© 1998 by Oxford University Press
'Stepping out of the narrow frame': Conrad's Suspense and the novel of sensation
National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Critics have associated Conrad's fiction, above all, with a masculinist tradition of writers and philosophers, neglecting his engagement with popular forms of women's writing. Yet in his later work he aimed to reach a female readership of popular novels. This essay explores Conrad's encounter with the female sensation novel, pioneered by such authors as Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Focusing on Conrad's final, posthumously published novel Suspense, the discussion outlines his sensitive response to the narratological structures of the genre, especially Braddon's Lady Audley's Street. In Suspense, Conrad draws on Braddon's problematic representation of female identity. His reference to the physical enclosure of the heroine, her potential madness, the suggestion of an incest plot, sexual ambivalence, and the presentation of the heroine as a visionary painting all allude to the earlier form. Furthermore, as examination of the serialization of Suspense in the women's pages of Hutchinson's Magazine shows the extent to which Conrad was indebted to sensationalism while also questioning its conventions.