| Description |
1 online resource : illustrations |
| Contents |
Introduction: The Container of the Novel -- 1 Lady Audley's Secret and the Files of Detection -- 2 A City of Secrets in Little Dorrit -- 3 George Eliot's Remnants of the Past -- 4 Information on the Move in Kim -- Conclusion: Remaindered Bots and Digital Hoards -- Acknowledgments -- Bibliography -- Index |
| Summary |
This book argues that the ample, cluttered Victorian novel was formally shaped by the nineteenth-century information explosion - and, specifically, by the pressure to store unprecedented amounts of data. Treating the novel itself as a storage medium and an information system, this book argues that the novel's many details are untapped bits of information: as such, they defer action, sow the novel's pages with potential, and point to futures that may or may not arrive. The capacious Victorian novel accommodates more than it can use, declining to turn every detail to account and leaving many of its secrets intact. It thus illustrates the tension between preservation and legibility that haunts any archival project. Through an emphasis on storage, this book intervenes in literary approaches to media and information that tend to prioritize transmission and organization; likewise, the book's emphasis on the hoard as an interruption to circulation complicates existing scholarship on material objects in Victorian fiction. Finally, this book articulates the novel’s aesthetics of deferral, using the model of the container to highlight how the novel produces layered temporalities, spatial depth, and a sense of future potential. The Victorian Novel on File includes readings of works by Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Rudyard Kipling, tracking residual objects like the file, the remnant, the secret, and the paper packet |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on September 4, 2024) |
| Subject |
Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1835-1915. Lady Audley's secret.
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Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870. Little Dorrit.
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Eliot, George, 1819-1880. Daniel Deronda.
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Eliot, George, 1819-1880. Romola
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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936. Kim.
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English fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism
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| Genre/Form |
Electronic books
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780198917960 |
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0198917961 |
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