On the Sensational in Literature

  • Maurizio Ascari
Chapter
Part of the Crime Files Series book series (CF)

Abstract

One can hardly study the development of nineteenth-century crime fiction without giving sensation fiction its due. After reaching its climax in the 1860s and 1870s, the sensation vogue lost momentum at the end of the century, precisely when detective fiction was asserting itself as a literary phenomenon. At its peak, however, sensationalism not only enjoyed a vast success in terms of sales, enthralling the reading public, but was also at the heart of a heated critical debate, which included several long essays in literary magazines such as Blackwood’s, The Argosy and Belgravia where the aesthetic and ethical import of the movement as a whole was placed under discussion. As Lyn Pykett claims, ‘the sensation genre was a journalistic construct, a label attached by reviewers to novels whose plots centred on criminal deeds, or social transgressions and illicit passions’.1 What makes the case of sensation fiction so interesting is precisely the close interaction between literary and critical works, that is to say the battle engaged in by opposite factions either in favour of or against a literary movement that thrived on scandal.

Keywords

French Revolution Innocent Person Immense Popularity Ethical Import Crime Literature 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. 1.
    Lyn Pykett, ‘The Newgate Novel and Sensation Fiction, 1830–1868’, in The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction, ed. Martin Priestman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 33.Google Scholar
  2. 2.
    William Wordsworth, ‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)’, in The Prose Works, 3 vols, eds W.J.B. Owen and Jane Worthington Smyser (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), Vol. I, p. 128.Google Scholar
  3. 3.
    G.K. Craik, ‘Old London Rogueries’, in London, ed. Charles Knight, 6 vols, Vol. IV (London: Charles Knight, 1843), p. 146.Google Scholar
  4. 4.
    Henry Thomson, ‘Le Revenant’ (1827), in Tales of Terror from Blackwood’s Magazine, eds Robert Morrison and Chris Baldick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 73–4.Google Scholar
  5. 5.
    E.A. Poe, ‘How to Write a Blackwood’s Article’, in The Complete Illustrated Stories and Poems (London: Chancellor Press, 1994), p. 652.Google Scholar
  6. 6.
    Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Lucretia; or, The Children of the Night, in Cult Criminals: the Newgate Novels 1830–1847, ed. Juliet John, 6 vols (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), III, p. x.Google Scholar
  7. 7.
    See Andrew Motion, Wainewright the Poisoner (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000).Google Scholar
  8. 8.
    See Charles Swann, ‘Wainewright the Poisoner: a Source for Blandois/Rigaud?’, Notes and Queries, 35 (233) (3 September 1988): 321–2.Google Scholar
  9. 10.
    H.L. Mansel, ‘Sensation Novels’, Quarterly Review, 113:226 (April 1863), p. 490.Google Scholar
  10. 12.
    Henry James, ‘Miss Braddon’ (Nation, 9 November 1865), in Wilkie Collins: the Critical Heritage, ed. Norman Page (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), p. 122.Google Scholar
  11. 18.
    Clive Bloom, Cult Fiction: Popular Reading and Pulp Theory (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. 22.
    See Henry James, ‘Matilde Serao’, in Notes on Novelists: With Some Other Notes (New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1969), pp. 294–313.Google Scholar
  13. 37.
    G.A. Sala, ‘On the “Sensational” in Literature and Art’, Belgravia, 4 (February 1868): 456.Google Scholar
  14. 39.
    M.E. Braddon, ‘The Sensation Novel’, The Argosy, 18 (July–December 1874): 142.Google Scholar
  15. 43.
    Patricia Craig and Mary Cadogan, The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 30.Google Scholar
  16. 46.
    Jennifer Carnell, The Literary Lives of Mary Elizabeth Braddon: a Study of Her Life and Work (Hastings: The Sensation Press, 2000), p. 239.Google Scholar
  17. 48.
    M.E. Braddon, Rough Justice, 2 vols (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1898), Vol. I, p. 154.Google Scholar
  18. 49.
    M.E. Braddon, His Darling Sin (Hastings: The Sensation Press, 2001), p. 44.Google Scholar
  19. 51.
    Ronald R. Thomas, Detective Fiction and the Rise of Forensic Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 3.Google Scholar
  20. 55.
    Leonée Ormond, George Du Maurier (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 145–8.Google Scholar
  21. 56.
    M.E. Braddon, The Doctor’s Wife, ed. Lyn Pykett (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998). p. 11.Google Scholar
  22. 60.
    See Bret Harte, Condensed Novels (New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1902), pp. 57–73, 163–83.Google Scholar
  23. 61.
    Frederick Paget, Lucretia; or, The Heroine of the Nineteenth Century: a Correspondence, Sensational and Sentimental (London: Joseph Masters, 1868), p. 112.Google Scholar
  24. 65.
    See Andrew Lang, Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1913), pp. 146–54.Google Scholar
  25. 66.
    See William M. Clarke, The Secret Life of Wilkie Collins (London: Allison & Busby, 1988), pp. 134–9.Google Scholar
  26. 67.
    See Julian Thompson, Note on ‘The Dream Woman’, in Wilkie Collins. The Complete Shorter Fiction, ed. Julian Thompson (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1995), p. 143.Google Scholar
  27. 71.
    Ned Albert, East Lynne: Mrs. Henry Wood’s Celebrated Novel Made into a Spirited and Powerful Mellow Drammer in Three Acts (New York and London: Samuel French, 1941), p. 3.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Maurizio Ascari 2007

Authors and Affiliations

  • Maurizio Ascari

There are no affiliations available

Personalised recommendations