By 1840, the epistolary novel was dead. Letters in Victorian fiction, however, were unmistakably alive. Postal Plots explores how Victorian postal reforms unleashed a new and sometimes unruly population into the Victorian literary marketplace where they threatened the definition and development of the Victorian literary professional.

''Postal Plots sheds light on the significance of letters in Victorian fiction by firmly rooting them in social contexts and offering a range of stimulating close readings.'' - The Review of English Studies

Autorentext

Laura Rotunno is Associate Professor of English at Penn State Altoona, USA, where she is also the Honors Program Coordinator. She has published in Victorian Literature and Culture and Victorian Periodicals Review. Her research interests include professionalization and education as it developed throughout the Victorian period.

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Acknowledgements 1. Correspondence Culture 2. Mr. Micawber, Letter-Writing Manuals, and Charles Dickens's Literary Professionals 3. Feminized Correspondence, the Unknown Public, and the Egalitarian Professional of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White 4. From Postmarks to Literary Professionalism in Anthony Trollope's John Caldigate 5. Telegraphing Literature in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four Conclusion: Undelivered Bibliography Index