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 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 McWilliam

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...