SOURCE: "Our Novels," in Temple Bar, Vol. XXIX, No. CXV, April, 1870, pp. 410-24.

In the following essay, the author discusses conventions and themes of the sensation novel from a nineteenth-century perspective.

The Sensational School

In attempting to treat the second branch of our subject—the School of Sensational Novels—we are confronted on the very threshold with a challenge, if not, indeed, with a difficulty. What is a sensational novel? And by what principle of discrimination do we affix to any existing class of romance this special and scarcely complimentary title? (There is yet another difficulty; but it is one which must accompany our inquiry into each school of novels, and which indeed attends nearly all attempts at classification. Is So-and-so a sensational novel? And, if it is, is Such-and-such, which differs from So-and-so in a conspicuous manner, also a sensational novel? In roughly settling this difficulty, injustice...