'England's Darling' : the Victorian cult of Alfred the Great / Joanne Parker.

'ENGLAND'S DARLING': THE VICTORIAN CULT OF ALFRED THE GREAT; Halftitle Page; Title Page; Copyright; Contents; List of illustrations; Preface -- The king who burnt the cakes; Acknowledgements; Dedication; 1. The day of a thousand years: Alfred and the Victorianmania for commemoration; 2. Medievalism, Anglo-Saxonism and the nineteenth century; 3. Turning a king into a hero: nine hundred years of pre-Victorian reinvention; 4. The hero as king: Alfred and nineteenth-century politics; 5. 'The root and spring of everything we love in church and state': Alfred and Victorian progress

6. 'The most perfect character in history': Alfred and Victorian morality7. 'Never to be confused with King Arthur': Alfred after Victoria; Select bibliography; Index

During the last two decades, numerous studies have been devoted to the Victorian fascination with King Arthur, however . the figure of King Alfred has received almost no attention. For much of the nineteenth century, Alfred was as important as Arthur in the British popular imagination. A pervasive cult of the king developed which included the erection of at least four public statues, the completion of more than twenty-five paintings, and the publication of over a hundred texts, by authors ranging from Wordsworth to minor women writers. By 1852, J.A. Froude could describe Alfred's life as 'the.

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