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Victorian Jesus: J.R. Seeley, Religion, and the Cultural Significance of Anonymity
Ecce Homo: A Survey in the Life and Work of Jesus Christ, published anonymously in 1865, alarmed some readers and delighted others by its presentation of a humanitarian view of Christ and early Christian history. Victorian Jesus explores the relationship between historian J. R. Seeley and his publisher Alexander Macmillan as they sought to keep Seeley’s authorship a secret while also trying to exploit the public interest.
Ian Hesketh highlights how Ecce Homo's reception encapsulates how Victorians came to terms with rapidly changing religious views in the second half of the nineteenth century. Hesketh critically examines Seeley’s career and public image, and the publication and reception of his controversial work. Readers and commentators sought to discover the author’s identity in order to uncover the hidden meaning of the book, and this engendered a lively debate about the ethics of anonymous publishing. In Victorian Jesus, Ian Hesketh argues for the centrality of this moment in the history of anonymity in book and periodical publishing throughout the century.
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Victorian Jesus: J.R. Seeley, Religion, and the Cultural Significance of Anonymity
Ecce Homo: A Survey in the Life and Work of Jesus Christ, published anonymously in 1865, alarmed some readers and delighted others by its presentation of a humanitarian view of Christ and early Christian history. Victorian Jesus explores the relationship between historian J. R. Seeley and his publisher Alexander Macmillan as they sought to keep Seeley’s authorship a secret while also trying to exploit the public interest.
Ian Hesketh highlights how Ecce Homo's reception encapsulates how Victorians came to terms with rapidly changing religious views in the second half of the nineteenth century. Hesketh critically examines Seeley’s career and public image, and the publication and reception of his controversial work. Readers and commentators sought to discover the author’s identity in order to uncover the hidden meaning of the book, and this engendered a lively debate about the ethics of anonymous publishing. In Victorian Jesus, Ian Hesketh argues for the centrality of this moment in the history of anonymity in book and periodical publishing throughout the century.
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Victorian Jesus: J.R. Seeley, Religion, and the Cultural Significance of Anonymity
Ecce Homo: A Survey in the Life and Work of Jesus Christ, published anonymously in 1865, alarmed some readers and delighted others by its presentation of a humanitarian view of Christ and early Christian history. Victorian Jesus explores the relationship between historian J. R. Seeley and his publisher Alexander Macmillan as they sought to keep Seeley’s authorship a secret while also trying to exploit the public interest.
Ian Hesketh highlights how Ecce Homo's reception encapsulates how Victorians came to terms with rapidly changing religious views in the second half of the nineteenth century. Hesketh critically examines Seeley’s career and public image, and the publication and reception of his controversial work. Readers and commentators sought to discover the author’s identity in order to uncover the hidden meaning of the book, and this engendered a lively debate about the ethics of anonymous publishing. In Victorian Jesus, Ian Hesketh argues for the centrality of this moment in the history of anonymity in book and periodical publishing throughout the century.
Ian Hesketh is an ARC Future Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Queensland.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue: The Forgotten Story of Ecce Homo
Chapter 1: Authority and Authorship
Chapter 2: By the Author of Essays on the Church
Chapter 3: Father and Son
Chapter 4: The Victorian Jesus
Chapter 5: A Dangerous Book
Chapter 6: Vomited from the Jaws of Hell
Chapter 7: A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing
Chapter 8: Shrewd Conjecture
Chapter 9: White Lies
Chapter 10: Behold the Man
Chapter 11: Behold the Historian
Chapter 12: Fulfilling a Promise
Chapter 13: By the Author of Ecce Homo
Chapter 14: Remembering the Author of Ecce Homo
Epilogue: Anonymous Publishing and Universal History
Notes
Bibliography
Index
What People are Saying About This
Bernard Lightman
"Victorian Jesus is a first first-rate piece of work, and is important for examining the intersection of the history of religious thought and the history of the book. It is a model of its kind for integrating print culture and the history of religious thought. I was deeply impressed."
Patrick J. Corbeil
"Hesketh deftly integrates book history and the study of religious culture into a compelling analysis of Seeley's theological and historical writing. ... Hesketh's lively prose provides readers with penetrating and intriguing insights into Seeley's career, the dynamics of literary marketing in mid-Victorian Britain, and the changing religious and ethical landscape of the second half of the nineteenth century. Victorian Jesus successfully utilizes its tightly focused scope to offer truly valuable insights to all students of Victorian Britain and is deserving of just such a broad audience."
Michael Ledger-Lomas
"Victorian Jesus is unarguably a very significant and original contribution to the limited literature on Seeley, and Hesketh knows the Seeley and Macmillan papers inside out. This well well-written book is a specialised, but not at all a 'hermetic' volume and it should interest a very broad range of nineteenth-century scholars."