On the Sensational in Literature

Abstract

One can hardly study the development of nineteenth-century crime fiction without giving sensation fiction its due. After reaching its climax in the 1860s and 1870s, the sensation vogue lost momentum at the end of the century, precisely when detective fiction was asserting itself as a literary phenomenon. At its peak, however, sensationalism not only enjoyed a vast success in terms of sales, enthralling the reading public, but was also at the heart of a heated critical debate, which included several long essays in literary magazines such as Blackwood’s, The Argosy and Belgravia where the aesthetic and ethical import of the movement as a whole was placed under discussion. As Lyn Pykett claims, ‘the sensation genre was a journalistic construct, a label attached by reviewers to novels whose plots centred on criminal deeds, or social transgressions and illicit passions’.¹ What makes the case of sensation fiction so interesting is precisely the close interaction between literary and critical works, that is to say the battle engaged in by opposite factions either in favour of or against a literary movement that thrived on scandal.