Transatlantic Sensations

Jennifer Phegley is Professor of English, John Cyril Barton is Assistant Professor of English, and Kristin N. Huston is a doctoral student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA.

Bringing together sensation writing and transatlantic studies, this collection makes a convincing case for the symbiotic relationship between literary works on both sides of the Atlantic. The evolution of the genre is traced from early sentimental and gothic fiction through works by authors such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, George Lippard and George Thompson, concluding with a reassessment of realist and domestic fiction in the context of transatlantic sensationalism.

Contents: Preface, David S. Reynolds; Introduction: 'an age of sensation...across the Atlantic', John Cyril Barton and Jennifer Phegley; Irresponsible acts: the transatlantic dialogues of William Godwin and Charles Brockden Brown, Christopher Apap; Daughters of the American Revolution: sensational pedagogy in Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple, Holly Blackford; 'Raw pork steaks with treacle': 19th-century American sensationalism and Oliver Twist, David Bordelon; Radical sensationalism: George Lippard in his transatlantic contexts, David S. Reynolds; The scourge of 'foreign vagabonds': George Thompson and the influence of European sensationalism in popular antebellum literature, Alexander Moudrov; Charles Reade: the British Harriet Beecher Stowe and the affect of sensation, Dorice Williams Elliott; Women in white: the tragic mulatta and the rise of British sensation fiction, Kimberley Snyder Manganelli; Slavery, sensation, and transatlantic publishing rights in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's The Octoroon, Jennifer Phegley; Business sense and sensation: the transatlantic trade in domestic drama, Kate Mattacks; Transatlantic magnetism: Eliot's The Lifted Veil and Alcott's sensation stories, Susan David Bernstein; Botanical brews: tea, consumption and the exotic in Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Alcott's Behind a Mask, Narin Hassan; Transatlantic sensationalism in Victorian domestic fiction: failed settler narratives in Charlotte Yonge's The Trial, Tamara S. Wagner; The Return of the Native as transatlantic sensation, or Hardy sensationalized, Julia McCord Chavez; Violent passions: Anglo-American sensationalization of the Balkans, Ana Savic Moturu; Index.