Sensation novel

The Victorian sensation novel has been variously defined as a "novel-with-a-secret" and as the sort of novel that combines "romance and realism" in a way that "strains both modes to the limit". More recently, Anna Peak has suggested that the Victorians themselves identified a wide range of works as "sensation novels" and that the connecting characteristic is the way such works represent lower-class characters: "one way of thinking of the sensation novel is as a genre that disrupts a middle-class perspective, whereas realist novels (that famously middle-class genre), even when including lower-class characters, deal with them in a way that usually does not similarly disrupt a middle-class perspective." ==Influences==

in Vanity Fair, 3 February 1872 Sensation novelists drew on the influences of melodrama, Gothicism, and the Newgate novel to explore themes considered provocative by societal norms and to question the artificiality of identity. In the 1860s, the sensation novels and theatre became closely intertwined; many of the famous sensation novelists wrote as well for the stage.A common Gothic influence seen in the sensation novels is the search for a secret. The sensation novel puts a modern spin on the classic Gothic stories by placing the stories in contemporary settings and this produces the effect of creating a terror that is real and believable. Sensation novels drew influence as well from the Newgate novels that were popular during the 1830s and 40s; similarly to the sensation novel, Newgate novels created much controversy and debate. ==Themes and reception==

Typically the sensation novel focused on shocking subject matter including adultery, robbery, disguise, revenge, kidnapping, insanity, bigamy, forgery, seduction and murder. It distinguished itself from other contemporary genres, including the Gothic novel, by setting these themes in ordinary, familiar and often domestic settings, thereby undermining the common Victorian-era assumption that sensational events were something foreign and divorced from comfortable middle-class life. W. S. Gilbert satirised these works in his 1871 comic opera A Sensation Novel. For Anthony Trollope, however, the best novels should be "at the same time realistic and sensational...and both in the highest degree". When sensation novels burst upon a quiescent England these novels became immediate best sellers, surpassing all previous book sales records. However, highbrow critics writing in academic journals of the day decried the phenomenon and criticized its practitioners (and readers) in the harshest terms; John Ruskin perhaps providing the most thoughtful criticism in his 'Fiction – Fair and Foul'. Some scholars speculate that the notoriety of the genre may have contributed to its popularity. Henry Longueville Mansel from the Quarterly described the sensation novel as "extremely provocative of that sensation in the palate and throat which is a premonitory symptom of nausea". ==Notable examples==

Neo-Victorian novels, such as Celia Fremlin's The Hours Before Dawn (1958) and Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries (2013), have been seen to draw on the conventions of sensation fiction. The Luminaries includes uses of "suspect wills and forged documents, secret marriages, illegitimacy and opium". Sarah Waters stated that her third novel Fingersmith (Virago Press, 2002) is meant as a tribute to the sensation novel genre. ==See also==