Useful Knowledge: The Victorians, Morality, and the March of Intellect. By Alan Rauch. Durham and London: Duke Univ. Press, 2001. Pp. x + 292. $59.95 (cloth); $19.95 (paper).

Alan Rauch's study of the expansion and diffusion of "useful knowledge" during the first sixty years of the nineteenth century combines literary interpretation with science studies or, perhaps more accurately, with the history of the popularization of the sciences. The title reflects the Benthamite emphasis on the socially progressive character of science that was most in evidence during the reform decade of the 1830s. After the introduction, Rauch's first chapter provides an overview of the production and dissemination of what he calls "knowledge texts," including dictionaries and encyclopedias, the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK), and scientific primers and "catechisms" for children. Rauch acknowledges that these are just three out of many categories of pre- and early Victorian knowledge production.

Patrick Brantlinger