Positions the sensation novel, and nineteenth-century popular fiction more generally, as vital to the history of feeling

Argues for the literary significance of this popular form
Examines work by lesser-known female writers, such as Caroline Clive, Annie Edwards and Florence Wilford
Demonstrates that sensationalism can be traced across a wide range of writers and genres, from spasmodic poetry to the novels of Louisa May Alcott
Connects Victorian writing on feeling to contemporary affect theory

Narrative, Affect, and Victorian Sensation: Wilful Bodies argues that Victorian sensation novels long dismissed as plot-driven, silly, and feminine develop complex theories of narrative affect, our embodied responses to reading, imagining, and even writing a narrative. The popular sensation novel thus should be understood as a key contribution to the novel's assessment of its own workings, especially the ways in which reading and writing figure as affective acts. Additionally, the book radically expands the field of sensation fiction, taking seriously lesser-known female authors, and reading them alongside a range of writers not typically considered sensational. These novels insist that feelings are not bound to a single body and that bodies generate meaning when they are put in relation to other bodies and systems of knowledge.