ABSTRACT
The key goal of The Devil and the Victorians is to make a case for the importance of the Devil in a Victorian English context. Both hell and the Devil were contested during the Victorian era, with numerous individuals rejecting or doubting their existence, often on the grounds that their brutality outraged modern morality. Nevertheless, defining the Devil as primarily ‘in decline’ is inadequate as, despite doubts about his existence being relatively common, he maintained a significant cultural presence. His cultural role was diverse, with the diabolic making notable appearances in theology, folklore, occultism, popular culture, literature, and theatre. The Devil derived his cultural power from a mixture of his status as a traditional Christian figure and his amorphousness and flexibility. He was a protean figure, equally able to inspire genuine fear at church or serve as the butt of the joke in a humorous tale. The Victorian Devil’s mutability and pervasiveness offer an excellent opportunity to explore the complicated ways in which belief, doubt, and imaginative endeavour intersected in Victorian culture.
