“You cannot impersonate what you are”: Questions of Authenticity in the Neo-Victorian Novel

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Notes

For a more detailed analysis of The Magic Toyshop's allusions to the Great Exhibition, see Gamble.

Jonathan Loesberg identifies Fanny by Gaslight, published in 1940, as “the first version of the genre that I know of” (363), but in a lecture given at the University of Hull in April 2008. Professor Ann Heilmann postulated a play written in 1935 by Virginia Woolf, Freshwater, as an example of an even earlier fascination with the Victorian period in twentieth-century literature.

As well as the three novels discussed in this article, other examples of neo-Victorian novels in which the theme of cross-dressing plays an integral part include James Buxton's Pity (1997) and Kylie Fitzpatrick, The Ninth Stone (2007).

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Notes on contributors

Sarah Gamble

Sarah Gamble is Reader in English with Gender at Swansea University, Wales. She is a specialist in contemporary women's writing; in particular, the life and work of Angela Carter. She is the author of Angela Carter: Writing from the Front Line and Angela Carter: A Literary Life. In addition, she is the editor of Angela Carter: A Reader's Guide to Essential Criticism and The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism. She is currently writing a book on Angela Carter and the Gothic.