{"product_id":"seeing-things-9781501784941","title":"Seeing Things: Virtual Aesthetics in Victorian Culture","description":"A cultural history of nineteenth-century media imaginaries, Seeing Things tells the story of how Victorians experienced the virtual images created by modern optical technologies – magic lanterns, stereoscopes, phenakistoscopes, museum displays, and illusionistic stage magic. Amanda Shubert argues that interactions with these devices gave rise to a new virtual aesthetics – an understanding of visual and perceptual encounters with things that are not really there. The popularization of Victorian optical media redefined visuality as a rational mode of spectatorship that taught audiences to distinguish illusion from reality. As an aesthetic expression of a civilizational ideal that defined the capacity to see but not believe, to be entertained without being deceived, it became a sign of western supremacy. By tracing the development of virtual aesthetics through nineteenth-century writings, from the novels of George Eliot and Charles Dickens to popular science writing and imperial travelogues, Seeing Things recovers a formative period of technological and literary innovation to explain how optical media not only anticipated cinema but became a paradigmatic media aesthetic of western modernity.\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication date:\u003c\/strong\u003e 15 November 2025\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePage count:\u003c\/strong\u003e 252\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e Height 228 mm; Width 151 mm; Thickness 17 mm\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/strong\u003e Cornell University Press\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9781501784941\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Amanda Shubert","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50207520489722,"sku":"9781501784941","price":23.88,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0522\/4297\/2845\/files\/9781501784941.jpg?v=1788227909","url":"https:\/\/shulphink.com\/products\/seeing-things-9781501784941","provider":"Shulph Ink","version":"1.0","type":"link"}