The Victorian novel is hardly constrained by the limits of realism. Though the nineteenth century saw the rise of the novel as a realist enterprise capturing both the social networks of a turbulent society and the interiority of modern subjects, the novel form also contained a variety of genres that challenged and subverted a plainly realist style. These provocative novels disclosed the tension of the self in conflict with its own desires: are people rational actors making sensible decisions, or are they animals enthralled by their senses, their desires? This course approaches the Victorian representation of the self as defined by—and in struggle with—desire and sexuality through two massively popular, intertwined genres: the Gothic and the sensation novel. While the Gothic novel often highlights the past’s terrifying hold upon the present, the sensation novel shows that the present is not without its own horrors. In each, the solidity of identity and reality are uncertain. And in each, mystery creates a desire to know the truth—a desire that extends to the experience of the reader. Students in this course will read Gothic novels in rural settings, like Wuthering Heights; sensation novels in the city, like Lady Audley’s Secret; and examples of the urban and cosmopolitan Gothic of the 1880s and ’90s, like Jekyll and Hyde and Dracula. In addition to novels, we will also read critical texts about the history of sexuality and identity in the nineteenth century.