Over the last two decades, contemporary culture has witnessed the rapidly increasing popularity of neo-Victorian (literary, filmic, and stage) texts and the development of critical interest in the field. The neo-Victorian genre was initially construed as a subgenre of postmodernism, but more recently has been considered in relation to broader literary and cultural trends. This essay considers the construction of the neo-Victorian canon, and contends that its formation follows the same trajectory as that of the broader literary canon in the early twentieth century, initially excluding or marginalising particular works (in particular, popular fiction and culture) prior to expanding to include a wider array of texts and genres, including, in recent years, global literatures. I map the development of the neo-Victorian canon to date, including critical debates around the genre, and examine the implications of this in terms of prevailing attitudes towards literary and cultural scholarship, popular culture, and textual colonisation, before considering the (sometimes problematic) usage and connotations of the terminology associated with this key genre of contemporary fiction.
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