Ornament, the Novel, and the Victorian Real

Ornament, the Novel, and the Victorian Real explores the intersection of literary form with visual culture in the Victorian period. In charting the contributions of decorative design to novelistic realism, it shows how deeply the major genre of the period is indebted to an aesthetic form that tends to get feminized, trivialized, and dismissed.

List of contents

• Introduction: As Nature


• 1: The Ornamental Real: Visual and Linguistic


• 2: A. C. Swinburne's Art-Botanical Prose


• 3: Ardently Adorned Middlemarch


• 4: Decorating Murder: Oscar Wilde's Wallpaper


• 5: Becoming Ornate: On the Management of Forces in Jude the Obscure


• 6: D. H. Lawrence's Stained Glass


• Conclusion: Inherently Interdisciplinary

About the author

Irena Yamboliev is Lecturer at Stanford University. She studied biological sciences alongside literature at the University of Nevada, Reno and earned her doctorate at Stanford. An interest in interdisciplinarity informs her focus on nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century British literature, form, and style. Her next book project explores the ecological potential of multigenerational novels.

Product details

• Authors: Irena Yamboliev, Irena (Lecturer Yamboliev
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 08.11.2025
• EAN: 9780198958154
• ISBN: 978-0-19-895815-4
• No. of pages: 256
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; ART / History / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, History of art & design styles: c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, History of Art, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, 1837–1901 (Victorian period), LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form