Victorian Fiction Beyond the Canon (Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture)

This Book Is About Selected Victorian Texts And Authors That In Many Cases Have Never Before Been Subject To Sustained Scholarly Attention. Taking Inspiration From The Pioneeringly Capacious Approach To The Hidden Hinterland Of Victorian Fiction Adopted By Scholars Like John Sutherland And Franco Moretti, This Energetically Revisionist Volume Takes Advantage Of Recent Large-scale Digitisation Projects That Allow Unprecedented Access To Hitherto Neglected Literary Texts And Archives. Blending Lively Critical Engagement With Individual Texts And Close Attention To Often Surprising Trends In The Production And Reception Of Prose Fiction Across The Victorian Era, This Book Will Be Of Use To Anyone Interested In Re-evaluating The Received Meta-narratives Of Victorian Literary History. Introduction: Exploring The Hinterland Of Victorian Fiction / Daragh Downes, Trish Ferguson -- Prize Novelists And Condensed Novels: Thackeray And Bret Harte / Michael Slater -- Before New Grub Street: Thomas Miller And The Contingencies Of Authorship / Adam Abraham -- Emboldening The Weak: Early Fiction Of James Anthony Froude / Ciaran Brady -- George Borrow: The Scholar, The Gipsy, The Priest / Monika Mazurek -- Sensation Fiction As Social Activism: Charles Reade's It Is Never Too Late To Mend And Felicia Skene's Hidden Depths / Elizabeth Andrews -- Sheer Luck, Holmes? Clues Towards Canon Formation In Victorian Detective Fiction / Daragh Downes -- Politics Of The Strange And Unusual: Mesmerism And The Medical Professional In Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Dr. Carrick (1878) / Samantha J.m. Aliu -- Silas K. Hocking, Her Benny, And The Poetics Of The Prolific / Christopher Pittard -- Henry Hawley Smart's The Great Tontine And The Art Of Book-making / Trish Ferguson -- Double Standards: Reading The Revolutionary Doppelgänger In The Prophet's Mantle / Matthew Ingleby -- Richard Marsh And The Realist Gothic: Pursuing Traces Of An Evasive Author In His Fin-de-siècle Popular Fiction / Ailise Bulfin -- Dat Cura Commodum, Or, A Portrait Of A Deviant Mind: Arthur Griffith's The Rome Express, John Milne's The Express Series And Late-victorian Detective Fiction / Paul Raphael Rooney -- Afterword From The Hinterland / John Sutherland. Daragh Downes, Trish Ferguson, Editors ; With An Afterword By John Sutherland. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 249-264) And Index. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction: Exploring the Hinterland of Victorian Fiction....Pages 1-15 Prize Novelists and Condensed Novels: Thackeray and Bret Harte....Pages 17-29 Before New Grub Street: Thomas Miller and the Contingencies of Authorship....Pages 31-44 Emboldening the Weak: The Early Fiction of James Anthony Froude....Pages 45-70 George Borrow: The Scholar, The Gipsy, The Priest....Pages 71-86 Sensation Fiction as Social Activism: Charles Reade’s It Is Never Too Late to Mend and Felicia Skene’s Hidden Depths ....Pages 87-103 Sheer Luck, Holmes? Clues Towards Canon Formation in Victorian Detective Fiction....Pages 105-123 Politics of the Strange and Unusual: Mesmerism and the Medical Professional in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s ‘Dr.Carrick’ (1878)....Pages 125-142 Silas K. Hocking, Her Benny, and the Poetics of the Prolific....Pages 143-161 Henry Hawley Smart’s The Great Tontine and the Art of Book-Making....Pages 163-179 Double Standards: Reading the Revolutionary Doppelgänger in The Prophet’s Mantle ....Pages 181-199 Richard Marsh and the Realist Gothic: Pursuing Traces of an Evasive Author in His Fin-de-Siècle Popular Fiction....Pages 201-217 Dat Cura Commodum or A Portrait of a Deviant Mind: Arthur Griffiths’s The Rome Express, John Milne’s ‘The Express Series’ and Late-Victorian Detective Fiction....Pages 219-237 Afterword from the Hinterland....Pages 239-247 Back Matter....Pages 249-273 La 4e de couverture indique : "This book is about selected Victorian texts and authors that in many cases have never before been subject to sustained scholarly attention. Taking inspiration from the pioneeringly capacious approach to the hidden hinterland of Victorian fiction adopted by scholars like John Sutherland and Franco Moretti, this energetically revisionist volume takes advantage of recent large-scale digitisation projects that allow unprecedented access to hitherto neglected literary texts and archives. Blending lively critical engagement with individual texts and close attention to often surprising trends in the production and reception of prose fiction across the Victorian era, this book will be of use to anyone interested in re-evaluating the received meta-narratives of Victorian literary history."