Abstract
This article is concerned with the interlaced themes of visual and supernatural 'evidence' in Julian Barnes's novel Arthur & George (2005), which rewrites an episode from the life of Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, concerned with a real- life criminal case. Briefly analysing how epistemological questions and modes of detection were represented in Victorian precursors of the genre (Doyle, Poe, Dickens, Collins), the article proceeds to establish the generic conventions of the 'postmodern' neo- Victorian detective novel, differentiating it from High Postmodernism's 'metaphysical detective story' and looking, apart from Barnes's novel, at Peter Ackroyd's Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994), Peter Carey's Jack Maggs (1997), and Louis Bayard's Mr Timothy (2003). In order to make visible the invisible, not only former ophthal- mologist Doyle's Sherlock Holmes but also other Victorian and neo-Victorian detec- tives - including the Doyle figure in Arthur & George - are relying on the latest visual aids such as photography, X-rays, microscopes and binoculars as well as on 'pseudo'- scientific investigative techniques such as mesmerism or seances. Especially in Arthur & George the two seemingly antagonistic discourses of rationalism and spiritualism are closely intertwined.
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