Sensation novel

For the theatrical work by W. S. Gilbert and Thomas German Reed, see A Sensation Novel.

The sensation novel, also sensation fiction, was a literary genre of fiction that achieved peak popularity in Great Britain in between the early 1860s and mid to late 1890s,[1] centering taboo material shocking to its readers as a means of musing on contemporary social anxieties.

Its literary forebears included the melodramatic novels and the Newgate novels, which focused on tales woven around criminal biographies; it also drew on the Gothic, romance, as well as mass market genres. The genre's popularity was conjoined to an expanding book market and growth of a reading public, by-products of the Industrial Revolution.[2] Whereas romance and realism had traditionally been contradictory modes of literature, they were brought together in sensation fiction. The sensation novelists commonly wrote stories that were allegorical and abstract; the abstract nature of the stories gave the authors room to explore scenarios that wrestled with the social anxieties[3] of the Victorian era. The loss of identity is seen in many sensation fiction stories because this was a common social anxiety; in Britain, there was an increased use in record keeping[4] and therefore people questioned the meaning and permanence of identity. The social anxiety regarding identity is reflected in novels such as The Woman in White and Lady Audley's Secret.[5]

Sensation fiction is commonly seen to have emerged as a definable genre in the wake of three novels: Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (1860); Mrs. Henry Wood's East Lynne (1861); and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862).[6] Perhaps the earliest use of the term "sensation fiction" as a name for such novels appears in the 1861 edition of the Saunders, Otley, & co.'s Literary Budget.[7]

Sensation novels were the precursor of pulp fiction, which were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955.[8][9]

  1. ^ I. Ousby ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (1995) p. 844
  2. ^ Muller, C. "Victorian Sensationalism: The Short Stories of Wilkie Collins." Unisa English Studies. 11.1 (1973): 12-13. Web. 8 Jun. 2014.
  3. ^ Hughes, Winifred. The Maniac in the Cellar. Princeton: Princeton University, 1980. Print.
  4. ^ Pykett, Lyn. "The Newgate novel and sensation fiction, 1830-1868." Crime Fiction. Ed. Martin Priestman. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2003. 19-39. Print
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference auto1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Loesberg, Jonathan. Ideology of Narrative Form in Sensation. University of California, 1986. JSTOR. Web. 10 Jun. 2014.
  7. ^ Saunders, Otley, & Co.'s. "Literature." Literary Budget 1 Nov. 1861: 38. Web. 10 Jun. 2014.
  8. ^ Hoglund, Johan (2016-03-16). The American Imperial Gothic: Popular Culture, Empire, Violence. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-04519-9.
  9. ^ Acting with the Voice: The Art of Recording Books. Hal Leonard Corporation. 2004. ISBN 978-0-87910-301-9.