Literary Illusions
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€112.99
A01=Christopher Pittard
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Author_Christopher Pittard
authorship
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=ASZG
Category=ATXF
Category=DSBF
conjuring
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Pre-order
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Language_English
literature
magic
nineteenth-century literature
PA=Not yet available
performance
plagiarism
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Forthcoming
softlaunch
Victorian literature
Product details
- ISBN 9781474460330
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 31 Jan 2025
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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Literary Illusions explores the dialogue between Victorian literature and one of the nineteenth century's most popular modes of performance: conjuring. It explores the ways in which Victorian literature frequently deployed the figure of the magician to explore performance magic as a metaphor for writing itself, and the ways in which conjurors themselves were authors (of highly fictionalised biographies), while authors explored the narrative opportunities offered by magic (most notably Charles Dickens). The book theorises magic as a manifestation of Victorian concerns with authorship and the intellectual property debate, with the magician often deployed as a privileged and occasionally parodied figure in debates on textuality. Literary Illusions offers a reconceptualisation of the relationship between popular culture and literature in the nineteenth century, bringing canonical figures such as Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell into dialogue with lesser known Victorian bestsellers such as Henry Cockton and Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin, and innovatively blends performance history with literary criticism.
Christopher Pittard is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Portsmouth, specialising in Victorian literature. His books include a new critical edition of The Return of Sherlock Holmes (2023), The Cambridge Companion to Sherlock Holmes (2019), and Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction (2011). He has published numerous articles on Victorian culture in journals including Studies in the Novel, 19; Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, Victorian Periodicals Review, Clues: A Journal of Detection, and Women: A Cultural Review.
