Once upon a time, there was a heroine . She was beautiful and bewitching, and enchanted everyone she met, from servants to royalty. But, despite her attractions, this heroine , people said, was BAD, and exerted a dangerous, poisonous influence on those around her. Nevertheless, her star shone bright, for a short time at least, until eventually she died, and was replaced by other, more worthy heroines . For a long timeâover a hundred yearsâshe lay hidden in an unmarked grave, until eventually her name was once again brought into the light, her true worth recognised, and the memory of her deeds restored.
So goes the oft-told tale of the Victorian sensation novel and its fate. It is one of resounding commercial success in the mid-nineteenth century, accompanied by critical disdain, followed by a fall into obscurity a few decades later, before its subsequent revival in the late twentieth century when sensation fiction once again became the focus of critical and cultural attention. And so, it seems, the sensation novel will live happily ever after, its cultural significance and popular success now firmly established. But this is not quite the full story. The genreâs revival in the late twentieth century is a critical misperception, for it never truly disappeared. Rather, like the heroines that populate its pages, the sensation novel adopted a series of disguises, and, concealing its true identity , went out into the world in a variety of different forms, exerting its influence on popular and âhighâ culture throughout the twentieth century. Some of these disguises barely concealed their roots: radio , screen , and stage productions of sensation fiction have appeared regularlyâfrom Victorian theatre productions through to twenty-first-century adaptations1; several of Wilkie Collinsâs novels remained in print, and he was the subject of critical attention throughout the twentieth century, although in the early decades critics preferred to emphasise his relationship with Dickens rather than his affinity with Mary Elizabeth Braddon , Mrs Henry Wood , and other sensation writers. Other disguises proved more effective: a range of popular fiction genres (especially detective fiction) and radio and television serials drew heavily on the conventions of the sensation novel, whilst rarely referencing it explicitly, and several of the genreâs key texts served as intertexts for new cultural productions. Meanwhile, the critical debate around popular culture and its value, begun by Victorian reviewers critiquing the sensation novel, continued throughout the twentieth century, with notable early contributors including Q. D. Leavis and Margaret Dalziel .2 All of this preceded the genreâs subsequent alleged ârevivalâ from the 1980s onwards, which has seen a marked increase in scholarship and in cultural productions influenced by the genre . The emergence of neo-Victorian studies in the last twenty years has further highlighted the afterlife of Victorian fiction, and it is a primary contention of this book that neo-Victorianism continues the legacy of the sensation novel, both explicitly and implicitly.
This study traces the diverse and complex legacy of sensation fiction from the nineteenth century to the present day, and in doing so seeks to address two significant gaps in scholarship to date: the pervasive and wide-ranging influence of the sensation novel on twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and culture, and the role of sensation fiction within neo-Victorian literature, culture, and critical discourses. I consider a diverse range of writers, works, and forms, including popular fiction of the early- and mid-twentieth century by writers such as Agatha Christie and Daphne Du Maurier , contemporary historical detective novels, the literary fiction of authors including Charles Palliser and Joanne Harris , recent Young Adult (YA) works, as well as stage and screen productions, in order to demonstrate the hitherto unacknowledged diversity of the legacy of Victorian sensation fiction. This work represents the first extended study of the afterlife of sensation fiction.3 It is concerned with intertexutality, metatextuality , adaptation, influence, and genre , but also with notions of literary hierarchy, with the role of popular fiction within critical debates, and with the emergence and development of neo-Victorian critical thought. It explores the tensions between popular and literary fiction in relation to cultural reimaginings of the sensation novel, which range from Sarah Watersâs Booker-nominated Fingersmith (2002; a part-reworking of Collinsâs The Woman in White [1860]) to popular historical detective series by authors such as Tasha Alexander and Emily Brightwell , as well as considering multiple stage and screen adaptations of sensation fiction. This study maps out in more detail than has hitherto been attempted the range and diversity of the sensation novelâs legacy, and in so doing offers an important new angle on the growing body of literature which challenges earlier critical dismissals of the sensation novel as a âminor subgenre of British fictionâ.4 It also seeks to expand the critical debate around neo-Victorianism by arguing for the central role of popular fiction and culture in establishing and defining the relationship between contemporary and Victorian culture. To this end, then, this study marks a significant intervention into both Victorian and neo-Victorian studies.
Whilst the study encompasses discussion of a wide range of works, there is a particular focus on forms of popular culture. The reason for this is two-fold: to demonstrate the extensive legacy of sensation fiction within popular culture (in contrast to prevailing critical emphasis on its legacy within neo-Victorian literary fiction); and to illustrate the role of popular culture within neo-Victorianism (and in doing so call for a more expansive definition of the form). There is some discussion of what might be termed âtraditionalâ neo-Victorian literary fiction (Palliserâs The Quincunx [1989], Harrisâs Sleep, Pale Sister [1994]) but this is limitedâin part because the scholarship on sensation fiction and neo-Victorianism which has appeared to date tends to privilege âliteraryâ reworkings. Though this speaks to the diversity of the sensation novelâs legacy, and its transformation from popular fiction into something more ârespectableâ, it also functions as a means of cultural appropriation, and in this respect reflects the sensibilities of neo-Victorian criticism : ironically, in the early years of the discipline at least, only âhighbrowâ reimaginings of sensation fiction were considered appropriate forms for critical investigation. This study seeks to address this hierarchical approach to the sensation novelâs legacy, and to consider its influence on a much wider range of cultural forms, including detective and Gothic historical fiction, and popular stage and screen adaptations. Though, as the title indicates, this work is concerned with neo-Victorianism , one of its central aims is to challenge the chronological and cultural conceptual boundaries of the discipline established in some of its key critical works.
This introductory chapter begins the process of unpicking the relationship between sensation fiction and the emergent discipline of neo-Victorian studies, ...