Victorian Crime, Madness and Sensation

Beginning with Victoria's enthronement and an exploration of sensationalist accounts of attacks on the Queen, and ending with the notorious case of a fin-de-siècle killer, Victorian Crime, Madness and Sensation throws new light on nineteenth-century attitudes toward crime and 'deviance'. The essays, which draw on both canonical and liminal texts, examine the Victorian fascination with criminal psychology and pathology, engaging with real life cases alongside fictional accounts by writers as diverse as Ainsworth, Stevenson, and Stoker. Among the topics are shifting definitions of criminality and the ways in which discourses surrounding crime changed during the nineteenth century, the literal and social criminalization of particular sex acts, and the gendering of degeneration and insanity. As fascinated as they were with criminality, the Victorians were equally concerned with solving crime, and this collection also focuses on the forces of law enforcement and nineteenth-century attempts to "read" the criminal body as revealed in Victorian crime fiction and reportage. Contributors engage with the detective figure and his growing professionalization, while examining the role of science and technology - both at home and in the Empire - in solving cases.

Contents: Introduction, Andrew Maunder & Grace Moore; Regicide and reginamania: G.W.M. Reynolds and The Mysteries of London, John Plunkett; The making of a master criminal: the 'chief of the thugs' in Victorian writings on crime, Máire ní Fhlathúin; Black markets and cadaverous pies: the corpse, urban trade and industrial consumption in the Penny Blood, Sally Powell; 'Stepchildren of nature': East Lynne and the spectre of female degeneracy, 1860-61, Andrew Maunder; Murder, gender, and popular fiction by women in the 1860s: Braddon, Oliphant, Yonge, June Sturrock; Anatomy of a 'nine days' wonder': sensational journalism in the decade of the sensation novel, Dallas Liddle; The inside story: crime, convicts, and careers for women, Barbara Onslow; 'The truth of midnight' and 'The truth of noonday': sensation and madness in James Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night, Dafydd Moore; Puffed papers and broken promises: white-collar crime and literary justice in The Way We Live Now, Karen Odden; Something to Hyde: the 'strange preference' of Henry Jekyll, Grace Moore; The novelization of the Dreyfus Affair: femininity and sensation in fin-de-siècle France, Christopher E. Forth; 'Furious passions of the Celtic race': Ireland, madness and Wilkie Collins's Blind Love, Maria K. Bachman; Time's hand: fingerprints, empire, and Victorian narratives of crime, Gita Panjabi Trelease; Vamping the children: the 'Bloofer Lady', the 'London Minotaur' and child-victimization in late 19th-century England, Leslie Ann Minot; Ballad of a demon barber: the criminal career of George Chapman, Nicholas Freeman; Bibliography; Index.

Andrew Maunder is senior lecturer in English at the University of Hertfordshire. He has written on the Cornhill Magazine, Christina Rossetti, Anthony Trollope and Mrs. Henry Wood. At present he is working on a study of Bram Stoker. Grace Moore is Lecturer in Literary Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She wrote Dickens and Empire, also published by Ashgate.