Intertextual Dialogue With the Victorian Past in the Contemporary Novel

Intertextual Dialogue with the Victorian Past in the Contemporary Novel examines the revival of the Victorian age in several novels representative of the prominent neo-Victorian (or Victorianist) trend in recent English fiction. The aim of this book is to categorise the new genre by using concepts derived from the theory of intertextuality. The novels selected for analysis are predicated on the interaction of contemporary and Victorian texts. First, the book charts the evolution of attitudes to the Victorian age and investigates possible reasons for the current creative engagement with Victorianism. In the second part it offers a schema for the classification of Victorianist fiction, whereas it finally presents detailed analyses of the chosen novels.

Bozena Kucala is a lecturer and researcher at the Institute of English Philology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She specialises in the nineteenth-century and contemporary English novel, especially neo-Victorian fiction, intertextuality, and the representation of history in literature.