Victorian Hands: The Manual Turn in Nineteenth-Century Body Studies

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Until recently, the embodied hand has paradoxically escaped the notice of nineteenth-century cultural and literary historians precisely because of its centrality. The essays in Peter J. Capuano and Sue Zemka's new collection, Victorian Hands: The Manual Turn in Nineteenth-Century Body Studies, join an emerging body of work that seeks to remedy this. Casting new light on an array of well-known authors-Charlotte Brontë, Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, William Morris, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, and Oscar Wilde-the volume explores the role of the hand as a nexus between culture and physical embodiment. The contributors to this volume address a wide range of manual topics and concerns, including those related to religion, medicine, science, industry, paranormal states, language, digital humanities, law, photography, disability, and art history. Examining hands, language, materiality, and agency, these contributors employ their expertise as Victorianists in order to understand what hands have to tell us about the cultural preoccupations of the nineteenth century and how the unique conditions of Britain at the time shaped the modern emergence of our cultural relationship with our hands. Contributors James Eli Adams, Karen Bourrier, Aviva Briefel, Peter J. Capuano, Jonathan Cheng, Kate Flint, Pamela K. Gilbert, Tamara Ketabgian, J. Hillis Miller, Deborah Denenholz Morse, Daniel A. Novak, Julianne Smith, Herbert F. Tucker, and Sue Zemka   VICTORIAN HANDS: The Manual Turn in Nineteenth-Century Body Studies, Edited by Peter J. Capuano and Sue Zemka Half title page Title page Copyright page Contents Illustrations INTRODUCTION • Handling Flesh and Metaphor by PETER J. CAPUANO AND SUE ZEMKA WORKS CITED PART I • Hands: Whole and Part CHAPTER 1 • The Anatomy of Anglican Industry: Mechanical Philosophy and Early Factory Fiction by PETER J. CAPUANO MANUAL ‘PERFECTION’ AND THE INDUSTRIAL QUESTION INDUSTRIAL DISCOURSE, EARLY FACTORY FICTION, AND THE DISCURSIVE STRUGGLE FOR DIVINE CONSENT WORKS CITED CHAPTER 2 • Lost Hands and Prosthetic Narratives: William Dodd, Writing at the Industrial Join by TAMARA KETABGIAN HUMAN HINGES: HANDS AND BODIES PROSTHETIC WRITING AND VOICE FEELING TORN: CHARITY AND VOCATION WORKS CITED CHAPTER 3 • “A Fiery Hand Gripped My Vitals”: Admiral Nelson, Amputation, andHeroic Masculinity in Jane Eyre by KAREN BOURRIER WORKS CITED PART II • Hands, Plot, and Character CHAPTER 4 • Hands and the Will in The Woman in White by PAMELA K. GILBERT WORKS CITED CHAPTER 5 • Hands at a Séance: Manual Evidence in Victorian Spiritualism and the Ghost Story by AVIVA BRIEFEL PALPABLE HANDS REVENGE OF THE PUFFY HAND WORKS CITED CHAPTER 6 • Hands and Minds in The Moonstone by SUE ZEMKA THE SEMI-VISIBLE HAND “I WILL LAY MY HAND ON THE THIEF WHO TOOK THE MOONSTONE!” (FRANKLIN BLAKE, 361) “I STOOD BEWILDERED WITH MY HAND IN HIS.” (MISS CLACK, 316) EVERY TIME WE MOVE A FINGER, IT IS BY TRANSMITTING SOMETHING UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE WILL TO THE ENDS OF THE FINGERS, AND WHY SHOULD IT NOT GO FARTHER?” (ESDAILE 133) “A LONG, WHITE, BONY HAND STEALED AROUND THE DOOR . . . THE HAND WAS FOLLOWED BY A MAN.” (COLLINS, “THE DEAD HAND”) “I WAS NOW TO CONSIDER WHICH WAY TO STEER MY COURSE NEXT, AND WHAT TO DO WITH THE ESTATE THAT PROVIDENCE HAD THUS PUT INTO MY HANDS.” (DEFOE 456) “[THE MOONSTONE] WAS TO BE DEPOSITED IN [AMSTERDAM] WITH A FAMOUS DIAMOND-CUTTER, AND IT WAS TO BE CUT UP INTO FROM FOUR TO SIX SEPARATE STONES.” (93) WORKS CITED CHAPTER 7 • The Dead Hand: George Eliot and the Burdens of Inheritance by JAMES ELI ADAMS WORKS CITED CHAPTER 8 • Computation and the Gendering of Gestures by JONATHAN CHENG EXTRACTING THE HAND GESTURES OF FICTIONAL MEN AND WOMEN THE DISTRIBUTION OF MEN’S AND WOMEN’S HANDS FROM 1780 TO 1900 THE UNEVEN DISTRIBUTION OF HAND MOTIONS AMONG FICTIONAL MEN AND WOMEN CONCLUSION WORKS CITED PART III • Framing and Staging Hands CHAPTER 9 • The Photographer’s Hand by KATE FLINT HANDS IN PHOTOGRAPHS STAINED HANDS HANDS AND CAMERAS WORKS CITED CHAPTER 10 • Staged Hands in Bleak House by JULIANNE SMITH WORKS CITED PART IV • Manual Exceptionalism in Later Victorian Literature and Culture CHAPTER 11 • Handling Private Dramas of Class and Gender in Anthony Trollope’s The Duke’s Children by DEBORAH DENENHOLZ MORSE WORKS CITED CHAPTER 12 • Reading by Hand: Oscar Wilde and the Body in the Archive by DANIEL A. NOVAK WORKS CITED CHAPTER 13 • Hands in Hardy and James by J. HILLIS MILLER HANDS IN HARDY HANDS IN HENRY JAMES WORKS CITED AFTERWORD • The Well Spoken Hand by HERBERT F. TUCKER WORKS CITED Contributors Index