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ENGL 387: Victorian Popular Fiction

Course Convenor: Dr Sally Bushell

Seminar Time and Venue: Wednesday 10am – 12pm, Bowland North SR21 (Term 1)

The module will be centred upon three new genres which emerge in the mid-late Victorian period: Detective Fiction; The Adventure Story; Children’s Fiction. We will spend three weeks on each focussing on key texts and writers within the emerging genre and looking at how certain conventions, principles and core concerns develop for new genres as well as considering issues of literary status and canonicity.

The course will be centred upon one key text each week but we will be making connections across and between texts. Within each session we will explore texts in terms of overlapping themes within a genre and the issues they raise for how we interpret the subject (Colonialism/ Imperialism/ Gender/Education) as well as thinking about issues of narrative structure and voice and the involvement of the reader. At the start of each three week period there will be a  short introductory lecture establishing themes/ideas and generic issues for the form.

The module will also encourage students to consider the differences made by different forms of representation (e.g. serialisation for adventure stories; illustrations alongside the story for Holmes; initial dramatic representation of Peter Pan).

Week By Week Programme

DETECTIVE FICTION
Week 1                Introduction to the module/ early Detective Fiction: Poe

Week 2                Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone

Week 3                Arthur Conan-Doyle:Holmes’ Short Stories and The Hound of the Baskervilles

ADVENTURE
Week 4                Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island

Week 5                Henry Rider Haggard: King Solomon’s Mines

Week 6                INDEPENDENT STUDY WEEK: SHARED RESOURCE ACTIVITY

Week 7                Rudyard Kipling: Kim

CHILDREN’S FICTION
Week 8                Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Week 9                J. M. Barrie: Peter Pan

Week 10              E. E. Nesbit, Five Children and It and The Wouldbegoods [excerpts provided]
Assessment:
An unassessed research activity will be set in Week 5 for Week 6.
1 x 5,000 word essay. Students will be provided with a range of questions allowing either a focus on one genre, or a comparison across genres or a focus on one author and a range of texts.
Aims and Objectives
The module aims to provide students with:

• the ability to use a range of primary and secondary materials
• presentational skills
• skills of close reading and analysis
• skills of structure, argumentation and style in their writing
• the ability to critically analyse and appraise their own work and others, both orally and in writing Encouragement to read around the more obvious texts of the Victorian period and thus come to a more enriched grasp of core ideas and concerns
• a richer historical and philosophical sense of the Victorian period

• a range of theoretical approaches to texts considering such ideas as Colonialism/ Imperialism/ Gender/Education that arise in the novels
• an understanding of questions of genre and different forms of writing (exploring the structures and narrative devices of detective fiction; the debate around the adventure genre; the status of children’s fiction)

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to demonstrate:

• good knowledge of the literature of the period in its various types and genres
• an understanding of significant kinds of connection and difference between texts
• acquired the capacity to read these texts closely acquiring a richer historical and theoretical sense of the Victorian period
• an awareness of certain historical, political, literary and cultural issues of the period as they are reflected in the literary texts
• a range of theoretical approaches to texts considering such ideas as Colonialism/ Imperialism/ Gender/Education that arise in the novels

Set Texts:

You need to purchase all the texts listed on the week by week schedule (except for Week 1).  There is quite a lot of reading here so I strongly recommend reading as many as possible of the longer books in advance.

Wherever possible buy either the Oxford World’s Classics or Penguin Version of the text so that we are all working from the same edition in class (otherwise it becomes difficult to cross-reference). AVOID Wordsworth editions for the most part.

Conan Doyle, The Original Illustrated Strand Sherlock Holmes: Facsimile Edition (paperback) is worth getting. Cheap but gives ALL works and original illustrations.  Includes Hound of The Baskervilles, though you can also buy this in World Classics/Penguin editions.
W. Collins, The Moonstone (Worlds Classics, Penguin edition)
RLStevenson, Treasure Island (Worlds Classics or Penguin)
H.R. Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines (Oxford Worlds Classics or Penguin)
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan (Buy Penguin edition which gives two different forms of the story)
Rudyard Kipling, Kim (Oxford World Classics or Penguin)
FH Burnett, The Secret Garden
E.E. Nesbit, Five Children and It (Puffin Classics) and  The Wouldbegoods [tricky to get hold of – I will provide excerpts ]

Back to: ENGL 385

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