Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T15:21:49.716Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Collins and the sensation novel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2007

Jenny Bourne Taylor
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Get access

Summary

[I]t is only natural that art and literature should, in an age which has turned out to one of events, attempt a kindred depth of effect and shock of incident . . . Sir Walter [Scott] himself never deprived his readers of their lawful rest to a greater extent with one novel than Mr Wilkie Collins has succeeded in doing with his ‘Woman in White’.

– Margaret Oliphant, ‘Sensation Novels’

The serialisation of The Woman in White in Charles Dickens's new weekly magazine, All the Year Round, between 26 November 1859 and 25 August 1860 has been heralded as the birth of the sensation novel, a fictional phenomenon that has been particularly associated with the 1860s. But what exactly was the sensation novel? Did Wilkie Collins and his contemporaries - such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Mrs Henry Wood, Charles Reade, Rhoda Broughton, 'Ouida' (Marie Louise De la Ramée) and Charlotte Riddell - consciously think of themselves as sensation novelists? Was the sensation novel actually a distinct genre or subgenre, or was it rather a label applied to a range of novels by certain kinds of reviewer to express and amplify a particular kind of cultural anxiety? This chapter begins by addressing some of these questions before going on to look at Collins as a sensation novelist, focusing on The Woman in White and No Name (1862).

At the end of the decade that had been dominated by sensations and sensationalism of one kind or another, Thomas Hardy characterised the sensation narrative as 'a long and intricately inwrought chain of circumstance', which usually involved 'murder, blackmail, illegitimacy, impersonation, eavesdropping, multiple secrets, a suggestion of bigamy, amateur and professional detectives'.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×