This course examines the development of the novel as a literary and cultural form at the moment of its greatest impact during the Victorian era (1837-1901). It focuses on the emergence of the realist novel and other modes that intersected and competed with it (e.g. the gothic, the supernatural, sensation fiction, the New Woman novel), to explore the complex ways that represented different realities. The course also addresses contemporary issues such as new ideas about human psychology; gender, domesticity, and The Woman Question; social status and class conflict; science and religion; race and empire. Authors may include Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Oscar Wilde, Olive Schreiner, and more. Open to students from any major. Provides ENG Major Elective credit and ENG minor credit.