{"product_id":"2026200014783-secondhand-the-victorian-treasure-house","title":"The Victorian Treasure-House","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: N\/A\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the crossroads of art, literature, and cultural ambition, The Victorian Treasure-House presents a richly argued account of Victorian aesthetics, chronicling the extraordinary creative outpouring of nineteenth-century Britain across painting, poetry, prose, and the decorative arts. Peter Conrad constructs a vivid intellectual landscape, arguing that the Victorians were driven by an insatiable desire to accumulate, classify, and celebrate beauty in all its forms — from the canvases of the Pre-Raphaelites to the ornate prose of Ruskin and the visionary poetry of Tennyson. With a scholar's precision and a critic's flair, Conrad illustrates how the great Victorian cultural institutions — the museum, the gallery, the illustrated periodical — became temples of collective aspiration, housing the era's restless energy within ordered, magnificent frames.\n\nConrad's prose is itself a kind of treasure, dense with allusion and alive with critical intelligence, situating Victorian culture within a broader European tradition of Romantic excess and rigorous self-examination. The Victorian Treasure-House argues persuasively that the Victorians were not mere accumulators of things, but passionate architects of meaning — a people who believed, with almost religious fervour, that art could redeem the vulgarities of industrial progress. This landmark work of cultural criticism remains an indispensable key to unlocking the Victorian imagination, leaving the reader to wonder what other riches still lie undiscovered within its gilded walls.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49203162710235,"sku":"2026200014783-SECONDHAND","price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/ca434cfb-4da8-436f-97b8-20fc680ae269.png?v=1788144815","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200014783-secondhand-the-victorian-treasure-house","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}