Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
GHOS TSE E R S, DE T EC T I V E S,
A N D SPI R I T UA L IS TS
This is an original study of the narrative techniques that developed
for two very popular forms of fiction in the nineteenth century –
ghost stories and detective stories – and the surprising similarities
between them in the context of contemporary theories of vision and
sight. Srdjan Smajić argues that to understand how writers represented ghost-seers and detectives, the views of contemporary scientists, philosophers, and spiritualists with which these writers engage
have to be taken into account: these views raise questions such as
whether seeing really is believing, how much of what we “see” is
actually only inferred, and whether there may be other (intuitive or
spiritual) ways of seeing that enable us to perceive objects and beings
inaccessible to the bodily senses. This book will make a real contribution to the understanding of Victorian science in culture, and of
the ways in which literature draws on all kinds of knowledge.
srdjan smaji is an independent scholar living in New Orleans.
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
c a m b r i d g e s t u d i e s i n n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u ry
l i t e r at u re a n d c u lt u re
General editor
Gillian Beer, University of Cambridge
Editorial board
Isobel Armstrong, Birkbeck, University of London
Kate Flint, Rutgers University
Catherine Gallagher, University of California, Berkeley
D. A. Miller, University of California, Berkeley
J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine
Daniel Pick, Birkbeck, University of London
Mary Poovey, New York University
Sally Shuttleworth, University of Oxford
Herbert Tucker, University of Virginia
Nineteenth-century British literature and culture have been rich fields for interdisciplinary studies. Since the turn of the twentieth century, scholars and critics
have tracked the intersections and tensions between Victorian literature and the
visual arts, politics, social organization, economic life, technical innovations, scientific thought – in short, culture in its broadest sense. In recent years, theoretical
challenges and historiographical shifts have unsettled the assumptions of previous
scholarly synthesis and called into question the terms of older debates. Whereas
the tendency in much past literary critical interpretation was to use the metaphor of culture as “background,” feminist, Foucauldian, and other analyses have
employed more dynamic models that raise questions of power and of circulation.
Such developments have reanimated the field. This series aims to accommodate
and promote the most interesting work being undertaken on the frontiers of the
field of nineteenth-century literary studies: work which intersects fruitfully with
other fields of study such as history, or literary theory, or the history of science.
Comparative as well as interdisciplinary approaches are welcomed.
A complete list of titles published will be found at the end of the book.
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
GHOS TSE E R S, DE T EC T I V E S,
A N D SPI R I T UA L IS TS
Theories of Vision in Victorian Literature and Science
SR DJA N SM AJ IĆ
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521191883
© Srdjan Smajić 2010
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2010
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Smajić, Srdjan, 1974–
Ghost-seers, detectives, and spiritualists : theories of vision in Victorian literature
and science / Srdjan Smajić.
p. cm. – (Cambridge studies in nineteenth-century literature and culture ; 71)
isbn 978-0-521-19188-3 (Hardback)
1. English literature–19th century–History and criticism. 2. Visual perception in literature.
3. Vision in literature. 4. Ghost stories, English–History and criticism.
5. Detective and mystery stories, English–History and criticism.
6. Literature and science. 7. Great Britain–History–Victoria, 1837–1901. I. Title. II. Series.
pr468.v59s63 2010
8239.80937–dc22
2010002265
isbn 978-0-521-19188-3 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
In memory of my father, Emir Smajić
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations
page ix
x
Introduction
1
pa r t i ou t e r v i s ion, i n n e r v i s ion: g ho s t- s e e i ng
a n d g ho s t s t or i e s
9
1
11
Contextualizing the ghost story
2 The rise of optical apparitions
20
3 Inner vision and spiritual optics
34
4 “Betwixt ancient faith and modern incredulity”
45
pa r t i i s e e i ng i s r e a di ng: v i s ion, l a nguag e ,
a n d de t e c t i v e f ic t ion
65
5
Visual learning: sight and Victorian epistemology
67
6 Scopophilia and scopophobia: Poe’s readerly flâneur
94
Stains, smears, and visual language in The Moonstone
108
8 Semiotics v. encyclopedism: the case of Sherlock Holmes
119
pa r t i i i i n t o t h e i n v i s i bl e : s c i e nc e , s p i r i t ua l i s m,
a n d o c c u lt de t e c t ion
129
9 Detective fiction’s uncanny
131
10
137
7
Light, ether, and the invisible world
vii
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
Contents
viii
11
Inner vision and occult detection: Le Fanu’s Martin Hesselius
150
12
Other dimensions, other worlds
157
13
Psychic sleuths and soul doctors
181
Coda
200
Notes
Bibliography
Index
204
238
256
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
Acknowledgments
Many people have had a hand in the making of this book, some directly,
others in more subtle but equally important ways. For their help, guidance,
and friendship, I wish to thank Rima Abunasser; Darin Bradley; Jennifer
Chapman; Victoria Chevalier; Richard and Leigh Collins; Stanley Crowe
and my other colleagues at Furman; Chase and Jessan Hager; Geoffrey
Harpham; Emil Kerenji; James Kilroy; Anne Kouri; David Lee; Shannon
Reilly; Molly Rothenberg; Emir, Vera, and Maja Smajić; Roger Sneed;
and Robb Turner. I am indebted to the infinitely resourceful librarians at
Tulane University and Furman University. A Research and Professional
Growth grant from Furman enabled me to have Odilon Redon’s “The
Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity” reproduced on the
cover, by permission of The Museum of Modern Art. A different version
of Chapters 1–4 appeared as “The Trouble with Ghost-Seeing: Vision,
Ideology, and Genre in the Victorian Ghost Story” in English Literary
History 70 (2003).
ix
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
Abbreviations
“AS”
“CD”
“CI”
“F”
“FO”
“GM”
“GT”
HB
“HI”
“HL”
“JH”
LDW
M
“MC”
“MR”
“NF”
NN
“OM”
“PI”
PIS
“PL”
PLM
“RL”
“RM”
“SB”
Algernon Blackwood, “Ancient Sorceries”
Algernon Blackwood, “The Camp of the Dog”
Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Case of Identity”
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “The Familiar”
Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Five Orange Pips”
William Hope Hodgson, “The Gateway of
the Monster”
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “Green Tea”
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
William Hope Hodgson, “The Horse of the Invisible”
William Hope Hodgson, “The House Among
the Laurels”
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, “Mr Justice Harbottle”
Walter Scott, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Man of the Crowd”
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Mystery of Marie Roget”
Algernon Blackwood, “The Nemesis of Fire”
Catherine Crowe, The Night-Side of Nature
Hermann von Helmholtz, “The Origin and Meaning
of Geometrical Axioms”
Algernon Blackwood, “A Psychical Invasion”
William Whewell, The Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Purloined Letter”
George Henry Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind
Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Red-headed League”
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia”
x
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org
Cambridge University Press
978-0-521-19188-3 - Ghost-Seers, Detectives, and Spiritualists: Theories of Vision in Victorian
Literature and Science
Srdjan Smajic
Frontmatter
More information
List of abbreviations
“SE”
SF
SL
“SMI”
SR
SS
“SV”
“TC”
“TI”
“VHS”
“WR”
xi
William Hope Hodgson, “The Searcher of the End House”
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
Victoria Welby, “Sense, Meaning and Interpretation”
Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus
Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the
Sussex Vampire”
Walter Scott, “The Tapestried Chamber”
William Hope Hodgson, “The Thing Invisible”
Algernon Blackwood, “A Victim of Higher Space”
William Hope Hodgson, “The Whistling Room”
© in this web service Cambridge University Press
www.cambridge.org