Charles Darwin and Alfred, Lord Tennyson were exact contemporaries, born in 1809, who came to have emblematic roles as representatives, respectively, of science and literature in the Victorian age. Their juxtaposition in this volume of essays is indicative of the easy commerce between literature and science during that period and provides a salutary reminder that the two categories need to be understood within their historical context rather than assumed to be trans-historical absolutes. Readers of Darwin and Tennyson included all the significant thinkers of the day, in every field. Two — John Ruskin and Thomas Henry Huxley — are given special attention in this collection, in which a range of twenty-first-century critics from various literary disciplines address issues raised by the interaction of Victorian literature and science.