Wilkie Collins

by Lyn Pykett

Overview

This selection of eleven essays charts the most important aspects of the developing debate about Collins's fiction in the last twenty years. Employing a range of theoretical and methodological approaches - including reader response theory, narratology, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, cultural materialism and a range of feminisms - these essays examine Collins's fiction from several perspectives: historical, psychological, structural, generic and political (including gender politics). They focus on an author preoccupied with the production of social and psychological identity, and with issues of class, gender and power. If there is a single issue which permeates this collection, it is the question of the subversiveness of Collins's fiction or, alternatively, its retreat from and/or containment of a radical social critique or subversive impulses. The pros and cons of this debate are explored further in Lyn Pykett's detailed and wide-ranging introduction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333657706
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/20/1998
Series:	New Casebooks , #53
Edition description:	1998
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Lyn Pykett is Professor and Vice-Chancellor at Aberystwyth, The University of Wales

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
General Editor's Preface
Introduction; L.Pykett
What is 'Sensational' about the 'Sensational Novel'; P.Brantlinger
The Counterworld of Victorian Fiction and The Woman in White; U.C.Koepflmacher
The Sensationalism of The Woman in White; W.Kendrick
Reading Detection in The Woman in White; M.M.Hennely, Jr
Ghostlier Determinations: The Economy of Sensation and The Woman in White; A.Cvetkovich
Rewriting the Male Plot in Wilkie Collins's No Name; D.David
Armdale
The Sensitive Subject as Palimpsest; J.B.Taylor
Dreams, Transformations and Literature: The Implications of Detective Fiction; A.D.Hutter
From roman policier to roman-police: Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone; D.A.Miller
Family Secrets and the Mysteries of The Moonstone; E.R.Gruner
Blank Spaces: Ideological tensions and the Detective Work of The Moonstone; T.Heller
Further Reading
Notes on the Contributors
Index.

Editorial Reviews

Eleven essays chart the most important aspects of the developing debate about the fiction of Collins (1824-1889), who was formerly critically marginalized because of his association with genre fiction. Examining his work from historical, psychological, structural, and political perspectives, the authors focus on Collins as a writer preoccupied with the production of social and psychological identity and with issues of class, gender and power. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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