Overview

Readers of Victorian fiction must often have tripped up on seeming anomalies, enigmas and mysteries in their favourite novels. Does Becky kill Jos at the end of ""Vanity Fair""? Why does no one notice that Hatty is pregnant in ""Adam Bede""? How, exactly, does Victor Frankenstein make his monster? Why does Dracula come to England rather than neighbouring Germany? Why doesn't the invisible man make himself an invisible suit? Why does Sherlock Holmes, of all people, get the name of his client wrong? In ""Is Heathcliff a Murderer?"" (well, is he?), John Sutherland investigates 34 conundrums of 19th-century fiction. Applying these ""real world"" questions to fiction is not in any sense intended to catch out the novelists who are invariably cleverer than their most detectively-inclined readers. Typically, one finds a reason for the seeming anomaly. Not blunders, that is, but unexpected felicities and ingenious justifications.

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9780192825162

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Reviews

Thirty-four 'literary brain-teasers', each about a different mystery. Why does no one notice that Hetty is pregnant in Adam Bede? How can we explain Rochester's seemingly telepathic message to Jane Eyre? Why did Thackeray, that most careful of historical novelists, quote anachronistically in Henry Esmond from a work that would not be published for another 40 years? What exactly is Jo sweeping in Dickens's Bleak House? Modern readers may puzzle over seeming anachronisms and enigmas in Victorian novels. Are they careless errors or deliberate devices? Sutherland, professor of English Literature at University College London, reminds us that 'The experienced reader... becomes adept at filling in blanks and picking up hints. It is, for instance, a commonplace that characters in Victorian fiction do not go to the lavatory...' And, of course, novelists like Dickens did not have to specify for their readers what everyday London life was like, any more than they had to explain that carriages were pulled by horses. These ingenious essays do all the right things - they amuse, provoke, deepen our understanding of the devices of fiction, and, best of all, send us straight back to the books. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

About the Author: John Sutherland is Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College, London. He is the editor of a number World's Classics, including works by Anthony Trollope, Adam Smith, Jack London, and Thackeray

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