We seem to see melodrama everywhere we look—from the soliloquies of devastation in a Dickens novel to the abject monstrosity of Frankenstein’s creation, and

A lively and accessible account of the most popular form of nineteenth-century English theatre, and its continuing influence today.

In this lucid and fascinating book, Peter Brooks argues that melodrama is a crucial mode of expression in modern literature. After studying stage melodrama as a

The first full-length study of sensationalist and melodramatic elements in Hardy's novels uses six of his texts to demonstrate the ways in which Hardy uses the

How do people make sense of their world in the face of the breakneck speed of contemporary social change? Through the lives and narratives of eight women, The M