On the Neo‐Victorian, Now and Then

Neo‐Victorian f(r)iction: Critical conversations and fictional narratives

“…For consideration in the genre, such texts must consider “the metahistoric and metacultural ramifictions of such historical engagement” (Heilmann & Llewellyn, , p. 6). There is a “new consciousness about the possibilities of re‐visioning nineteenth‐century cultural Ur – texts” to begin “articulating perspectives that were textually marginalized and yet imaginatively central to the original text” (Heilmann & Llewellyn, , pp. 498–499).…”

“…Indeed, the tensions between fact and fiction, past and present, are a defining feature of the genre. The neo‐Victorian writer “simultaneously summons up those who are truly dead because they once just as truly lived, and asserts our individual perspective on the historical phantoms thus resurrected in imagination” (Heilmann & Llewellyn, , p. 504). They are right in wondering, “Are the Victorians the ultimate undead?” (Heilmann & Llewellyn, , p. 493).…”