《牛津英国文学史：维多利亚人》与一般的文学断代史不同，不受文类、时段等概念的制约，而是可以理解为由“时代背景”和“作家作品”两大部分构成，重大主题在各章各节不断回环。它以宏观的视野与细微、具体、多重的观察视角相结合，从不同的立场理解各方意见，并且大量运用19世纪文字记录，使维多利亚时代的优秀文学最大限度地包容并跨越纷争和对立，成为供后来者和学习者不断发掘、探索的宝地。

General Editor's Preface
List of Figures
A Note on References
Introduction
1. Rural to Urban 1830-1850
I. A New World
II. The Challenge to Thinking
2. Nature
I. Darwin and the Impact of Science
II. Cosmologies and Anthropomorphisms: Darwin,Spencer, and Ruskin
III. Beyond Nature and After Religion: The Future in J. S. Mill and T. H. Huxley
3. Religion
I. x 8 3 o-x 8 5 o: Evangelicalism, the Broad Church,and Tractarianism
II. The Mid-Victorian Change
4. Mind
I. 'The New Psychology': Psychology as a Branch of Science
II. 'Psychology is pre-eminently a philosophical science'
III. Psychology, the Unconscious, and Literature
5. Conditions of Literary Production
I. The Literary Profession, the Book Trade and Culture
II. The Rise of Prose
III. New Voices
6.The Drama
7.Debatable Lands: Variety of Form and Genre in the Early Victorian Novel
I. Post-Aristocratic: Bulwer-Lytton, Disraeli,and Kingsley
II. Post-Aristocratic: Thackeray versus Dickens
8. Alternative Fictions
I. The Sensation Novel
II. Fairy Tales and Fantasies
9. High Realism
I. Two Novels of the 18 3 os and their Legacy
II. Trollope and George Eliot
10. Lives and Thoughts
I. Life-Writing
II. Writings about Life
11. Poetry
I. The Form in Difficulties
II. Long Poems and Sequence Poems
III. From May to September: Poetry and Belief
Conclusion
Author Bibliographies
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index

本书是“外国文学研究文库”系列第二辑的一本。该系列旨在将国外的文学学界的学术成果及时引进和介绍给我国外国文学学者、学生及爱好者，反映外国文学研究领域在世界范围的发展趋势与前沿探索。
该系列以英文原文的形式出版，并辅之以国内这一领域的资深学者撰写的导读，帮助读者把握作品的脉络，掌握其思想要点，更全面、更深入地理解作品要义。
本书以宏观的视野与细微、具体、多重的观察视角相结合，从不同的立场理解各方意见，并且大量运用19世纪文字记录，供学习者不断发掘、探索维多利亚时代的优秀文学。