Victorian Popular Fiction Association

Victorian Popular Fictions volume 6 issue 2 (Autumn 2024) Victorian Transfictions and Transmedia Storytelling A special issue guest edited by Erica Haugtvedt and Beth Palmer Table of ContentsArticlesErica Haugtvedt and Beth Palmer. Victorian Transfictions…

Thomas Vranken & Atele Dutt, ‘Speaking in Tongues: The Texts Haunting Stevenson’s Samoan Adaptation of “The Bottle Imp”’, Victorian Popular Fictions 6.2, 2024
@vpfa.bsky.social #C19
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victorianpopularfiction.org/publications...

A response to Dickens's OLIVER TWIST's antagonist, FAGIN THE THIEF was nominated for the 2026 Edgar Award (Mystery Writers of America) and shortlisted for the National Jewish Book Awards (Jewish Book Council). It seems like an intriguing addition to the growing neo-Victorian canon.

Want to discuss Allison Epstein's new novel FAGIN THE THIEF?

To join the informal discussion of the novel, please email Rebecca Nesvet at nesvetr@uwgb.edu for zoom link or more information.

📆6-7PM BST, Tuesday 24 March.

New VPFA Study Day Announcement 📢: 'Out of this World: Science Fiction in the Victorian Period'.
Read the CfP on our website: victorianpopularfiction.org/out-of-this-....

@bavs-uk.bsky.social @rs4vp.org @thevicsoc.bsky.social @global19c.bsky.social

Feeling start of year de-motivation? Sign up for our virtual writing retreat to get those creative juices flowing! If you are a member, all information will be in an email from us, or get in touch with network.vpfa@gmail.com to find out more.

The next session of VPFA's Third Sex Reading Group is Sarah Waters' Affinity! Lots of interesting things to be included in the pack from the queer space of the seance room and prison, to intertextuality, and the connection between spiritualism and sexuality. To join email vpfareadinggroup@gmail.com

don't forget to send in your abstracts for this VPFA study day. Women's bodily experiences are so often overlooked in fiction, so this study day is so important for bringing those to light.

For those of you who need some mid-week inspiration, why not join us for our next virtual writing retreat? It is the perfect opportunity to get some work done in two solid writing blocks.
11 Feb 2-4pm (GMT)
Free for all VPFA members - check your emails for more information on how to register!

@l19cmanmet.bsky.social @19birkbeck.bsky.social @thevicsoc.bsky.social @bavs-uk.bsky.social @rs4vp.org @global19c.bsky.social @navsa.bsky.social @helenaesser.bsky.social @cryingtheoretic.bsky.social

The next special issue of Victorian Popular Fictions Journal is “Human–Animal Relations in Victorian Popular Literature and Culture” and will be guest-edited by Dr Bethany Dahlstrom & Dr Helena Esser. For full CFP and submission guidelines, please see: victorianpopularfiction.org/wp-content/u...

New Humour and Masculinity at the Fin de Siècle This book explores the popular writing of the New Humourists and their vital engagement with late Victorian conceptions of manliness

Now it's actually out, here's another plug for my new book about #Victorian New Humour, where I prove that Jerome is better than Joyce.
Just now realising I should have called it FUN de siecle.
@bavs-uk.bsky.social
@vpfa.bsky.social
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Fun de siècle would have been a great title! A fascinating piece of research that we can't wait to get into. Congratulations on your publication 😀

Check out Helena's new blog post as she considers some new and upcoming Neo-victorian novels and whether they are becoming more unhinged and innovative. Let us know if you have read any of the texts, and any thoughts you may have

Is neo-Victorian Fiction getting more unhinged? Helena Esser ponders three new and three upcoming offerings from the popular fiction shelfIs it me, or is neo-Victorian fiction getting darker and more unhinged?I mean, not that I’m complaining. Ma…

Looking for some unusual neo-Victorian reads? The @vpfa.bsky.social blog's got you: victorianpopularfiction.org/is-neo-victo...

Start the year gently with conversation, curiosity, and a cup of tea.
We invite you to revisit familiar Victorian texts, share what still resonates, and explore how our research questions evolve over time.

Free for all VPFA members - check your emails for more information on how to register!

List of reasons why we don't use AI in class

I'm constantly revising my list of reasons why we don't use AI in my class. This one is specific to a first-year writing intensive. Free to borrow/adapt! 🙂

You heard it here first: next Third Sex session useful to anyone interested in Kent history! Sign up by emailing vpfareadinggroup@gmail.com to express interest!

Born in Ramsgate, we'll have you know! And yes, she's on the KMO site...

VPFA's Third Sex Reading Group are back with their first session of 2026! In this session, co-hosted by Crescent Rainwater, they will be discussing Netta Syrett's The Victorians. If you would like to attend or be put on the mailing list,please email vpfareadinggroup@gmail.com with 'FAO: Third Sex'.

Hello 2026! Here's to a great new year, the same fabulous you, and a new(ish) CFP to submit an abstract to....

Victorian Popular Fictions 5.1 10 Sartain “To whom shall the outcast prostitute tell her tale!”: Endo/Exo-Writer Perspectives of Nineteenth-Century Sex Workers in Madeleine, An Autobiography and Mary Barton  Katie Brandt SartainDownload P…

Her 2023 article received an honorable mention for the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association's Emerging Scholar Prize and can be accessed through Victorian Popular Fictions Journal at DOI: doi.org/10.46911/GUI...
Email us on vpfamedia@gmail.com for your own spotlight!

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Katie Brandt's doctoral research analyzes representations of intoxication and addiction in realist literature of the time, and how addiction itself can be a theoretical foundation for understanding the development and formal technologies of realism in Vic. lit.

Still time to send me an abstract for Sensation Fiction and the Health Humanities. It’s shaping up to be a fascinating day!

The deadline for abstracts for 'The Victorian Short Story' VPFA Study Day has been extended to 16th January! We would love to see your proposal in our inbox at vpfaconference@gmail.com

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT SERIES 🔦 : Claudia Sterbini, whose PhD traces the history of asexuality through the construction of ‘nonsexuality’ in fin de siècle sexology and literature. Check out her new article on non-sexual patients and doctors in The Island of Doctor Moreau: academic.oup.com/jvc/advance-...

Victorian Popular Fictions volume 7 issue 2 (Autumn 2025) Table of ContentsVictorian Popular Fiction, Culture and The Third SexSpecial issue edited by Claire O’Callaghan and Helena Esser ArticlesClaire O’Callaghan and Helena Esser. Introductio…

Access here: victorianpopularfiction.org/publications...

New Special Issue of Victorian Popular Fictions Journal, edited by @helenaesser.bsky.social and @drclaireocall.bsky.social alert ‼️ The issue explores Victorian popular fiction and culture as key sites for negotiating gender and sexual non-conformity, with a focus on the concept of the ‘third sex’.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Intimacies in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
Proposal Deadline: 1 February 2026
〰
The Society for the Study of #19C #Ireland
Maynooth University
18th-19th June 2026
〰
For more information, visit: ssnci.org/annual-confe...

Which Little Women film feels most festive to you?!

Reminder to sign up for our Christmas Virtual Tea Salon!! Why not take the opportunity of some time off by talking with like minded people?