In a new VPFA Blog Post, Helena Esser interviews Roy Reads Anything (@edgerat.bsky.social) about his Neglected Victorian Bestsellers project. There's Marryat, Lytton, Corelli, Ouida, and more!
Read the post here: victorianpopularfiction.org/neglected-vi...
Roy's YouTube: www.youtube.com/playlist...
Join us on the 16th April at 6pm for an amazing interactive workshop led by Dr Catherine Pope, author of How to Publish Your PhD! Catherine will discuss the many steps of turning your thesis into a book. This event is open to VPFA members only, and space is limited to 30 people - check your emails.
With all the hype around Wuthering Heights since Emerald Fennel's (wild?) adaptation, we thought that this would be a great opportunity for a discussion of Emily Brontë's classic novel for a VPFA collaboration with the Society of Young Publishers.
CfP for VPFA's 18th Annual Conference is now live and the topic is 'Victorians and their Publics'. To read the CfP and full submission guidelines online, please head to: victorianpopularfiction.org/vpfa-annual-....
Join the VPFA for a workshop on publishing Victorian Popular Fiction!
✅ Turning your thesis into a monograph.
✅ Writing a winning book proposal.
✅ Insights from the VPFJ editorial committee.
✅ Handling peer review & rejection
📅 26th February at 6pm
🔗 See your emails for the registration link!
For those of you who need some mid-week inspiration, why not join us for our next virtual writing retreat? It is the perfect opportunity to get some work done in two solid writing blocks.
11 Feb 2-4pm (GMT)
Free for all VPFA members - check your emails for more information on how to register!
New VPFA Study Day Announcement 📢: 'Out of this World: Science Fiction in the Victorian Period'.
Read the CfP on our website: victorianpopularfiction.org/out-of-this-....
@bavs-uk.bsky.social @rs4vp.org @thevicsoc.bsky.social @global19c.bsky.social
The next special issue of Victorian Popular Fictions Journal is “Human–Animal Relations in Victorian Popular Literature and Culture” and will be guest-edited by Dr Bethany Dahlstrom & Dr Helena Esser. For full CFP and submission guidelines, please see: victorianpopularfiction.org/wp-content/u...
VPFA's Third Sex Reading Group are back with their first session of 2026! In this session, co-hosted by Crescent Rainwater, they will be discussing Netta Syrett's The Victorians. If you would like to attend or be put on the mailing list,please email vpfareadinggroup@gmail.com with 'FAO: Third Sex'.
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT SERIES 🔦 : Claudia Sterbini, whose PhD traces the history of asexuality through the construction of ‘nonsexuality’ in fin de siècle sexology and literature. Check out her new article on non-sexual patients and doctors in The Island of Doctor Moreau: academic.oup.com/jvc/advance-...
The deadline for abstracts for 'The Victorian Short Story' VPFA Study Day has been extended to 16th January! We would love to see your proposal in our inbox at vpfaconference@gmail.com
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT! 🔦 : Milly Harrison. Milly has been a VPFA member since 2021. Her thesis, 'Deviant Cartographies', examines how British Weird fiction allowed late-Victorian authors to explore deviant masculinity.
Harrison recently published in Gothic Studies: www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/...
Christopher Columbus! I've written a new blog post for @vpfa.bsky.social, this time on the Christmassiness of Little Women adaptations...
It was much harder than anticipated. I changed the ranking many times. I began to question everything. I still am...
victorianpopularfiction.org/christmas-wo...
This is the first of many Member Spotlights. We want to make this a fortnightly series, where we highlight any achievements of our Members, because YOU are the heart and soul of VPFA. Email vpfamedia@gmail.com with any achievements and a photo of yourself and we will be delighted to share.
New Blog post alert- 'Neo-Victorian Gothtober 2025' by Helena Esser. Some spooky neo-Vic gothic films and tv series recommendations for your Halloween watching pleasure! Read here: victorianpopularfiction.org/neo-victoria...
Do you want to start reading Ouida but don't know where to start? Find my handy #Ouida Starter Guide on the official VPFA blog:
@vpfa.bsky.social
victorianpopularfiction.org/the-official...
Submissions for the VPFA First Book Prize are now OPEN! Deadline is 31st December 2025. For full eligibility criteria and submission guidelines, go to: victorianpopularfiction.org/vpfa-book-pr...
Sign up to attend the VPFA's Third Sex Reading group's October session on Natasha Pulley's The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, a neo-Victorian novel To sign up this month, please email
vpfareadinggroup@gmail.com with 'FAO: Third Sex No. 43' and ask to be added to the attendees list.
Mentally ill patients dancing at a ball at Somerset County Asylum. Process print after a lithograph by K. Drake, ca. 1850/1855. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/xswz3swa
CFP: Sensation Fiction and the Health Humanities A VPFA Study Day Loughborough University, 27 March 2026 The Health Humanities and Victorian popular fiction intersect in revealing ways, offering insights into how 19th-century literature shaped and reflected contemporary understandings of health, illness, and the body. Popular narratives not only mirrored anxieties surrounding public health and medical progress but also contributed to shaping public perceptions of health and healing. Health Humanities approaches re-examine these texts to uncover how cultural narratives and literary representations influenced attitudes toward physical and mental well-being, gendered experiences of illness, and the ethics of care in an age of rapid scientific change. Health Humanities is a particularly useful approach to sensation fiction because it illuminates the ways in which these emotionally charged, often morally ambiguous narratives explore and interrogate concepts of the body, illness, and mental health. Sensation fiction, with its focus on secrets, trauma, nervous disorders, and abnormal psychological states, frequently dramatizes the anxieties of Victorian society surrounding health, gender, and identity. By applying the lens of Health Humanities, scholars can uncover how these texts reflect and shape contemporary medical discourse. Interdisciplinary approaches also highlight how sensation fiction critiques institutional medicine, domestic care practices, and the pathologization of women’s experiences. Ultimately, Health Humanities allows us to see sensation fiction not just as entertainment, but as a culturally significant form that negotiates the meanings of illness, morality, and human vulnerability in a rapidly changing world. 20-minute papers are invited on any aspect of the health humanities and sensation fiction. Topics may include, but are not limited to the following: • Madness, Hysteria, and the Sensation Heroine • The Role of Doctors and Medical Authority in Se…
🚨Call for Papers!
❓Sensation Fiction and the Health Humanities: A VPFA Study Day
🗺️Loughborough University
📅27 March 2026
💷 FREE
For full CfP: victorianpopularfiction.org/studyday/for...
Contact the organiser Anne-Marie Beller (@braddonite.bsky.social) at a.m.beller@lboro.ac.uk for more information
Excited to announce that the VPFA blog has launched! Thanks to Emma Butler-Way for her hard work in getting it ready for today, for more information check out the blog at the link below:
victorianpopularfiction.org/the-vpfa-blog/
Join us for a virtual writing retreat designed for VPFA members! Working on a conference paper, article, thesis, or admin tasks? this structured retreat offers dedicated time, body doubling, and proven productivity techniques inspired by Rowena Murray. Drop in or stay the full day!
The Editors of Victorian Popular Fictions are looking for guest editors for autumn special issues from 2027 - 2030. Please see the attached CFP. The deadline for proposals is 30th September 2025, and we are very happy to take any queries, please just email us at vpfjournal@gmail.com.
The 2025 prize is now open! (deadline: 30th September 2025). The prize offers the winning scholar two nights' accommodation (with breakfast and dinner) for up to three days' research at Gladstone's Library. To find out more about eligibility and process: victorianpopularfiction.org/mary-eliza-r...
Read about the projects and experiences of previous Mary Eliza Root prize winners (Anne Chapman, Lin Young, Jon Potter, Asma Char, Adele Guyton, Helen McKenzie, and Joanne Knowles) here: victorianpopularfiction.org/mer-prize-re...
Apply by 30th September for your chance to visit Gladstone's Library
Little owls among foliage in a pattern of muted yellows, brown and green
Spot the owls for #InternationalOwlAwarenessDay! An 1898 design in Jacquard woven wool by Charles Francis Annesley Voysey, 1857-1841, sold by Liberty's (it was also produced as a wallpaper)
victorianweb.org/art/design/t...
Hear hear!
It's the @vpfa's deeply rooted refusal of hierarchy in the interest of welcome and joy combined with serious intellectual ambition, isn't it?
It's proof renewed every year that fun and rigour make a great alloy!
The last time I was at the @bmi1854.bsky.social was as a kid playing in a music competition with my brother....this week I was back for the @vpfa.bsky.social Annual Conference! It's been absolutely wonderful; thank you to everyone! #VPFAExtremes
No better way to start a Tuesday! #VPFAExtremes
Grill extends the metaphor of the Victorian asylum to include Audley court and reads Lady Audley herself as a character who wields medical agency instead of as a patient/mad person.
#VPFAExtremes
HUGE shout out to Keira for handling being the sole speaker like a pro! I certainly enjoyed chairing this panel, even if it was a slightly unconventional one. I'm *always* game for talking about Jane Eyre - this was an absolute pleasure. Thank you Keira for being such a good sport! #VPFAExtremes
