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Sensational Legacies: Tropes of Inheritance

  • Jessica CoxEmail author
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Abstract

This chapter explores the persistent return to the inheritance theme in neo-sensation fiction, its relationship to Victorian sensation fiction, and the implications of the pervasive use of the language of inheritance in neo-Victorian criticism. Drawing on various neo-Victorian narratives, notably Charles Palliser’s The Quincunx (1989), it examines the ways in which the inheritance theme in the neo-sensation novel is used to both construct and deconstruct the symbolic relationship between past and present. The latter part of the chapter considers the usefulness of the inheritance motif as a metaphor for understanding the relationship between Victorian sensation and neo-Victorian (specifically neo-sensation) fiction, particularly in relation to those ideas of literary hierarchy which have hitherto dominated discussions of the neo-Victorian canon.

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© The Author(s) 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Arts and HumanitiesBrunel UniversityLondonUK

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