Cooking with Mud: The Idea of Mess in Nineteenth-century Art and Fiction

'To the extent that relativity and randomness will emerge as the hallmark of twentieth-century art and fiction, Trotter has shown, in a most exemplary fashion, how these elements are rooted in the last four decades of the nineteenth century' -Nineteenth-Century French Studies'An impressive and useful book, witty, learned and elegantly written' - Clive Wilmer, Times Literary SupplementMess is age-old and universal, as phenomenon and as topic. The evidence collected in this book suggests, however, that the second half of the nineteenth century saw the first stirrings in Western culture of a primary interest in mess for its own sake. Messes, like modern identities, happen by accident; their representation in painting and fictionDSfrom Turner to Degas, and from Melville to Maupassant and the New Woman writersDS made it possible to think boldly and inventively about chance.