The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Short Stories beautifully demonstrates the astonishing variety and ingenuity of Victorian short stories. This collection brings together works focused on a wide range of popular Victorian subjects in many different styles and forms (including comic, gothic, fantasy, adventure, and colonial works; science fiction; children’s tales; New Woman writing; Irish yarns; stories originally published in popular periodicals; and travel stories). Both well-known and lesser-known authors are included, and both men and women are well represented.
This anthology includes twenty-six annotated stories, a general introduction that discusses the history of the genre’s development in relation to key socio-political issues of the Victorian era, and suggestions for secondary readings. It also includes an intriguing selection of Victorian writings on the genre by Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Frederick Wedmore, and Laura Marholm Hansson.
Comments
“Dennis Denisoff’s anthology of Victorian short fiction is a ground-breaking contribution to teaching and research, with a wide-ranging and original selection of stories by 19th-century writers, and an expertly-chosen group of Victorian critical essays on the short story and its genres.” — Elaine Showalter, Emeritus Professor, Princeton University
Acknowledgements
Publication Sources
Introduction
WILLIAM CARLETON “Wildgoose Lodge” (1833)
MARY SHELLEY “The Mortal Immortal” (1833)
CHARLES DICKENS “The Bloomsbury Christening” (1834)
THOMAS DE QUINCEY “The Vision of Sudden Death” and “The Dream-Fugue” (1849)
WILKIE COLLINS “A Terribly Strange Bed” (1852)
ELIZABETH GASKELL “The Great Cranford Panic” (1853)
FRANCES BROWNE “The Story of Fairyfoot” (1857)
GERALDINE JEWSBURY “Agnes Lee” (1857)
ANTHONY TROLLOPE “George Walker at Suez” (1861)
MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON “Eveline’s Visitant” (1862)
ALGERNON SWINBURNE “Dead Love” (1862)
C.L. DODGSON [LEWIS CARROLL] “Bruno’s Revenge” (1867)
SHERIDAN LE FANU “Green Tea” (1869)
MARY DE MORGAN “A Toy Princess” (1877)
MARY BEAUMONT “The Revenge of Her Race” (1879?)
AMELIA B. EDWARDS “Was it an Illusion? A Parson’s Story” (1881)
THOMAS HARDY “Interlopers at the Knap” (1884)
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON “Markheim” (1885)
RUDYARD KIPLING “Lispeth” (1886)
OSCAR WILDE “The Happy Prince” (1888)
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891)
GEORGE EGERTON “The Spell of the White Elf” (1893)
EVELYN SHARP “In Dull Brown” (1896)
ADA LEVERSON “The Quest of Sorrow” (1896)
H.G. WELLS “The Star” (1897)
ISRAEL ZANGWILL “To Die in Jerusalem” (1899)
APPENDIX A Edgar Allan Poe, from a review of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-told Tales (1842)
APPENDIX B Charles Dickens, from “Frauds on the Fairies”
(1853)
APPENDIX C Margaret Oliphant, from “The ByWays of Literature: Reading for the Million” (1858)
APPENDIX D Frederick Wedmore, “The Short Story” (1898)
APPENDIX E Laura Marholm Hansson, from “Neurotic Keynotes” (1896)
Dennis Denisoff is Professor of English at the University of Tulsa. He is the author of Aestheticism and Sexual Parody, 1840-1940 (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and Sexual Visuality from Literature to Film, 1850-1950 (Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2004).
