Material Girls: the nineteenth century sensation novel and the ethics of the marketplace

Canterbury Christ Church University's Public Lecture Series

This lecture will look at the role of women writers in the boom in sensation fiction in the nineteenth century and the ways in which novelists like Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Ellen Wood both participated in a burgeoning literary marketplace and in debates about the commodification of literature. The talk will also look at some of the ways in which the women’s sensation novel explored the ethics of materialism and consumption.