Acknowledgements

List of contributors

List of figures

Introduction: Uncovering the grotesque in Victorian culture

`Borrowing Gargantua's mouth': biography, Bahktin and grotesque discourse--James Boswell, Thomas Carlyle and Leslie Stephen on Samuel Johnson

David Amigoni

Thomas Carlyle's grotesque conceits

Paul Barlow

Culture and energy: Ford Madox Brown, Thomas Carlyle and the Cromwellian grotesque

Colin Trodd

`Griffinism, grace and all': the riddle of the grotesque in John Ruskin's Modern Painters

Lucy Hartley

Grotesque obscenities: Thomas Woolner's Civilization and its discontents

Paul Barlow

`Entangled banks': Robert Browning, Richard Dadd and the Darwininan grotesque

Nicola Bown

Monsters and monstrosities: grotesque taste and Victorian design

Shelagh Wilson

Turning back the grotesque: G.F. Watts, the matter of painting and the oblivion of art

Colin Trodd

Bibliography

Index