A new project is set to introduce a wide variety of Victorian writers to audiences around the world. Diversifying Victorian Literature aims to increase awareness of the era’s lesser-known works, proving there is more to the writing of the 19^th century than Charles Dickins, the Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy.

The two-year project, which received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), will focus on recovering work by writers of colour alongside writers from marginalised communities from the 19^th and early 20^th centuries to rediscover their writing and examine the popular but forgotten texts that audiences of the era were reading.

Kingston University course leader for English literature and head of the Diversifying Victorian Literature Network, Dr Éadaoin Agnew, said the project will look to promote the texts within an educational community initially before launching the project to a wider audience.

“We want to bring together research on a range of neglected writers and then we can think about how these writers contributed to Victorian literature and culture,” Dr Agnew explained. One of the first writers we looked at was Mary Seacole. Many people are aware of her work in the Crimea at around the same time as Florence Nightingale. However, very few people are aware she wrote a memoir, even fewer are aware that it is fantastic – funny, clever and light, a fascinating snapshot of a history not fully documented.”

Diversifying Victorian Literature has led to further discoveries, many books which Dr Agnew is encountering for the first time. “We have read novels by African writers such as Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka and B. M. Malabari’s memoir, The Indian Eye on English Life’. There is a wealth of material I am being introduced to for the first time, it’s absolutely wonderful.”

As the project has grown, a network of academics from universities around the UK and beyond has formed, with experts on particular genres, geographical areas or knowledge forums linking up to share their findings. Dr Agnew had focused her research on writers from the United Kingdom, Ireland, and India and said collaboration with academics studying a similar time period for writers from Africa or Australasia gave a clearer worldwide picture of literature at that time.

The aim of the project is to learn about these writers and more, establishing which will have the most appeal and relevance to a wider audience while providing an inclusive curriculum. “It’s important for students to see their cultures, traditions and histories as part of our curriculum, and represented within Victorian literature, a cornerstone of British cultural history,” Dr Agnew said. “It's really important for students to see that this diversity is not something recent, it has been here a very long time, and we are better off because of it.”

Dr Agnew said the themes of Victorian literature were increasingly relevant for a modern audience and identified a raft of shared themes with the experience of living in the 21^st century, drawing parallels with the discombobulation felt by people living in the 19^th century with the technological revolution in the modern day and its impact on her students.

“The writing feels particularly relevant to us today – change was happening at an incredible pace and, in addition to increasing travel and migration, there were many discoveries in science and technology making huge impacts on people’s lives,” she said.

“Technological developments impact the way students interact with the world around them, but they can also seem to change the way people think and feel, in quite dramatic ways,” she said. “My students recognise this in Victorian literature, they are very aware of the changes things like social media has on the world around them and the potential for AI to change the world. There is more change to come and people can feel powerless within that context, which are ideas that resonate throughout Victorian literature.”