The Victorians' passion for history was equalled perhaps only by their fascination with woman, manifested as a ceaseless posing of the woman question. In this book Christina Crosby argues that each of these obsessions entails the other, that the construction of middle-class Victorian man as the universal subject of history necessitated the placing of woman as an entity before, beyond, above or below history. In a discussion of key Victorian novels and non-literary texts, Crosby demonstrates the intermeshing of history and the woman question. Her investigations range from philosophy and the philosophical novel - Daniel Deronda and Hegel's Philosophy of History - to the historical novel and the writing of history proper - Henry Esmond and Macauley's History of England, from melodrama and social studies - Wilkie Collins' The Frozen Deep, Little Dorrit and Henry Mayhew's History of the People to theology, aesthetics and autobiographical fiction - Villette , Patrick Fairbairn's The Typology of Scripture and Ruskin's Modern Painters. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of English literature, social history and women's studies.