Sensational Melbourne: Reading, Sensation Fiction and Lady Audley’s Secret in the Victorian Metropolis

Description

Colonial Melburnians were mad about sensation fiction—fiction full of thrills and scandal; divorce, bigamy, mistaken identity and murder. Sue Martin and Kylie Mirmohamadi take us through the libraries, the shops, the tramways, the theatres, the back lanes and the drawing rooms of Marvellous Melbourne, and show how the city was built on words as much as gold. They trace the passage of the most popular novel of the 19th century from England and through the cultural byways of Melbourne into Australian literature.

Susan Martin and Kylie Mirmohamadi appeared on the Book Show on 10 August 2011 and the podcast is available here.