Sensation Fiction: New Directions

Abstract

2022 marks forty years since Patrick Brantlinger posed the question ‘What is Sensational About the Sensation Novel?’ Since then, scholars have continued to probe and extend early definitions of sensation fiction as a short-lived subgenre dealing with secret crimes taking place in genteel Victorian settings. Research on sensation fiction has developed apace, and scholars have developed approaches utilising methodologies from media studies, history of science, disability studies, and beyond. In doing so, they have greatly expanded the range of sensation novelists studied. Such research (benefitting from the enormous spread of digitisation since Brantlinger’s article) has also highlighted the significance of serialisation, adaptation, and experimentation in sensation fiction and the relationship between form and content has continued to be of interest. The past decade has also seen an interest in sensation as a global publishing phenomenon and this has led to scholars tackling more fully issues of race, racism, and national identity in sensation fiction. The articles in this issue build upon these recent interventions and seek to point out possible new paths in the study of sensation fiction.