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Sensation Stories: the Life of British Short Fiction in the Age of Victorian Sensation

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Sensation Stories: the Life of British Short Fiction in the Age of Victorian Sensation SENSATION STORIES: THE LIFE OF BRITISH SHORT FICTION IN THE AGE OF VICTORIAN SENSATION By BRITTANY ROBERTS A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2016 1 © 2016 Brittany Roberts 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The many years it has taken to see this project through to completion means many people to thank for their support and contributions along the way. First, I thank my mentor and committee chair Pamela Gilbert for defying every stereotype of the absent, unresponsive advisor. Her insightful feedback, quick replies, and unwavering encouragement has had a huge hand in shaping this project, and I am so grateful to her for making herself available in so many essential ways. I am also deeply appreciative of Judy Page, Chris Snodgrass, and Eric Kligerman for not only their service on the committee but for their ideas and advice as this project has developed. Too, I thank the members of the dissertation writing group at the University of Florida for the insight they provided in the early stages of the drafting process, and in particular, I thank my writing partner John Wiehl for the accountability he provided at every stage of writing, as well as for his ongoing reassurance and enthusiasm. I would be remiss not to acknowledge the outpouring of support I have received from my colleagues at Broward College. In particular, John Glenn and Jamie Martin have done due diligence to talk me down from the ledge on a number of occasions as I imperfectly learned to navigate an intense full-time teaching load with researching and writing. In addition, the support from the entire department of English on South Campus and from so many other friends truly inspired me to work hard and complete this project. I am humbled by their persistent belief in me. Lastly, I thank my family: my parents for helping me prioritize learning and insisting that I be the first in my family to graduate from college, my children, Adrian and Ethan, for teaching me patience and resiliency, and most significantly, my partner in marriage and life, Kyle, without whose love and support I would never be writing these words. I am so lucky to be surrounded by such patience, intelligence, and compassion. Cheers to the next chapter. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................3 ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................6 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................8 2 SHORT FICTION IN THE AGE OF VICTORIAN SENSATION .......................................24 The Rise of the British Short Story.........................................................................................31 Spectacular Fiction .................................................................................................................36 Mary Elizabeth Braddon .........................................................................................................42 Freedom to Experiment ..........................................................................................................46 “Ralph the Bailiff” ..................................................................................................................49 The Subversive Supernatural ..................................................................................................55 “The Cold Embrace” ...............................................................................................................57 “The Shadow in the Corner” ...................................................................................................59 “Her Last Appearance” ...........................................................................................................62 The Less Sensational Braddon................................................................................................66 3 THE PERIODICAL WITH A SECRET: INTERTEXTUAL EDITING AND GOTHIC PARADIGMS IN THE CULTURE OF SENSATION ..........................................................78 Overview of All the Year Round Editing History ...................................................................85 No Name .................................................................................................................................89 Home.......................................................................................................................................99 Leaving Home ......................................................................................................................106 “Out of the House of Bondage” ............................................................................................113 Returning Home....................................................................................................................119 4 “EXTRAORDINARY APPARITIONS”: GHOST STORIES, SENSATION, AND THE WOMAN IN WHITE .............................................................................................................124 5 COMPARING LONG AND SHORT SENSATION FICTION: AFFECT, INTUITION, AND APPEAL......................................................................................................................162 Differentiating Short and Long Sensation Fiction ................................................................168 Tracing Themes in Wilkie Collins’s Short and Long Sensation Fiction ..............................172 Impressions, Suspicions, and Identity in Sensational Short Fiction .....................................183 From “St. Martin’s Eve” to St. Martin’s Eve ........................................................................190 From “The Murdered Cousin” to Uncle Silas ......................................................................195 The Appeal and Danger of Short and Long Sensation Fiction .............................................201 4 6 CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................208 WORKS CITED ..........................................................................................................................213 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................231 5 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy SENSATION STORIES: THE LIFE OF BRITISH SHORT FICTION IN THE AGE OF VICTORIAN SENSATION By Brittany Roberts May 2016 Chair: Pamela K. Gilbert Major: English This dissertation interrogates the neglect of short fiction in studies of Victorian sensation, arguing that the form not only offered important contributions to the genre that have been overlooked, but indeed, that the sensational market culture that created new standards for defining literary merit likewise provided the conditions for the British short story to grow and flourish in the mid-nineteenth century. Considering the role of short fiction in sensational discourse from several angles—market conditions, readership and reception, theme, and form—I argue that short periodical works are necessary to understanding the nexus of consumerism, mass marketing, social anxiety, and literary production that first peaked in the 1860s, those things that have largely come to organize our understanding of what was so “sensational” about this historical moment. Not unlike the sensation novel that privileged exciting narrative over character development while stressing the superficial and unstable nature of middle-class life, short fiction as a marginal periodical form at mid-century centered on entertainment for a moment over lasting artistic impression while also offering an opportunity for marginalized voices to participate in and even direct conversations about social and political injustice. Writers of short stories could take up sensational themes in their work that one might expect from a 6 Braddon or Collins novel—mistaken identity, excessive passion, family secrets, shocking revelations, and so forth—without the labyrinthine plotting, but the extraordinary conditions surrounding the publication, transmission, and reception of these works make it a sensational form regardless of whether the content is shocking or dull. The life of the British short story was, in ways that extend beyond just narrative or theme, emphatically sensational. 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION These unfortunate masses! . [T]heir leisure, brief and rapid, and sharpened with the day’s fatigue, loves, above all things, a story, and finds in that just the amount of mental excitation which makes it somehow a semi-intellectual pleasure. For it is a story for the story’s sake; not a story because it is a good story—a work of genius—a revelation of nature. Merit is quite a secondary consideration; it is the narrative which is the thing . It is the tale which is wanted. – Margaret Oliphant “The Byways of Literature: Reading for the Million” Margaret Oliphant, one of the most vocal and vicious opponents of sensation fiction in nineteenth-century Britain, uses her 1858 article “The Byways of Literature: Reading for the Million” to respond to what she perceives as a new,
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