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This book explores the extent to which four sensation novelists responded to the Victorian theorizing of professionalism. A crucial period of redefinition of the professional ideal, the third quarter of the nineteenth century also witnessed the rise and the decline of the sensation novel, a scandalous and electrifying form that challenged aesthetic and socio-cultural standards. Owing to their controversial position in the literary marketplace, novelists like Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charles Reade and Ellen Wood developed a keen interest in professional issues, which occupy centre stage in their 1850s-70s narratives. By drawing on a variety of sociological, cultural and philosophical theories, Costantini skilfully assesses the ideological implications of the genre's fictionalization of professionalism. She shows how sensation novelists provocatively represented the challenges faced by both elite and rising professionals, who are used as narrative vehicles for thorny discourses on authorship, ethicality, aestheticism and sociocultural identity.
List of contents
Contents: Victorian professionalism - The sensation novel - Wilkie Collins - Mary Elizabeth Braddon - Charles Reade - Ellen Wood - British fiction 1850s-70s - Victorian professionals in the arts - Nineteenth-century law and medicine - Victorian detectives.
About the author
Mariaconcetta Costantini is professor of English literature at G. d¿Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara. She has published monographs, articles and books chapters on Victorian literature and culture. Her publications include the book Venturing into Unknown Waters: Wilkie Collins and the Challenge of Modernity (2008) and the edited collection Armadale: Wilkie Collins and the Dark Threads of Life (2009).
Report
«Sensation and Professionalism in the Victorian Novel is very well documented and provides a wealth of information on the various topics it deals with.»
(Gilles Menegaldo, Miranda 12/2016)
«In delineating new and unmapped connections between culture, economics, and society, Costantini's book proves a very useful instrument for future research in Victorian studies.»
(Maria Luigia Di Nisio, Rivista di Studi Vittoriani 41-42/2016)
