Science, Sexuality and Sensation Novels Pleasures of the Senses

This fascinating new book offers a detailed account of the prolific debate about the sensation novel and considers the genre#x19;s dialogues with a number of sciences. Well-known and obscure sensation novels are read against this context in order to recover the forgotten history of sensual reading the genre inspired.

LAURIE GARRISON is Lecturer in English at the University of Lincoln, UK. She has published on a number of interdisciplinary topics, such as visual culture in the work of Wilkie Collins and the science of sexuality in Mary Braddon’s novels.

Acknowledgements
Preface
PART I: TAXONOMIES OF STIMULATION: SCIENCE, GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN THE SENSATION NOVEL DEBATE
The Invention of the Sensation Novel: Three Early Reviewers
The Debate Intensifies: Responses to the Early Reviewers
Gender and Sexuality in Parodies of the Sensation Novel Debate
PART II: MAGNETIC SCIENCE AND THE SENSATION NOVEL: STIMULATING BODIES, SENSES AND SOULS
The Interrelated Histories of Mesmerism, Spiritualism and the Sensation Novel
Mesmeric and Erotic Affinities in The Woman in White
Bodily Pleasures and Spiritual Unions in Cometh Up as a Flower
PART III: SOCIAL SCIENCE AND THE RISE OF SENSATION HEROINE: RECONFIGURING THE FEMALE BREEDING BODY
From Economics to Evolution: Sensationalising Courtship, Marriage and Reproduction
Great Expectations: Estella's Subtle Sensations
Aurora Floyd: A Manifesto for the Sensation Heroine
St Martin's Eve: Variations of the Sensation Heroine
Conclusion: The Afterlife of the Sensation Novel
Bibliography
Index