelique Richardson at the University of Exeter and Dr Nicola Wilson at the University of Reading.