The Scandalous Deconstruction of Victorian Morals in Anna Lombard

Abstract

The production and reception of Victoria Cross’ 1901 novel, Anna Lombard, was predicated in scandal. As a novel that not only flouts Victorian and Christian morals but also actively reverses them—through a “Christlike” male narrator whose piety is underscored by his sexual desire and frustration, and the titular heroine who not only feels that her engagement in interracial bigamy is God’s will, but also apparently receives divine pardon after committing infanticide—Anna Lombard was scandalous and unpalatable to its contemporary reviewers on one hand, and a daring new statement on the “ethics of sex” on the other. This chapter interrogates how Anna Lombard engages in a “scandalous” reorientation of Victorian norms through a radical reworking of gender expectations and genre demarcations: creating both a text and its heroine as fluid, hybrid, and non-conformative to an extent that would be unimaginable, especially when penned by a woman author. Especially worth noting is the unexpected and subtle critique of imperialism, its constituent practices, and its racial anxieties that this “disreputable” novel engages in. Through its engagement with the text, the chapter also comments on the growing production and consumption of scandal itself in Victorian Britain, which made a book as heavily controversial as Anna Lombard a bestseller for decades.