Publisher's Synopsis
The 19th century has become especially relevant for the present--from large-scale adaptations of written works through commodities to interactive theme parks. This book is an introduction to the novelistic refashionings of the Victorian age with a special focus on revisions of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Post-Victorian research is still in the making and the first segment of the book is devoted to clarifying definitions, terminology, interpretive contexts and discourses. Two major frameworks for reading post-Victorian fiction are developed in the rest of the book: the literary scene and political and social aspects of analysis. These frameworks are introduced in more detail in two chapters on authors, readers, criticism and the market, and on narratives of national, cultural and self identities. These perspectives are combined in the last two sections. Among the works examined are Caryl Phillips's Cambridge, Matthew Kneale's English Passengers, Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda and Jack Maggs, Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, D.M. Thomas's Charlotte, and Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair.
