This comprehensive collection offers a complete introduction to one
of the most popular literary forms of the Victorian period, its key
authors and works, its major themes, and its lasting legacy.
* Places key authors and novels in their cultural and historical
context
* Includes studies of major topics such as race, gender,
melodrama, theatre, poetry, realism in fiction, and connections to
other art forms
* Contributions from top international scholars approach an
important literary genre from a range of perspectives
* Offers both a pre and post-history of the genre to situate it
in the larger tradition of Victorian publishing and literature
* Incorporates coverage of traditional research and cutting-edge
contemporary scholarship
Table of Content
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Pamela K. Gilbert
Part I: Before Sensation, 1830-1860 11
1 ‘The Aristocracy and Upholstery’: The Silver Fork Novel 13
Ellen Miller Casey
2 Newgate Novels 26
Edward Jacobs and Manuela Mourão
3 ‘Literature of the Kitchen’: Cheap Serial Fiction of the 1840s and 1850s 38
Andrew King
4 Melodrama 54
Rohan Mc William
5 Sensation Theater 67
Heidi J. Holder
6 Gothic 81
Patrick R. O’Malley
7 Realism and Sensation Fiction 94
Daniel Brown
8 Poetry and Sensation 107
Kirstie Blair
Part II: Reading Individual Authors and Texts, 1860-1880 121
9 Mary Elizabeth Braddon 123
Lyn Pykett
10 Lady Audley’s Secret: How Does She Do It? Sensation Fiction’s Technologically Minded Villainesses 134
Louise Lee
11 ‘Going in a little for the subjective’: Textual and Moral Performance in The Doctor’s Wife 147
Richard Nemesvari
12 Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Aurora Floyd 160
Amy J. Robinson
13 Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Joshua Haggard’s Daughter 172
Anne-Marie Beller
14 Wilkie Collins and Risk 184
Daniel Martin
15 The Woman in White and the New Sensation 196
Elizabeth Langland
16 Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco: The Substances of Memory in The Moonstone 208
Susan Zieger
17 Ouida 220
Jane Jordan
18 Under Two Flags 232
Natalie Schroeder and Ronald A. Schroeder
19 Ellen (Mrs. Henry) Wood 244
Andrew Mangham
20 Mrs. Henry Wood, East Lynne 257
Marlene Tromp
21 Sheridan Le Fanu 269
Anna Maria Jones
22 Rhoda Broughton 281
Tamar Heller
23 Charles Reade 293
Tom Bragg
24 Ideologically Challenging: Florence Marryat and Sensation Fiction 306
Greta Depledge
25 Edmund Hodgson Yates 319
Andrew Radford
26 Sensational Variations on the Domestic Romance: Charlotte M. Brame and Mary Cecil Hay in the Family Herald 332
Graham Law
27 Amelia B. Edwards 349
Anne-Marie Beller
28 Dora Russell 361
Janice M. Allan
29 Short Fiction 374
Brittany Roberts
Part III: Topics in Scholarship 387
30 Critical Responses to Sensation 389
Deborah Wynne
31 Gender and Sensation 401
Emily Allen
32 Queer Sensation 414
Ross G. Forman
33 Class and Race in Sensation Fiction 430
Patrick Brantlinger
34 The Empire and Sensation 442
Lillian Nayder
35 Sensation Fiction and Religion 455
Mark Knight
36 Sensation and Science 466
Susan David Bernstein
37 Medicine and Sensation 481
Meegan Kennedy
38 Disability in Victorian Sensation Fiction 493
Martha Stoddard Holmes and Mark Mossman
39 The Law and Sensation 507
Jane Jordan
40 Sensation and Detection 516
Heather Milton
41 ‘Come Buy, Come Buy’: Sensation Fiction in the Context of Consumer and Commodity Culture 528
Kimberly Harrison
42 Sensation and Illustration 540
Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge
43 The Pre-Raphaelite Realism of the Sensation Novel 559
Sophia Andres
Part IV: After Sensation: Legacies 577
44 The Legacy of Sensation Fiction: Bodily Power in the New Woman Novel 579
Molly Youngkin
45 Corelli’s Religious Trilogy: Barabbas, The Sorrows of Satan, and The Master-Christian 591
R. Brandon Kershner
46 Realism after Sensation: Meredith, Hardy, Gissing 603
Tabitha Sparks
47 Aestheticism and Sensation 614
Talia Schaffer
48 Neo-Victorian and Pastiche 627
Grace Moore
Index 639
About the author
The Editor
PAMELA K. GILBERT is the Albert Brick Professor and Chair of the Department of English at the University of Florida. She has published widely in the areas of Victorian literature, cultural studies, and the history of medicine. Her books include Disease, Desire and the Body in Victorian Women’s Popular Novels (1997), Mapping the Victorian Social Body (2004), and Cholera and Nation (2008).
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