Who doesn’t love a great mystery? In this course we will investigate the hidden stories of the Victorian novel from the both the perspective of a 19C reader and a 21C critic. Along the way, we will ask questions about Victorian attitudes towards race, gender, and sexuality, towards the inhabitants and territories of the expanding British empire, and towards the approaching turn of the century. We will also think and write a lot about how novels work. Books to be read include Dickens, Great Expectations, Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret, Haggard, She, Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and short stories by Conan Doyle and others.