Transfictional Character and Transmedia Storyworlds in the British Nineteenth Century

This book is a study of how transfictional and transmedia storytelling emerges in the nineteenth century and how the periods receptive practices anticipate the receptive practices of fandom and transmedia storytelling franchises in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The central claim is that the serialized, periodical, and dramatic media environment of the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth century in Great Britain trained audiences to perceive the continuous identity of characters and worlds across disparate texts, illustrations, plays, and songs by creators other than the earliest originating author. The book contributes to fan studies, transmedia studies, and nineteenth-century periodical studies while also interrogating the nature of fictional character. Erica Haugtvedt is Assistant Professor of English in the Humanities Department at South Dakota Mines in Rapid City, South Dakota, USA. She specializes in nineteenth-century British literature, media and advertising history, and popular culture. She received her PhD in English from Ohio State University in 2015. She works on the serial Victorian novel and its contemporaneous adaptationsparticularly focusing on serial character across media. Her articles have appeared in Victorian Studies, Victorian Periodicals Review, Transformative Works and Cultures, and Victorian Popular Fictions Journal Acknowledgments Contents About the Author List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction: From Novel Studies to Fan Studies A Theory of Transfictional Character: Realism, Immersion, and Schemata Victorian Fandom? British Nineteenth-Century Transfictionality Chapter Organization Works Cited Chapter 2: Pickwick Abroad (1837–1838): Transfictional Character as Permanent Object An Old-Fashioned Tale Pickwick Abroad A Rivalry Master Humphrey’s Clock Reviving Pickwick Transfictional Character as Permanent Object Parallel Simulations: Performing Writing and Reading Works Cited Chapter 3: Jack Sheppard (1839–1840): Class and Complex Transfictional Character The Jack Sheppard Mania Rhetoric of Class and Literacy Victorian Intellectual Property Law and Transmediality Jack Sheppards History and Fiction Complex Transfictional Character Class Conflict Works Cited Chapter 4: Trilby (1894) in the Marketplace: fin de siècle Merchandising and Transfictional Character as Branded Object Trilby in the Marketplace Advertising and Serial Narration Publication History: Illustration, Advertisement, Literature The Novel: Trilby as Object Reception: Trilby in the Marketplace Works Cited Chapter 5: Sherlock Holmes (1887–1930): Believing in Character Sherlock Holmes in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals Naive Believers Ironic Believers: The Baker Street Irregulars Playing the Great Game The Final Problem: Retroactive Continuity and Resurrecting Sherlock Holmes As Spectral as the Hound Was the Later Holmes an Imposter? Enchanting the Real and the Imagined Works Cited Chapter 6: Afterword Works Cited Index