The Age of Equipoise through W.L Burn used to be released in 1964 and have become a crucial textual content within the canon of interpretations of the Victorian interval. The e-book thus fell out of favour yet contemporary claims to set up a brand new interpretative average have, ironically, triggered reviewers to solid again to Burn's paintings because the orthodox usual opposed to which such claims will be judged. The essays during this quantity by way of British and American participants all have interaction, to various levels, with the concept of 'equipoise' and the way it might aid to light up the mid-Victorian interval in methods which replacement formulations can't. a number of the chapters improve arguments embedded in Burn's personal booklet; others absorb matters mostly absent within the Age of Equipoise, reminiscent of the placement of youngsters, Britain's interplay with the broader global, and the threats the interval skilled to its inspiration of masculine id. jointly the essays show the intricacy and turbulence of the forces of unity in Victorian society, in addition to the good fortune of that tradition achieve a operating, if transferring, modus vivendi. in addition, they substantiate the argument that, regardless of the obstacles of Burn's paintings, 'equipoise' merits rehabilitation as a strong conceptual framework for making experience of mid-Victorian Britain. concerning the Editor: Martin Hewitt is Director of the Leeds Centre for Victorian reports and editor of the magazine of Victorian tradition. With Robert Poole he has lately produced an version of The Diaries of Samuel Bamford, 1858-61 (Sutton, 2000).