The Show
Victorian Scribblers is a podcast about the nineteenth-century writers time forgot, from Mary Elizabeth Braddon (the mother of detective fiction) to Marie Corelli (queer science-fiction writer extraordinaire) and beyond. It’s hosted by Dr. Courtney Floyd, a specialist in nineteenth-century literature and print culture, and Dr. Eleanor Dumbill, a specialist in Victorian literature and publishing. The show was launched in 2017 and is now gearing up for its fifth season. New episodes are published the last Friday of every month.
The Pitch
You’ve probably heard about Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters. Maybe even George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, and Thomas Hardy. But what about the rest of them?
Scholars tell us there were anywhere from 1200 to 7000 working novelists in England alone during the Victorian era. And while that lower number is likely the more accurate one, that’s still a lot more writers than we’re familiar with today! Some of those authors wrote the novels that inspired Indiana Jones and the murder mysteries and true crime shows you might like to watch.
Some of them created the characters that inspired the Evil Queen in Snow White and kicked off tropes like the femme fatale and the manic pixie dream girl.
In Victorian Scribblers, we explore the lives and work of the nineteenth-century writers time forgot. And that doesn’t just mean British writers, we cover authors from around the globe. Wouldn’t you like to know their names?
About the Hosts
Dr. Courtney Floyd holds a Ph.D. in Victorian literature and print culture from the University of Oregon. She launched Victorian Scribblers in 2017, while studying for exams. Her dissertation, “Printing the Other Victorians: Nineteenth-Century Fictions of Embodiment and Identity,” examined the way that Victorian print and media objects were seen and used as tools for corporeal self-fashioning, particularly by those whose embodiments and identities were considered non-normative. Courtney is also a scribbler in her own right: she writes speculative fiction and audio drama.
Dr. Eleanor Dumbill holds a Ph.D. in English and Publishing from Loughborough University. Her thesis, ‘Vanished Authors and Invisible Women’ focused on three nineteenth-century women writers—George Eliot, Frances Milton Trollope, and Frances Eleanor Trollope—exploring the formation of their lasting reputations. Drawing on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, she questions the extent to which their personal and professional networks relationships have affected the reception of these three authors and why so little research has been done around the Trollopes.
Contact
If you have questions, comments, would like to feature Victorian Scribblers in an upcoming interview or publication, or you are a fellow podcaster interested in collaborating, email Courtney and Eleanor at victorianscribblers @ outlook.com (remove spaces)