Date / Time
- September 14, 2019
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - October 12, 2019
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - November 16, 2019
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - December 14, 2019
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - January 11, 2020
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - February 8, 2020
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Registration
- Tuition for this course is $300.
- Rosenbach members receive a 10% discount on tuition. If you have questions about discounted tuition please call (215) 732-1600 x 138 or email [email protected].
- Not a member? We invite you to join upon registration. Click here for more information about membership.
Description
The bestselling novels of the Victorian era are not what you think they are.
Beneath the appearance of public respectability, the Victorians devoured novels of mystery, bigamy, madness, the supernatural, seductions, arsonists, and addicts. These now-forgotten novels kept the Victorians reading far into the night, too terrified to blow out the bedside candle. This genre, known as Sensation Fiction, became the best-selling, blockbuster novels of the 19th Century and outsold Dickens, Trollope, and the Brontes. We’ll discuss Victorian pop culture, gender, class, the ’New Woman author’ and the Victorians’ obsession with good people behaving badly. We’ll end the semester with Sarah Waters new Sensation novel, Fingersmith, to examine Sensation Fiction’s legacy in contemporary fiction. If you register, please read the first half of The Woman in White for our first meeting.
Required books (Broadview Press editions of these novels are recommended).
- The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
- East Lynne, by Mrs Henry Wood
- Lady Audley’s Secret, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters
Syllabus
syllabus Marriage Murder Madhouse
About the Instructor
Curt Herr, PhD, teaches Victorian literature at Kutztown University and is the co-editor of The Journal of Dracula Studies.
About Rosenbach Courses
Revisit beloved classics or experience new ones with Rosenbach courses. Book lovers delve into fiction, history, and poetry with the guidance of a literary expert and the company of other readers. See all upcoming courses.
Date / Time
- September 14, 2019
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - October 12, 2019
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - November 16, 2019
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - December 14, 2019
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - January 11, 2020
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm - February 8, 2020
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm