Reviews and Comments on Beyond Sensation
'Producing Beyond Sensation at a time when Braddon criticism could benefit from some reshaping and updating allows this collection to be labeled "groundbreaking." And there are many excellent essays, including Gilbert's on Braddon's negotiation of the two genres of sensationalism and realism, particularly in Joshua Haggard's Daughter; Tabitha Sparks's discussion of how representations of women, such as Isabel Sleaford in The Doctor's Wife, are limited by similar negotiation of genres (in this case, sensationalism, realism, and sentimentalism); Toni Johnson-Woods's interesting and entertaining piece on Braddon's popularity in Australia in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s; and Carnell & Law's useful research on Braddon's publication in British provincial weeklies beginning in the early 1870s. As a result, Beyond Sensation will have a strong influence on the future direction of Braddon criticism.' 
  Molly Youngkin,
California State University, Dominguez Hills
  Review in Women's Writing, 8:2 (2001) 339-42
'Law and.Jennifer Carnell, in the longest of the contributions, offer what is effectively an over-view of her whole later career in their study of her relationship with the newspaper syndication agencies and of the financial and artistic implications of her punishing writing schedule. Amongst their useful factual information is a table ... giving all the known details of her newspaper serialization from 1876 to1901.'
   Helen Debenham, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
  Review in Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 26:3 (2002) 192-4
'In addition to focusing on readings of Braddon's best-known novels, the collection also explores the status of her literary output within the cultural marketplace. Toni Johnson Woods's essay on Braddon's representations of Australia and her reception there is packed with interesting background on publishing history, as is the important essay by Jennifer Carnell and Graham Law on the serialization of Braddon's novels in local journals and newspapers.'
  Ann Cvetkovich, University of Texas at Austin
  Review in Victorian Studies 45:3 (Spring 2003) 547-9

'Graham Law and Jennifer Carnell offer the only collaborative essay in the collection, a discussion of their research into Braddon's relationship with the provincial weeklies that reveals a firm command of the material. It includes thorough analysis of the motives that give rise to Braddon's choice of different genres at different times in her life.'
  Carolyn Oulton, Canterbury Christ Church University College
  Review in USC English Department's Webpages New Books in Nineteenth-Century British Studies
   Emma Liggins, Edge Hill College
  Several citiations in 'Her Mercenary Spirit: Women, Money and Marriage in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's 1870s Fiction', Women's Writing 11:1 (2004)

'The book's most important essay is by Graham Law and Jennifer Carnell, whose argument is based in part on the information generated by Law for his Serializing Fiction in the Victorian Press. Casting doubt on the easy elision of 1860s sensation fiction with lowerclass reading which is so often made by others who write about Braddon (including several in this volume), "'Our Author': Braddon in the Provincial Weeklies" persuasively argues that "In the 1860s there is a sharp cleavage in Braddon's fiction between those novels aimed at the popular market for penny and shilling dreadfuls and those issued in the middle-brow monthlies and for the circulating libraries" (140). It was not, Law believes, the famous early books such as Lady Audley's Secret and Aurora Floyd which had broad class readership but the books after 1873, when syndication made it possible for Braddon to enjoy the income from weekly publication in the provinces "without compromising [a book's] status for the libraries or the reviewers" (140).'
  Sally Mitchell, Temple University
  Comments in Review Essay 'Reading Class', Victorian Literature and Culture 33:1 (March 2005) 331-339


Copyright (C) Graham Law, 2005. All rights reserved.
First drafted Sat 22 October 2005.
Last revised Tue 15 November 2005.

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