The Sensation Novel and the Victorian Family Magazine

Transcription

1 The Sensation Novel and the Victorian Family Magazine

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3 The Sensation Novel and the Victorian Family Magazine Deborah Wynne Keele University Staffordshire

4 Deborah Wynne 2001 S o f t c o v e r r e p r i n t o f t h e h a r d c o v e r 1 s t e d i t i o n All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). I S B N I S B N ( e B o o k ) D O I / This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wynne, Deborah, 1963 The sensation novel and the Victorian family magazine / Deborah Wynne. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. 1. English fiction 19th century History and criticism. 2. Sensationalism in literature. 3. Periodicals, Publishing of Great Britain History 19th century. 4. Books and reading Great Britain History 19th century. 5. Serial publication of books History 19th century. 6. English periodicals History 19th century. I. Title. PR878.S44 W dc

5 for Andrew and Henrietta

6 Contents List of Plates Acknowledgements 1 Tantalizing Portions: Serialized Sensation Novels and Family Magazines The `sensation' formula Serialization Family magazines and their readers All The Year Round Once A Week The Cornhill The New MonthlyMagazine 2 Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White in All The Year Round Preaching to the nerves The essential thing is to keep moving: Collins's narrative strategies Strange family stories Life in danger: sensationalizing health and safety Self-help and helping yourself: the rise of the gentleman criminal Interchangeable gures: criminals, detectives and spies ix x Ellen Wood's East Lynne in the New Monthly Magazine 60 East Lynne and its readers 60 Women's writing in the New MonthlyMagazine 62 The professional woman writer 64 Bourgeois fantasies of ascendancy 66 Idle and ideal men and women 69 Ouida's Granville de Vigne 74 The maternity debate 76 The bigamy theme 79 4 Charles Dickens's Great Expectations in All The Year Round Dickens: novelist as editor Seizing a place in the economy of nature: discussions of natural selection in All The Year Round vii

7 viii Contents We were unhealthy and unsafe `So contaminated did I feel': Great Expectations and the problem of origins Wolf-men Problematic parentage Wilkie Collins's No Name in All The Year Round 98 Representing the female outsider 98 Holding converse with monstrosities: reviews of No Name 100 Out of the house of bondage 102 Magazine serialization and literary red herrings 106 From the harem to the convent 107 Working women Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Eleanor's Victory in Once A Week Validating the sensation novel The value of Dutch-metal and spangles: Braddon's defence of sensationalism Eleanor's Victory: a labyrinth of textuality Once A Week: foregrounding ctionality Charles Reade's Very Hard Cash in All The Year Round 132 Reade's `Matter-of-Fact' romance 132 The problems of perpetual suspense 135 From magazine serial to book: Reade's revisions Wilkie Collins's Armadale in The Cornhill Magazine 145 Generic collisions in The Cornhill 145 Realism and sensationalism 148 Dual heroines 150 Fairytales, secrets, and lies 153 Containing and exploiting sensationalism 158 Illustrating the sensational 161 Conclusion: Victorian Novels and the Periodical Press Appendix Endnotes Bibliography Index

8 List of Plates 1 (Unknown), illustration to `Once a Week', Once A Week, I, 2 July (Unknown), title page illustration to `Paul Garret: Or, The Secret', Once A Week, IX, 27 June George Du Maurier, illustration to Eleanor's Victory, Once A Week, VIII, 4 April George Du Maurier, illustration to Eleanor's Victory, Once A Week, IX, 3 October `The Celibate Consoled' and George Du Maurier's illustration to Eleanor's Victory, Once A Week, VIII, 2 May Frederick Waddy, Portrait of Charles Reade, Cartoon Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Men of the Day (London: Tinsley Bros., 1873). 7 Details of typographical diversity from VeryHard Cash in All the Year Round, 11 July 1863 and 19 December Mary E. Edwards, illustration to The Claverings, Cornhill, XIII, February Mary E. Edwards, illustration to The Claverings, Cornhill, XIII, February Mary E. Edwards, illustration to The Claverings, Cornhill, XIV, October George Du Maurier, illustration to Wives and Daughters, Cornhill, XII, November Augustus Leopold Egg, Past and Present No. 1, (copyright Tate Gallery, London 2000) 13 George Thomas, illustration to Armadale, Cornhill, XII, December George Thomas, illustration to Armadale, Cornhill, XII, October George Thomas, illustration to Armadale, Cornhill, XIII, May George Thomas, illustration to Armadale, Cornhill, XIII, February ix

9 Acknowledgements The research for this book was initially funded by two British Academy awards covering the periods 1993 to 1994, and 1994 to 1997, for which I am very grateful. I also thank the staff at the various libraries where I did research: Birmingham Public Reference Library, Birmingham University Library, British Library, Keele University Library, Liverpool University Library, and the National Library of Wales. Anthea Trodd provided excellent advice and encouragement through all stages of this project and I would like to thank her for helping to make my graduate studies at Keele University so rewarding. I would also like to thank John Bowen and Jenny Bourne Taylor for their perceptive comments and helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this book. The anonymous reader at Palgrave also deserves thanks for a thorough analysis which helped clarify my ideas. Any faults which remain are, of course, my own responsibility. I also wish to thank Mair Evans, who introduced me to the work of M.E. Braddon and the pleasures of Victorian sensationalism. My greatest debt, however, is to Andrew and Henrietta, to whom this book is dedicated with love and gratitude. A version of Chapter 4 appeared as an article, `We Were Unhealthy and Unsafe: Great Expectations and All The Year Round's Anxiety Stories', in the Journal of Victorian Culture, 5.1 (Spring 2000) and I thank the editor for permission to use this material. I am also grateful to the Tate Gallery for permission to use Augustus Egg's Past and Present, and to Ian Jackson at the University of Liverpool Library for permission to reprint the illustrations from Once a Week. Some of the ideas in this book were rst aired at the Victorian Studies Forum at Keele University and at conferences, the Subversive Pleasures conference, University of Leeds (1997), and Victorian Genres conference, University of Liverpool (1998), and I would like to thank all participants. x