This anthology introduces students of nineteenth-century literary and cultural history to the main areas of intellectual debate in the Victorian period. Bringing together for the first time in one volume a wide range of primary source material, The Victorian Age gives readers unique insight into the ways in which different areas of Victorian intellectual debate were interconnected. This invaluable collection includes developments in social and political theory, economics, science and religion, aesthetics, and sexuality and gender, and provides access to a range of documents which have hitherto been highly inaccessible - both difficult to locate and difficult to interpret and understand.