Abstract

Stiff upper lips, cold showers and playing the game - the still constant references to ideas like this show how deeply the Victorian concept of manliness has permeated British and American society. To the early Victorians, mannliness represented a concern with a successful transition from Christian immaturity to maturity, demonstrated by earnestness, selflessness and integrity; but to the late Victorians it stood for neo-Spartan virility as exemplified by stoicism, hardiness and endurance - the pre-eminent qualities of the famous English public school system. On both sides of the Atlantic, manliness became a cult so potent that it formed, in effect, a distinctive and powerful moral code of conduct. This collection of new essays seeks to compare and contrast the British and American experience, by looking at such institutions as schools, boy scouts, universities, the army and sport. Umschlagtext