A companion to sensation fiction (series: blackwell companions to literature and culture)

The Victorian era saw a huge proliferation of fiction, with novels finding the largest audience they had ever enjoyed. This comprehensive collection offers a complete introduction to sensation fiction, one of the most popular, and criticized, forms of the period.

Contributions from some of the best scholars from around the world place key authors and novels in their cultural and historical context, and bring to bear a range of perspectives to explore important related issues, including law, publishing history, poetry, theatre, visual art, race, and gender.

Examining both the pre and post-history of the genre, to situate it in the larger tradition of Victorian publishing and literature, this companion is the definitive guide to a hugely influential literary movement and the major topics in its production and reception.

Notes on Contributors.

Introduction (Pamela K. Gilbert).

Part I: Before Sensation, 1830-1860.

1 The Aristocracy and Upholstery : The Silver Fork Novel (Ellen Miller Casey).

2 Newgate Novels (Edward Jacobs and Manuela Mourão).

3 Literature of the Kitchen : Cheap Serial Fiction of the 1840s and 1850s (Andrew King).

4 Melodrama (Rohan McWilliam).

5 Sensation Theater (Heidi J. Holder).

6 Gothic (Patrick R. O Malley).

7 Realism and Sensation Fiction (Daniel Brown).

8 Poetry and Sensation (Kirstie Blair).

Part II: Reading Individual Authors and Texts, 1860-1880.

9 Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Lyn Pykett).

10 Lady Audley s Secret: How Does She Do It? Sensation Fiction s Technologically Minded Villainesses (Louise Lee).

11 Going in a little for the subjective : Textual and Moral Performance in The Doctor s Wife (Richard Nemesvari).

12 Mary Elizabeth Braddon s Aurora Floyd (Amy J. Robinson).

13 Mary Elizabeth Braddon s Joshua Haggard s Daughter (Anne-Marie Beller).

14 Wilkie Collins and Risk (Daniel Martin).

15 The Woman in White and the New Sensation (Elizabeth Langland).

16 Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco: The Substances of Memory in The Moonstone (Susan Zieger).

17 Ouida (Jane Jordan).

18 Under Two Flags (Natalie Schroeder and Ronald A. Schroeder).

19 Ellen (Mrs. Henry) Wood (Andrew Mangham).

20 Mrs. Henry Wood, East Lynne (Marlene Tromp).

21 Sheridan Le Fanu (Anna Maria Jones).

22 Rhoda Broughton (Tamar Heller).

23 Charles Reade (Tom Bragg).

24 Ideologically Challenging: Florence Marryat and Sensation Fiction (Greta Depledge).

25 Edmund Hodgson Yates (Andrew Radford).

26 Sensational Variations on the Domestic Romance: Charlotte M. Brame and Mary Cecil Hay in the Family Herald (Graham Law).

27 Amelia B. Edwards (Anne-Marie Beller).

28 Dora Russell (Janice M. Allan).

29 Short Fiction (Brittany Roberts).

Part III: Topics in Scholarship.

30 Critical Responses to Sensation (Deborah Wynne).

31 Gender and Sensation (Emily Allen).

32 Queer Sensation (Ross G. Forman).

33 Class and Race in Sensation Fiction (Patrick Brantlinger).

34 The Empire and Sensation (Lillian Nayder).

35 Sensation Fiction and Religion (Mark Knight).

36 Sensation and Science (Susan David Bernstein).

37 Medicine and Sensation (Meegan Kennedy).

38 Disability in Victorian Sensation Fiction (Martha Stoddard Holmes and Mark Mossman).

39 The Law and Sensation (Jane Jordan).

40 Sensation and...