ENL 4122 Spring 2018 Pascoe

In this class we will read (or listen to) works by masters of narrative suspense. We’ll begin by reading Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic romance The Mysteries of Udolpho, followed by Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, in which a young woman is led astray by Radcliffe fandom. Some of the writers we will consider published their work in serial form, and so had a financial investment in keeping their readers on edge. These included Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Thomas Hardy, who, in A Pair of Blue Eyes, leaves a character hanging from the edge of a cliff, thereby innovating the plot device we know as the cliffhanger. We’ll conclude by reading a contemporary cell phone novel.

Through reading these alluring novels, we will seek to understand how plotting and suspense operated in nineteenth-century British culture, and also how commercial imperatives influenced literary form.

Students will work on developing new research skills, and will strive in their research presentations to hook readers and listeners.

• Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho (Oxford; ISBN-13: 978-0199537419)
• Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (Broadview; ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0199537419)
• Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Penguin; ISBN-10 014143967X)
• Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes (Penguin; ISBN 978-0-19-953816-4)
• Wilkie Collins, The Law and the Lady (Oxford UP; ISBN 978-0-19-953816-4)
• cell phone novel (to be announced)