This book re-imagines nineteenth-century detective fiction as a literary genre that was connected to, and nurtured by, contemporary periodical journalism. Whilst ‘detective fiction’ is almost universally-accepted to have originated in the nineteenth century, a variety of widely-accepted scholarly narratives of the genre’s evolution neglect to connect it with the development of a free press. The volume traces how police officers, detectives, criminals, and the criminal justice system were discussed in the pages of a variety of magazines and journals, and argues that this affected how the wider nineteenth-century society perceived organised law enforcement and detection. This, in turn, helped to shape detective fiction into the genre that we recognise today. The book also explores how periodicals and newspapers contained forgotten, non-canonical examples of ‘detective fiction’, and that these texts can help complicate the narrative of the genre’s evolution across the mid- to late nineteenth century.

James Mussell reads nineteenth-century scientific debates in light of recent theoretical discussions of scientific writing to propose a new methodology for understanding the periodical press in terms of its movements in time and space. That there is no disjunction between text and object is already recognized in science studies, Mussell argues; however, this principle should also be extended to our understanding of print culture within its cultural context. He provides historical accounts of scientific controversy, documents references to time and space in the periodical press, and follows magazines and journals as they circulate through society to shed new light on the dissemination and distribution of periodicals, authorship and textual authority, and the role of mediation in material culture. Well-known writers like H. G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle are discovered in new contexts, while other authors, publishers, editors, and scientists are discussed for the first time. Mussell is persuasive in showing how his methodology increases our understanding of the process of transformation and translation that underpins the production of print and informs current debates about the status of digital publication and the preservation of archival material in electronic forms. Adding to the book's usefulness are an extended bibliography and a discussion of recent debates regarding digital publication.

This edited collection offers multi-disciplinary reflections and analysis on a variety of themes centred on nineteenth century executions in the UK, many specifically related to the fundamental change in capital punishment culture as the execution moved from the public arena to behind the prison wall. By examining a period of dramatic change in punishment practice, this collection of essays provides a fresh historical perspective on nineteenth century execution culture, with a focus on Scotland, Wales and the regions of England. From Public Spectacle to Hidden Ritual has two parts. Part 1 addresses the criminal body and the witnessing of executions in the nineteenth century, including studies of the execution crowd and executioners’ memoirs, as well as reflections on the experience of narratives around capital punishment in museums in the present day. Part 2 explores the treatment of the execution experience in the print media, from the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. The collection draws together contributions from the fields of Heritage and Museum Studies, History, Law, Legal History and Literary Studies, to shed new light on execution culture in nineteenth century Britain. This volume will be of interest to students and academics in the fields of criminology, heritage and museum studies, history, law, legal history, medical humanities and socio-legal studies.

Through a critical, transdisciplinary approach, Journalism and Crime offers a chronological interrogation of crime journalism from its first origins in 16th century print, to a transatlantic phenomenon in the 19th century and through to the complex networked digital spheres of the current day. This is the first book to historicise the development of journalism and crime together in relation to the people on both sides of the exchange. Taking a 470-year historical sweep, it tracks the cultural, political and social significance of crime journalism and its place as the longest sustained genre of media. It emphasises how crime journalism both reflects and drives shifts in media ownership, the priorities of profit, use of new technologies and legal and political governance. Written in an accessible style, this is essential reading for courses that consider the development and nature of journalism as well as supplementary reading for broader courses within journalism, communication, media studies, criminology, sociology and history.

A revelatory history of the women who brought Victorian criminals to account—and how they became a cultural sensation From Wilkie Collins to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the traditional image of the Victorian detective is male. Few people realise that women detectives successfully investigated Victorian Britain, working both with the police and for private agencies, which they sometimes managed themselves. Sara Lodge recovers these forgotten women’s lives. She also reveals the sensational role played by the fantasy female detective in Victorian melodrama and popular fiction, enthralling a public who relished the spectacle of a cross-dressing, fist-swinging heroine who got the better of love rats, burglars, and murderers alike. How did the morally ambiguous work of real women detectives, sometimes paid to betray their fellow women, compare with the exploits of their fictional counterparts, who always save the day? Lodge’s book takes us into the murky underworld of Victorian society on both sides of the Atlantic, revealing the female detective as both an unacknowledged labourer and a feminist icon.

A period of turmoil, uncertainty, and fears, the second half of the nineteenth century in Italy is also characterized by resilience, creativity, courageous discussions on the emancipation of women, and a variety of cultural products that are instrumental for the birth of a new and modern culture that will lead to the achievements of the twentieth century. Contributing to and expanding on recent scholarships on Italian literature of the nineteenth century, the book presents a series of literary, interdisciplinary and intercultural case studies. These case studies explore the social and cultural dimensions of the period, investigating the historical, literary, artistic, cultural, and social events of the time while probing their significance and relevance in bridging new Italian cultures.

Robert Seymour and Nineteenth-Century Print Culture is the first book-length study of the original illustrator of Dickens’s Pickwick Papers. Discussion of the range and importance of Seymour’s work as a jobbing illustrator in the 1820s and 1830s is at the centre of the book. A bibliographical study of his prolific output of illustrations in many different print genres is combined with a wide-ranging account of his major publications. Seymour’s extended work for The Comic Magazine, New Readings of Old Authors and Humorous Sketches, all described in detail, are of particular importance in locating the dialogue between image and text at the moment when the Victorian illustrated novel was coming into being.

Against the social and economic upheavals that characterized the nineteenth century, the border-bending nosferatu embodied the period’s fears as well as its forbidden desires. This volume looks at both the range among and legacy of vampires in the nineteenth century, including race, culture, social upheaval, gender and sexuality, new knowledge and technology. The figure increased in popularity throughout the century and reached its climax in Dracula (1897), the most famous story of bloodsuckers. This book includes chapters on Bram Stoker’s iconic novel, as well as touchstone texts like John William Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872), but it also focuses on the many “Other” vampire stories of the period. Topics discussed include: the long-war veteran and aristocratic vampire in Varney; the vampire as addict in fiction by George MacDonald; time discipline in Eric Stenbock’s Studies of Death; fragile female vampires in works by Eliza Lynn Linton; the gender and sexual contract in Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s “Good Lady Ducayne;” cultural appropriation in Richard Burton’s Vikram and the Vampire; as well as Caribbean vampires and the racialized Other in Florence Marryat’s The Blood of the Vampire. While drawing attention to oft-overlooked stories, this study ultimately highlights the vampire as a cultural shape-shifter whose role as “Other” tells us much about Victorian culture and readers’ fears or desires.

Nineteenth-Century Visions of Race: British Travel Writing about America concerns the depiction of racial Others in travel writing produced by British travelers coming to America between 1815 and 1861.The travelers’ discussions of slavery and of the situation of Native Americans constituted an inherent part of their interest in the country’s democratic system, but it also reflected numerous additional problems: 19th-century conceptions of race, the writers’ own political agendas, as well as their like or dislike of America in general, which impacted how they assessed the treatment of the subaltern groups by the young republic. While all British travelers were critical of American slavery and most of them expressed sympathy for Native Americans, their attitude towards non-whites was shaped by prejudices characteristic of the age. The book brings together descriptions of blacks and Native Americans, showing their similarities stemming from 19th-century views on race as well as their differences; it also focuses on the depiction of race in travel writing as part of Anglo-American relations of the period.

The Ambivalent Detective in Victorian Sensation Novels studies how the detective as a literary character evolved through the mid-nineteenth century in England, as seen in sensation novels. In contrast to most assumptions about the English detective, Yoon argues that the detective was more often tolerated than admired following the establishment of professional detectives in the London Metropolitan Police Force in 1842. Through studying the historical and literary contexts between the 1840s to the 1860s, Yoon argues that the detective was seen as a suspicious, even mistrusted and disdained, figure who was nonetheless viewed as necessary to combat rising levels of crime. The detective as a literary character responded to the often contradictory values and aspirations of the middle class, representing an independent masculinity and laying claim to scientific authority. This study surveys novels by Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Wilkie Collins, alongside lesser-known writers like William Russell, James Redding Ware (pseudonym Andrew Forrester), and William Stephens Hayward. This book contributes to the study of mid-nineteenth-century Victorian culture and connects with broader studies of the detective fiction genre.