With these startling and popular early novels, MEB
helped to initiate a new genre, initially called sensation fiction, which developed into the detective novel and thriller. The first sustained attack on the genre, a lengthy...
Reception
Harriet Smythies
In April 1863 HS
's novel The Daily Governess; or, Self-Dependence (1861) was included as part of Henry Mansel
's attack on sensation novels in the Quarterly Review. Although HS
was not a major...
Textual Features
Ellen Wood
The plot and pacing of the novel differ markedly from East Lynne, and are more in the style of Charlotte Yonge
than EW
's sensational contemporary Mary Elizabeth Braddon
. While the theft of...
Timeline
April 1863: Henry Mansel in the Quarterly Review attacked...
Writing climate item
April 1863
Henry Mansel
in the Quarterly Review attacked sensation novels as preaching to the nerves and as indications of a wide-spread corruption, of which they are in part both the effect and the cause; called into...
Texts
Mansel, Henry Longueville. “Sensation Novels”. Quarterly Review, Vol.
