Victorians! discussion

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After only a couple of pages, this already looks as if it's going to be a fun read! We have an evil Baron - Baron R**. R for Red?! Watch out, Snoopy!!!

I started it the other day on my Kindle, and realized that it was going to be a challenge as a Kindle read because obviously the dates are going to be very important, but it's hard to keep going back to check them on the Kindle. So I've brought it up on the computer (from Gutenberg) where I can navigate more easily and check up on things more easily.

I'm reading on my Kindle too - I know what you mean about the need to skip around and recheck details. I'm not very good reading from a computer screen for too long, so I'm going to have to lump it. Maybe I'll buy a proper detective's notebook to jot down salient details as I go along!

Are you finding this as incredibly modern as I am? So far, TNHM feels much more Christie than Collins - perhaps it's the simplicity of the language? It's not the structure because the epistolary form is very much of its time and the presentation of evidence and viewpoints does seem like a precursor to The Moonstone and later The Woman in White. I don't think Collins invited the reader to "be your own detective" in quite the explicit way that Charles Felix is here though, although I can imagine Gabriel Betteredge having a field day with this novel!

Well this has taken an interesting turn... mesmerists! There is mention of seances as well. Though to me, this seems to be more like hypnotism than of anything of spiritualism. But how this actually helps Mrs Anderton... I'm perplexed.

This is the first time (I think) I have read of such in a Victorian novel and I would love to know if there are others out there. Any slight hint of spiritualism in a neo-Victorian novels (and it seems to be a favourite topic) makes it a must read for me!

Janice wrote: "Well this has taken an interesting turn... mesmerists! There is mention of seances as well. Though to me, this seems to be more like hypnotism than of anything of spiritualism. But how this actuall..."

Mesmerism comes up in The Moonstone and, I've heard, more specifically in another of Wilkie Collins' books The Two Destinies. Sarah Waters' Affinity, though Neo-Victorian, revolves almost entirely around spiritualism, telepathy and mesmerism, though it's good on prisons too!

Pip wrote: "Mesmerism comes up in The Moonstone and, I've heard, more specifically in another of Wilkie Collins' books The Two Destinies. Sarah Waters' Affinity, though Neo-Victorian, revolves almost entirely around spiritualism, telepathy and mesmerism, though it's good on prisons too!"

Great recommendations Pip! I've only read No Name by Wilkie Collins and I really loved it so I'll definitely be giving the others a try.

Janice wrote: "Well this has taken an interesting turn... mesmerists! There is mention of seances as well. Though to me, this seems to be more like hypnotism than of anything of spiritualism. But how this actuall..."

Another Neo-Victorian novel dealing with spiritualism is The Luminaries, one of my absolute favorite novels from recent times.

The Luminaries is high on my to read list. Even more so now you've given it such praise!

I'm intending doing a re-read of The Luminaries over my summer hols. Looking forward to it too since a colleague has said she got more out of it the second time round.

Ooh, that one always sounded interesting. Up it creeps...

À propos the comments on mesmerism, I started looking around to see what was on the interweb and came across the extraordinary Harriet Martineau.

From victorianweb: "Born into a middle-class family in Norwich, and educated at a Unitarian girls’ school, Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was one of the most outstanding intellectuals and prolific writers, who made significant contributions to political economy, sociological theory, journalism, Condition-of-England Question and the Woman Question debates in the early and high Victorian era."

Despite clearly being a rational, intellectual woman, she was convinced by the beneficial healing properties of mesmerism since it apparently cured, or at least ameliorated, some elements of her own lifelong debilitating illnesses.

She wrote about this in Letters on Mesmerism and you can find an article about her, including a link to a free edition on Google Books, here: http://www.nineteenthcenturydisabilit....

The victorianweb entry about here is here: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/m...

It has been a while since I have read an epistolary novel. I confess that it is not a form I enjoy too much. There is something missing when I can't find an author's use of simile, metaphor, pathetic fallacy and all those other bits and pieces that an author wraps around his characters. I also miss the interplay of dialogue and various pacing and rhythms that seem more frequent and natural in the prose-based novels of Hardy, Dickens and their like.

I, too, am reading TNHM on an ereader, and like others find the epistolary format difficult to follow in comparison to a book.

Enough whining! TNHM has a very interesting background mystery itself. Little is known about the author, little is known about TNHM's history and genesis and a big thank you for its re-discovery and publication. I agree that it reads/feels more modern than its publication date. The fact that it is arguably the "first" modern example of detective fiction gives it a special place in literature. The novel presents a mystery, lots of possibilities for plot development and no doubt red herrings to come. The interest in mesmerism gives it tenuous links to Dickens, and one could certainly see it as a precursor to Wilkie Collins' Moonstone and The Woman in White.

The next two parts should get us further into the heart of the story, the mystery and the murder(s)?.