Neo-Victorian

Neo-Victorianism is a contemporary cultural, aesthetic, and literary movement that features overt nostalgia for and revivalism of the Victorian period.

In arts and crafts

Examples of crafts made in this style would include push-button cordless telephones made to look like antique wall-mounted phones, CD players resembling old time radios, Victorianesque furniture, and Victorian era-style clothing.

In neo-romantic and fantasy art, one can often see the elements of Victorian aesthetic values. There is also a strongly emerging genre of steampunk art. McDermott & McGough are a couple of contemporary artists whose work is all about a recreation of life in the nineteenth century: they only use the ultimate technology available, and since they are supposed to live anachronistically, this means the use of earlier photographic processes, and maintaining the illusion of a life stuck in the ways of a forgotten era.

Works of fiction

Neo-Victorian works of fiction are creative narrative works set in the Victorian period, but written, interpreted or reproduced by more contemporary artists.

Many neo-Victorian novels have reinterpreted, reproduced and rewritten Victorian culture. Significant texts include The French Lieutenant’s Woman (John Fowles, 1969), Possession (A. S. Byatt, 1990), Arthur and George (Julian Barnes, 2005), Dorian, An Imitation (Will Self, 2002) Jack Maggs (Peter Carey, 1997), Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys, 1966).

Recent neo-Victorian novels have often been adapted to the screen, from The French Lieutenant’s Woman (Karel Reisz, 1981) to the television adaptations of Sarah Waters (Tipping the Velvet, BBC2, 2002, Fingersmith, BBC1, 2005, Affinity ITV, 2008) and Michel Faber (The Crimson Petal and the White, BBC 1, 2011). These narratives may indicate a 'sexsation' of neo-Victorianism, and have been called "in-yer-face" neo-Victorianism (Voigts-Virchow).