Ghost-seers, detectives, and spiritualists : theories of vision in Victorian literature and science /

"This is an original study of the narrative techniques that developed for two very popular forms of fiction in the nineteenth century - ghost stories and detective stories - and the surprising similarities between them in the context of contemporary theories of vision and sight. Srdjan Smajić a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Smajic, Srdjan, 1974-
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Series:Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 71.
Subjects:
Online Access:Cover image
Table of Contents:
  • Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. Outer Vision, Inner Vision: Ghost-Seeing and Ghost Stories: 1. Contextualizing the ghost story; 2. The rise of optical apparitions; 3. Inner vision and spiritual optics; 4. 'Betwixt ancient faith and modern incredulity'; Part II. Seeing is Reading: Vision, Language, and Detective Fiction: 5. Visual learning: sight and Victorian epistemology; 6. Scopophilia and scopophobia: Poe's readerly flâneur; 7. Stains, smears, and visual language in The Moonstone; 8. Semiotics vs. encyclopedism: the case of Sherlock Holmes; Part III. Into the Invisible: Science, Spiritualism, and Occult Detection: 9. Detective fiction's uncanny; 10. Light, ether, and the invisible world; 11. Inner vision and occult detection: Le Fanu's Martin Hesselius; 12. Other dimensions, other worlds; 13. Psychic sleuths and soul doctors; Coda.