Chemical Crimes: Science and Poison in Victorian Crime Fiction

Description

In Chemical Crimes: Science and Poison in Victorian Crime Fiction, Cheryl Blake Price delves into the dark world of Victorian criminality to examine how poison allowed authors to disrupt gender boundaries, genre, and the professionalization of science. Tracing the role of the chemical crime through the works of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ellen Wood, Edward Bulwer Lytton, L. T. Meade, Charles Warren Adams, and Wilkie Collins, Price argues that poison this intervention not only provided a useful tool for authors to challenge the growing power of science but also that its fluid nature and ability to mix, mingle, and transcend boundaries made it ideal for generic experimentation. From the Newgate and Silver Fork novels of the 1830s to the emergent genres of science and detective fiction of the 1890s, Price advocates for the classification of a new type of poisoner, one who combined crime with methodical scientific know-how: the chemical criminal. Chemical Crimes shows how authors used the subversiveness of chemical crimes to challenge the supposed disciplinary force of forensic detection and suggests that generic developments were inspired as much by criminal scientific innovation as they were by the rise of the detective–scientist. By focusing on chemical crime’s appearance at significant moments, this book traces how reactions to Victorian science inspired change in nineteenth-century crime fiction. Half Title Page Title Page Copyright Page CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION: THE VICTORIAN CHEMICAL CRIMINAL MOVING FROM DETECTIVE-SCIENTIST TO SCIENTIFIC CRIMINAL A THEORY OF POISON “ARSENICAL LITERATURE” AND LITERARY INNOVATION CHAPTER 1: “THE SCIENCE OF MURDER”: Educating the Female Chemical Criminal in L. E. L.'s Ethel Churchill and Bulwer's Lucretia THE BODY OF THE POISONED WOMAN; OR, WHAT LETITIA KNEW SILVER FORK NOVELS AS CRIME FICTION ETHEL CHURCHILL LUCRETIA; OR, THE CHILDREN OF NIGHT LUCRETIA AND THE NEWGATE NOVEL THE VICTIMS OF THE POISONING WOMAN; OR, WHAT SARAH LEARNED CHAPTER 2: MEDICAL BLUEBEARDS: Gothic Medicine and the Poisoning Doctor in the Fiction of Ellen Wood MEDICAL BLUEBEARDS “A DRAUGHT OF POISON”: WOOD’S EARLY FICTION AND THE BELANY CASE GOTHIC VILLAINS: “MR. CASTONEL” GOTHIC HEROINES: LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS THE SMETHURST CASE CURIOSITY SAVES CHEMICALIZED BODIES AND CRIMINAL INTENT POISON, GUILT, AND CRIMINAL INTENT UNRULY BODIES AND FORENSIC FAILURE IN THE NOTTING HILL MYSTERY CRIMINAL INTENT AND NARRATIVE SILENCE HOCUS-POCUS THE UNRULY BODIES OF THE MOONSTONE FORENSIC SCIENCE AND THE CHEMICALIZED CRIMINAL: THE EXPERIMENT L. T. MEADE’S FEMALE MAD SCIENTISTS SENSATIONAL FEMALE CHEMICAL CRIMINALS BIRTH OF THE FEMALE MAD SCIENTIST OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM: FEMALE SCIENCE FEMALE SCIENCE DISRUPTING DETECTION THE UBIQUITY OF SCIENCE: OTHERING THE BODY THE BODY OF THE POISONED SCIENTIST; OR, WHAT KOLUCHY KNOWS AFTERWORD BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX