Guides: ENG 465 Crime & Horror in Victorian Literature: Home

Online Books

The Nineteenth-Century Sensation Novel by Lynn Pykett
ISBN: 9780746312124
Publication Date: 2011-12-30
First published in 1994, Lyn Pykett's The Sensation Novel from 'The Woman in White' to 'The Moonstone' charted the re-emergence into critical view of a nineteenth-century fictional genre which had, in its own day, enjoyed immense popular success and given rise to heated critical and moral debates This revised and expanded version, retitled The Nineteenth Century Sensation Novel, responds to recent developments, taking account of recent studies of the genre, and expanding both the range of authors covered and its discussion of the authors originally included.
From Wollstonecraft to Stoker: Essays on Gothic and Victorian Sensation Fiction by Marilyn Brock (Editor)
ISBN: 9780786440214
Publication Date: 2009-06-30
This collection of 13 essays examines the work of Victorian authors Wilkie Collins, M.E. Braddon, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Mary Wollstonecraft, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James and Charlotte Brontë. Each essay explores their use of archetypal Gothic elements, such as dark secrets and forbidden sensations, to depict nineteenth-century attitudes to class, gender, race, colonialism and imperialism.
Understanding Jane Eyre: a student casebook to issues, sources, and historical documents by Debra Teachman
ISBN: 9780313309397
Publication Date: 2001-05-30
This student casebook offers a unique interdisciplinary approach to the study of Charlotte Bronte's landmark novel. While it gives insightful literary analysis, it also contextualizes the novel in terms of the historical social issues it confronts. Expert commentary is supported with primary documents from legal and medical treatises, magazine articles, letters, essays and first hand accounts.
Bram Stoker's Dracula: a reader's guide by William Hughes
ISBN: 9781441128362
Publication Date: 2009-05-09
Introduces context, language, themes, criticism and afterlife, setting Dracula in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure, providing exemplary close readings, presenting an up-to-date account of its critical reception.
Fan Phenomena: Sherlock Holmes by Tom Ue
ISBN: 9781783202744
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Few could have predicted the enduring fascination with the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes. Though fervid fan behaviour is often mis-characterized as a modern phenomenon, the historical roots of fan manifestation that have been largely forgotten are revived.

Journals

Victorian Studies [Vol. 42, no. 2 (1999/00) through current issue]
Victorian Studies, which began publication in 1956, is devoted to the study of English culture of the Victorian period. It includes interdisciplinary articles on comparative literature, social and political history, and the histories of education, philosophy, fine arts, economics, law, and science.
Nineteenth-Century Literature
Scholars of literary history and theory turn to Nineteenth-Century Literature for the newest research and thought on all English-language writers of the nineteenth century. Every issue offers 150 pages of important articles, a convenient section of article abstracts, review essays, and an annotated bibliography of recent books published in the field of nineteenth-century literature.
Victorian Literature and Culture [full-text v. 32 (2004)-v.44(2016) request other articles via interlibrary loan)
Encourages high quality original work concerned with all areas of Victorian literature and culture, including music and the fine arts. The journal presents work at the cutting edge of current research, including exciting new studies in untouched subjects or new methodologies.
Victorian Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Victorian Studies [Preview available; request article via interlibrary loan]
"Our mandate is to publish the best original international research in this interdisciplinary field, as well as to provide critical reviews of new books in Victorian studies by experts from around the world. Finally, our regular Victorian Review forum provides a unique venue in which diverse scholarly voices may address a topic from multiple points of view."

Online Reference Books

The Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature by Dino Franco Felluga; Pamela Gilbert; Linda K. Hughes (Editorial Board Members
ISBN: 1118405382
Publication Date: 2015-08-17
The Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature spans the full sweep of literary genres, figures, and global reach that define this influential period, blending accessibility with an unmatched breadth of coverage and authoritative scholarship.
Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens by Paul Schlicke (Editor)
Call Number: Online in Oxford Reference Online
ISBN: 9780198662532
Publication Date: 2000-12-14
More than 500 alphabetical entries chart the age in which Dickens lived and worked, the places which were significant to him, and the ideas and social theories of his time. Also included is a complete chronology of Dickens's life, a list of characters and of abbreviations, a thematic overview, an extensive bibliography, and over 50 beautiful black-and-white illustrations and four maps to complement the volume.

Welcome

Warhol, Andy. Dracula, 1981. Photograph. Colby College Museum of Art; gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Available on ARTstor.

Course Description

The Victorians were as fascinated by the nature of crime and horror as we are today. As technology and other cultural changes seemed to rush them towards an unknown and perhaps terrifying future fraught with scientific advances that shook traditional beliefs, the Victorian imagination took flight. The resulting literature explored transgressions both physical and spiritual, deploying characters in new ways that pitted smug, middle-class values against nefarious social and metaphysical demons. The reading for this class will include literature across genres that explores the way the Victorians wrestled with deviance from social norms in both the natural and the supernatural realms.