Once a controversial genre of Victorian fiction that produced the major best sellers of its century, the now-forgotten sensation novel was a publishing phenomenon in its time. In a vivid portrait of this subversive and discomfiting popular literature, Winifred Hughes identifies its ingredients, its practitioners, and its implications, and reveals its significance both for the mid-Victorian consciousness and for the writers and readers of today. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This pioneering edition provides access to some of the most popular plays of the nineteenth century.

Victorian sensation novels, with their compulsive plots of crime, transgression and mystery, were bestsellers. Deborah Wynne analyses the fascinating relationships between sensation novels and the magazines in which they were serialized. Drawing upon the work of Wilkie Collins, Mary Braddon, Charles Dickens, Ellen Wood, and Charles Reade, and such popular family journals as All The Year Round, The Cornhill, and Once a Week , the author highlights how novels and magazines worked together to engage in the major cultural and social debates of the period.

In a fascinating study of what, during the last decade, rekindled an avid readership, Judith Wilt proposes a new theory of Gothic fiction that challenges its reputation as merely a formula to be outgrown or a stock of images for the creation of terror. Emphasizing instead its status as an enduring component of the imagination, she establishes the Gothic as the mothering" form for three other popular genres--detective, historical, and science fiction. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Murder fascinates readers, and when a woman murders, that fascination is compounded. The paradox of mother, lover, or wife as killer fills us with shock. A woman's violence is unexpected, unacceptable. Yet killing an abusive man can make her a cultural heroine. In Double Jeopardy, Virginia Morris examines the complex roots of contemporary attitudes toward women who kill by providing a new perspective on violent women in Victorian literature. British novelists from Dickens to Hardy, in their characterizations, contradicted the traditional Western assumption that women criminals were "unnatural." The strongest evidence of their view is that the novelists make the women's victims deserve their violent death. Yet the women characters who commit murder are punished because their sympathetic Victorian creators had internalized the cultural biases that expected women to be passive and subservient. Fictional women, like their real-life counterparts, were doubly guilty: in defying the law, they also defied their gender role. Because they were "unwomanly," they were thought worse than male criminals—more vicious and more incorrigible. At the same time, they often got special treatment from the police and the courts simply because they were women. These contradictory attitudes reveal the critical significance of gender in defining criminal behavior and in fixing punishments. Morris provides literary and historical background for the novelists' ideas about women killers and traces the evolving notion that abused or misused women were capable of using justifiable—if unforgivable—violence. She argues that the criminal women in Victorian literature epitomize the ambivalent position of women generally and the particular vulnerability of a deviant minority. Her book is a valuable resource for readers concerned with criminology, literature, and feminist studies.

Accessible and comprehensive account of the sensation novel of the nineteenth century.

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

A Wilkie Collins Songbook consists of twenty-seven “everyday pieces” (three of them in two different versions each) that either appear in the novels and short stories of the Victorian author Wilkie Collins (1824–89) or were inspired by them. There is an overture for a stage production on which Collins collaborated with Charles Dickens; a number of pieces that reflect the popularity of The Woman in White (1860), which rocketed Collins to superstardom; and, forming the heart of the anthology, twenty ballads, patriotic songs, and traditional tunes that would have been well known to Collins's English (and American) readers. Among the twenty-two composers represented are: Francesco Berger (a regular at Dickens’s Sunday-evening card games); the prolific Walter Burnot, whose business card read “Songs Written While You Wait”; Charles Dibdin, and John Davy, as well as four women: Frances Arkwright, Clara Angela Macirone, Virtue Millard, and the mysterious American called “The Veiled Lady.” In all, the songbook provides an informative and entertaining romp through the everyday music of “Wilkie’s World.”

The Routledge Companion to Victorian Literature offers 45 chapters by leading international scholars working with the most dynamic and influential political, cultural, and theoretical issues addressing Victorian literature today. Scholars and students will find this collection both useful and inspiring. Rigorously engaged with current scholarship that is both historically sensitive and theoretically informed, the Routledge Companion places the genres of the novel, poetry, and drama and issues of gender, social class, and race in conversation with subjects like ecology, colonialism, the Gothic, digital humanities, sexualities, disability, material culture, and animal studies. This guide is aimed at scholars who want to know the most significant critical approaches in Victorian studies, often written by the very scholars who helped found those fields. It addresses major theoretical movements such as narrative theory, formalism, historicism, and economic theory, as well as Victorian models of subjects such as anthropology, cognitive science, and religion. With its lists of key works, rich cross-referencing, extensive bibliographies, and explications of scholarly trajectories, the book is a crucial resource for graduate students and advanced undergraduates, while offering invaluable support to more seasoned scholars.