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- 3.4 Other novelists and authors of the Victorian era
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56detection.”57 Another aspect of mentioning is that the greater prominence was given to female criminals and female detectives who slowly started to appear. Like the Newgate authors, also sensation authors can be considered unrealistic. Sensation novelists did not glamorize villainy, but they presented the stories in an exaggerated and inadequate version of the modern world.58 Both, the Newgate and sensation novel provide interesting examples of life between high and low culture and both emphasized the need for a necessary unavoidable change. And the last thing which should be pointed out is that sensational novels were written mostly by female authors and Newgate novels mostly by male ones. 3.4 Other novelists and authors of the Victorian era In the first half of the nineteenth century George William McArthur Reynolds (18141879) enjoyed a great popularity though he seems to be forgotten now. His best-known work was the long-running serial The Mysteries of London (1844) whose theme he borrowed from Eugene Sue´s Les Myst éres de Paris (The Mysteries of Paris). He lived in Paris where he started to publish a dai ly English newspaper sinc e 1830´s. 59 He was well-known as a great journalist and editor, and as well as a bestselling author of historical romances, gothic and sensation novels, oriental tales, and domestic fiction. “ The Mysteries of London was one of the most famous “penny bloods”, which were very cheap sensational serials published weekly and created for working class readers, throughout the Victorian era.” “ The Mysteries of London and its lengthier sequel The Mysteries of the Court of London involve d ele ment s of “urban myste ry genr e” . It was also a mix gothic novel elements with its haunted castles, strange villains plus elements of a style of sensational novel. They all were stories based on the shocks and scares of life, mostly illustrated and 56 Priestman, Martin. .: Op.cit.,p. 34 57 Allingham, Philip. The Victorian Senastion Novel, 1860-1880 – „pr eaching to the n erves ins tead of the judgmen t“. The Victorian Web. 2 December 2009 58 Hogle, Jerrold. The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2002. p.147-14 59 G.W.M.Reynolds, Nineteenth-century Fiction, Politics, and the Press. New York,: The University of NY, 2008 p. 10-12 23
60decorated with lurid engravings.”61 They were determined for simple readers, mostly poor and without education. Stories were designed and intended for an adult audience because the crime might have a terrible effect on the young people of the Victorian era. The writings of G.W.M.Reynolds enjoyed a massive circulation. “ Attacks on the royal influenced press were common in anti-monarchist publications like Reynolds´ We ekl y Newspaper. Royal reportage was also frequently mocked by satirical journals like Punch. The media sensation around the Queen Victoria was also the subject of Reynolds re telling of the “ Boy Jones” stories in his famous series, The Mysteries of London (article: A stranger in her maj est y´s bedr oom ).” 62 His name is also associated with “ the novel of urban mysteries”, which ti tle ori ginated in the mysteria mania that seized both sides of the channel after the enormous success of these both authors (Sue and Reynolds). 63 Another author who paid his attention to London was Charles Dickens. His depiction of London influenced the shaping conception of Victorian London for all following generations. He showed London´s str eet and nei ghborhood in Sketches by Boz in vivid, often grotesque ways. He depicted London in Oliver Twist or in the book of Bleak House. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) can be sometimes connected with a negative role in the history of crime literature due to his opposition to the Newgate novels, though he was very interested in crime. “ Almost all Thacker ay´s early fiction is concerned with rogues making their selfish way through society over the heads of dupes and in the shelter of social pretense and snobbery. The supreme rogue is e.g. Becky Sharp herself in Vanity Fair.” 64 Thacker ay´s seemed to criticize Bulwer and his parody of Eugene Aram. Thacker ay´s attack on Newgate fiction can be considered through his novel Catherine. He took the plot of Catharine Hayes from the cases in the Newgate Calendar and overworked it far beyond the facts of the case. Thackeray disapproved the glorification of criminals, criminal acts and low life. He believed in fiction to have an educational function. In his opinion the romantic depiction of crime was capable to 60 61 George W.M.Reynolds. Wikipedia Free Encyklopedia. 10 October 2009 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._M._Reynolds> 62 Maunder, Andrew. Victorian Crime, Madness and Sensation (Nineteenth Century Series). Alder- shot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. 2004. p-.18-19 . 63 Maxwell, Richard. The Mysteries of Paris and London( Victorian Literature and Culture Series). Westport: The University of Virginia. 1992. p.9-10. 64 Borow itz, A lber t. „ Why Thackeray went to see a manh ang ed? “ Th e legal Studies Forum, Volume 2 9, No. 2,2005. Crime gone by collected essays of Albert Borowitz 1966-2005. Web 8 October 2009 24
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9 “ Thackeray with his essays of 1839 and 1840 attacked the capital punishment in Britain and supported the abolition of this punishment. This aspect of Thackeray´s career is not known, in comparison both with his role in the Newgate controversy and with Dickens´ role several years later among the advocates of abolition. Throughout his life, Thackeray appears to have been obsessed with capital punishment, both as a physical fact capable of arousing morbid fascination and, at the same time, as a personal issue intimately related to his own speculations about the meaning of life and death, health and illness, and divine involvement in human affai rs “ Another leading novelist of the Victorian era was Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880), better known as George Elliot. She was an author of novels like Middlemarch (1872), Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas Marner (1861). Her novels were full of realism and psychological insight. As themes she depicted the rural society, the cases of outsiders, small town prosecutions, the status of women and nature of marriage, political reforms etc. Her characters were taken usually from certain social classes linked with birth and money. Figures were portrayed within their social climbing as well as sinking or falling. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, né e Stevenson (1810-1865) allias as Mrs. Gaskell, was also very famous English novelist and short story writer. In her novels North and South (1854) or Sylv ia´s Lovers used local dialect words in the speeches of middle-class characters and also of the narrator itself. She associated with the stream of realism. Greater than any other Victorian novelist can be considered Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), which was an author of more than forty novels and also short stories. Trollope gives us various portrayals of women and paid attention to their positions in Victorian society. He described realistically Victorian world. His most successful novels are The Warden (1857), Barchester Towers (1854), Dr. Thome (1858) Borow itz, A lber t. „ Why Thackeray went to see a manh ang ed? “ Th e legal Studies Forum, Volume 2 9, No. 2,2005. Crime gone by collected essays of Albert Borowitz 1966-2005. 8 October 2009 Yüklə 0,5 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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