Violent Women and Sensation Fiction

Violent Women and Sensation Fiction

Also by Andrew Mangham WILKIE COLLINS: Interdisciplinary Essays (editor)

Violent Women and Sensation Fiction Crime, Medicine and Victorian Popular Culture Andrew Mangham Lecturer, School of English and American Literature, University of Reading

Andrew Mangham 2007 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-0-230-54521-2 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-36070-3 ISBN 978-0-230-28699-3 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230286993 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 Transferred to Digital Printing in 2010.

For Emily, Rosie, Olivia, and Joseph

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements ix x Introduction 1 1 Explosive Materials: Legal, Medical, and Journalistic Profiles of the Violent Woman 7 The body in the kitchen 7 Young women and adolescents: The mad fury of that lovely being 9 Motherhood I: Maternal maniacs 23 Motherhood II: Morbid influences 29 Female old age: Sick fancies 39 2 The Terrible Chemistry of Nature : The Road Murder and Popular Fiction 49 The fussy activity about the nightdress of a school girl 49 Popular fictional representations 63 A tragedy of blood and tears : Aurora Floyd 64 Smooth as polished crystal : St. Martin s Eve 71 Detective fever : The Moonstone 79 3 Frail Erections : Exploiting Violent Women in the Work of Mary Elizabeth Braddon 87 Poking the embers: The hysterical violence of young women 87 Unmotherly glances and sickly sentimentality: Dangerous maternities 103 Uncultivated waste: Post-menopausal women 116 4 Nest-Building Apes : Female Follies and Bourgeois Culture in the Novels of Mrs Henry Wood 126 A man of two wives/a man of two lives: Divided masculinity and domestic ideology in East Lynne (1862) 129 Looking back : The mother s influence in Danesbury House (1860) and Mrs Halliburton s Troubles (1862) 137 The matrimonial lottery : Choosing a good wife in Lady Adelaide s Oath (1867) 143 vii

viii Contents Evil heritages : Superstition and morbid heredity in The Shadow of Ashlydyat (1864) 149 A moth in the upturned tumbler: The control and display of passion in Verner s Pride (1863) 158 5 Hidden Shadows: Dangerous Women and Obscure Diseases in the Novels of Wilkie Collins 169 What could I do? : The Woman in White (1860) 172 In a glass darkly : No Name (1862) 182 The shadow of a woman : Armadale (1866) 196 Conclusion 209 Notes 212 Bibliography 233 Index 242

List of Illustrations 4.1 Unknown artist, Nest-Building Apes, Once a Week, 19 July 1862, p. 112 128 ix

Acknowledgements This book is based on a Ph.D. thesis I submitted at the University of Sheffield in 2005. I was fortunate to have Sally Shuttleworth as supervisor. It was her work which first interested me in the links between science and popular fiction, and I am indebted to her for her kind, inspiring, and diligent help with this project and many others besides. I also want to thank Janice M. Allan. Her complex and insightful ideas on sensation fiction convinced me to study the subject back in the 1990s. Since then she has become an invaluable friend and mentor. This book has benefited a great deal from the insightful comments of Jenny Bourne Taylor, Neil Roberts, Angela Wright, Joseph Bristow, and the anonymous reader at Palgrave Macmillan. I would also like to thank the following people for answering inquiries and/or recommending sources: Michael Flowers, Gabrielle Malcolm, Kate Mattacks, Jennifer Carnell, Amanda Mordavsky Caleb, Janice Norwood, Karin Lesnik-Oberstein, and the late Chris Willis. I would also like to thank the patient and helpful staff at the following libraries: The British Library (including the Document Supply Centre in Boston Spa), Sheffield City Library, The Harry Ransom Centre in Texas, and the Special Collections and the Universities of Sheffield and Leeds. This project was funded, in part, by the University of Sheffield and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. For this I am very grateful. I would like to thank the wonderful people who have made my work so much easier by providing an intellectually inspiring network of friends. These include Sarah PB Bell, Anne-Marie Evans, Anne-Marie Beller, Greta Depledge, Ana Maria Garcia Dominguez, Holly Furneaux, Tatiana Kontou, and Stefani Brusberg-Kiermeier. I would also like to acknowledge Gerry Taylor s very kind assistance with printing the manuscript. Finally, I want to thank my family for being so understanding and patient. It is to my parents that I owe the greatest debt of all. Their untiring and unquestioning support has allowed all of my studies to be feasible and enjoyable. They remain the most inspiring people in my life. I am dedicating this book to the four little individuals who often found it difficult to understand the unsociable habits of my work. Because I wasn t always available to play, this book is for Emily, Rosie, Olivia, and Joseph. x