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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 TRANSUE, Harriet Adams, 19^2- THE SENSATION YEARS: THE LITERARY CHARACTER OF ENGLAND IN THÉ 1860'S. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1973 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan / Copyright by Harriet Adams Transue 1973 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. THE SENSATION YEARS: THE LITERARY CHARACTER OF ENGLAND IN THE 18 60'S DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Harriet Adams Transue, A.B., A.M. The Ohio State University 1973 Reading Committee: Approved by Richard D. Altick Rolf Soellner James Kincaid Adviser Department of English In this study, I have presupposed that the form the literary imagination takes can be largely understood histor­ ically, and that popular literature tells us more about those formative conditions than do works of genius, and, therefore, helps to isolate the particular qualities of those more permanent works which last because they partici­ pate in the universal imagination. I have purposely separated the description of sensa­ tionalism per s e , the intellectuals' reaction to it, the needs of contemporary life that it addressed, and the discussion of the plays and novels, so that one section would not prejudice another. The contemporary debate on sensation­ alism was necessarily one-sided; the students of society, the intellectuals, and the cultural conservatives argued eloquently against it, but the many who partook in and con­ tributed directly to the fashion remained inarticulate, having an indisputable but unacceptable justification: pleasure and profit. The strength of their side is shown in sales, rather than in the critics' columns. I have also arranged my material thus, because during the course of m y work I was many times led into what, in the end, I considered very faulty conclusions by the temptation to see too direct a connection between actual historic events and literature. I was encouraged in this by the studies I took as models, studies of political, social, and crime novels. But such cause-effect views of history and literature as are appropriate to those subjects do not obtain in the phenomenon of sensationalism, and I did not wish to inflict that confusion on the material. In writing about what is typical, as one must do when discussing popular literature and the popular state of mind, one deals with a large amount of material that is necessarily repetitive. I have read through files of newspapers and periodicals, through novels, diaries, and other contemporary records to confirm the recurrence of attitudes and ideas. Nothing is gained by citing each instance, but I should assure the reader that behind what I offer as typical are many other examples, from which I have chosen a single one more or less at random. I have also concentrated most closely on the years 1860-1865, though the sensation novel, at least, continued to be written many years after that. My reason for doing so is that sensation received its real impetus from the conditions of these years, after which two changes took place: historically, a new direction began to emerge, signified by the Second Reform Bill; and in litera­ ture, the main elements of sensation were appropriated by mainstream literature and ceased to be "sensational." This latter process is the subject of my last chapter— it being, of course, the chief purpose of a study such as this. June 23, 1942 . Born - New Haven, Connecticut 1964 ............. A.B., magna cum laude with honors in English, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania .1965 ....... A.M., Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania 1965-1966 ......... Thorncroft Fellow, Travel in Africa 1966-1969 ......... Lecturer, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Colum­ bus, Ohio 1969-1971 ......... Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1971-1972 ......... University Dissertation Fellow, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1972-1973 ......... Instructor, Department of English, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Victorian Literature Nineteenth Century English Literature. Professor Richard D. Altick Old and Medieval English Literature. Professor Stanley Kahrl Renaissance Literature. Professor Rolf Soellner The Novel. Professor James Kincaid TABLE OF CONTENTS Page FOREWORD ............................................ ii VITA ................................................ V Chapter I. "SENSATIONISM" ............................ 1 Sensation and Tradition Sensation Literature and Its Audience The Historical Moment II. THE SENSATIONAL YEARS ..................... 25 The Non-Literary Sensations Culture and Political Democracy The Moral Climate III. THE SENSATION IMAG I N A T I O N................. 81 Subverting Sweet Domesticity Crime and Criminals Insanity and Innocence The Notable Omission IV. THE SENSATION DRAMA ................ 126 Its Place in the Tradition "Realism" and Sensation Drama Failures and Limitations Author and Audience V. THE SENSATION NOVEL Background and Audience What the Sensation Novel Was The Sensation Heroine Chapter Page VI. THE SENSATION NOVEL IN PERSPECTIVE .... 231 The Hero The New Love Story Moral Relativism The Shock of Proximity The Marriage Problem The Tragic Potential VII. SENSATION AND THE MAJOR NOVELISTS OF THE SIXTIES .................................... 287 Plot and Character Morality The Blighted World BIBLIOGRAPHY "SENSATIONISM” Sensation and Tradition In every society of which we have knowledge, story­ telling has played a central role in preserving a sense of the past, providing continuity from generation to generation, establishing the meaning of the present in terms of history, and, always with reference to the past, projecting the ideals and directions of that society. It is in this sense that story-telling, whether generalized, anonymous oral poetry, or the individual works we know as literature, has always formed a decisively conservative part in what we call "culture," or the environment from which a people grows. Only in comparatively recent times has that word "culture" come to refer to two often antagonistic environments existing simultaneously: one, a cumulation of the works of individ­ uals and the attitudes and beliefs of peoples, inherited, grown, evolved and bequeathed through ages past, in which the present is only the latest stage; the other, an immedi­ ate and self-contained environment whose temporal reference is entirely to itself or to the future. And very recent indeed, connected with the development of industrialism and ]. 2 democratization as the prevailing conditions of life, is the tendency of a race to turn its back altogether on the past and immerse itself completely in what is new and temporary. That is the impulse behind the growth of popular literature as an answer to the immediate needs of a democratic society, but as a discrete literary strain whose relation to literary tradition has remained problematic. In the beginning of the 1860's in England, that tendency found sudden and appropriate form in a phenomenon called "sensationalism," a term that was used to cover a state of the public mind which manifested itself in politics, society, intellectual life, and literature. By a coincidence of historical accidents, the phenomenon was named almost immediately, and once identified, was discussed and analyzed as few chapters of popular literary history have been at the moment of their occurrence.