Cover; Half Title; Series Information; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgements; Part I Self-control, willpower and monomania; Basil and No Name; John Marchmont's Legacy; Part II Heredity and degeneration; The Lady Lisle;...
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Universitätsbibliothek der Eberhard Karls Universität
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Cover; Half Title; Series Information; Title Page; Copyright Page; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgements; Part I Self-control, willpower and monomania; Basil and No Name; John Marchmont's Legacy; Part II Heredity and degeneration; The Lady Lisle; Armadale; Part III Education, environment and circumstance; Man and Wife; Lost for Love; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index This book explores the ways in which the two leading sensation authors of the 1860s, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins, engaged with nineteenth-century ideas about personality formation and the extent to which it can be influenced either by the subject or by others. Innovative readings of seven sensation novels explore how they employ and challenge Victorian theories of heredity, degeneration, inherent constitution, education, upbringing and social circumstance. Far from presenting a reductive depiction of 'nature' versus 'nurture', Braddon and Collins show the creation of character to be a complex interplay of internal and external factors. Drawing on material ranging from medical textbooks, to sociological treatises, to popular periodicals, Creating character shows how sensation authors situated themselves at the intersections of established and developing, conservative and radical, learned and sensationalist thought about how identity could be made and modified
