Visions of Filth: Deviancy and Social Control in the Novels of Galdos

Setting a selection of novels written Spanish Benito Pérez Galdós' during the 1880s and 1890s in the context of discourses on public health, domesticity, and philanthropy, Peris (Spanish and Portuguese, U. of Leeds) explores how he reproduced, and positioned himself in relation to, bourgeois and expert-professional ideas on, and attitudes to, deviancy. She finds particularly significant the desire of public health experts and criminologists to assume responsibility for and pronounce on moral and social matters that did not fall within their domain. The study began as her doctoral dissertation for the University of London. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR