Quaint, Exquisite: Victorian Aesthetics and the Idea of Japan

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How Japan captured the Victorian imagination and transformed Western aesthetics From the opening of trade with Britain in the 1850s, Japan occupied a unique and contradictory place in the Victorian imagination, regarded as both a rival empire and a cradle of exquisite beauty. Quaint, Exquisite explores the enduring impact of this dramatic encou

Reviews

"Winner of the NAVSA Best Book of the Year, North American Victorian Studies Association"
"Quaint, Exquisite is a beautifully written book. . . . [Lavery] is an invigorating, compelling collaborative critical voice which demands, and amply repays, the readers time and thought."---Gail Marshall, Times Higher Education
"[Laverys] musings are worlds away from the archival explorations and excavations preoccupying most Victorianists now. But both approaches, hands-on and theoretical, are valid and valuable . . . . Grace Lavery combines them, most eloquently when reading individual works. That is rather a rare skill."---Jacqueline Banerjee, Times Literary Supplement

Author Bio

Grace E. Lavery is assistant professor of English and affiliated faculty in the Program in Critical Theory and the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.