Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Online Victorian fiction database.

"They sat facing each other in a
graceful yellow cockleshell."
Illustration from
Thomas Hardy's sensation novel
Desperate Remedies (1889 ed.)

Spearheaded by Troy J. Bassett at IUPU–Fort Wayne, At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901, features information on more than 7,000 works of Victorian authors that can be searched by author and title; helpful categories such as genre also are provided. "Detective Fiction" includes the expected Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, but the crossover categories "Ghost Stories," "Gothic Novel," "Newgate Novel," and "Sensation Novel" also may be of interest. The Arthur Conan Doyle works included are only The White Company (1891) and The Refugees: A Tale of Two Continents (1893). There are fascinating statistics as well such as Braddon as the top serialized author and four women authors born in 1834. (Hat tip to PhiloBiblos)

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