Mapping the Victorian Sensation Novel : Some Recent and Future Trends

The past twenty years has seen a growing interest in the phenomenon of the sensation novel which is no longer regarded as indisputably unimportant or devoid of interest in studies of Victorian literature. Arguing that research into the genre has reached a crossroads, this article offers an overview of the sensation genre and some of the issues which have interested critics to date, in particular the association with women writers and readers. It suggests some of the different ways in which future work might go and draws attention to the sensation novel's diversity in terms of genre, form and subject matter, suggesting that the genre is not as easy to label as it first seems.