Germ Theory Temporalities and Generic Innovation in Neo-Victorian Fiction

Abstract

By representing the microbe as a force that catalyses antagonistic and amicable connections between peoples of different nations, Matthew Kneale, Sheri Holman, and Anne Roiphe put forth the idea that the (neo-)Victorian germ serves as a force to facilitate prioritising global health over the issues of individual nations. Conceptualisations of the microbe in their novels reflect current medical and political rhetoric on bioterrorism and ‘killer’ viruses. And because of their revamped conceptualisations of the germ, texts such as Sweet Thames (1992), The Dress Lodger (2001), and An Imperfect Lens (2006) transcend the traditional neo-Victorian novel genre to comprise a nascent category I call global contagion fiction. Furthermore, since both British and Americans have ‘travelled’ to the Victorian era via their authorship and readership of this literature, this generic subcategory can also be thought of as transatlantic as well as transhistorical. Global contagion fiction is a co-production of British and American authors not writing as representatives of their respective contemporary literary traditions but as transatlantic citizens of superpowers equally intrigued and threatened by globalisation and the rise of bioterrorism.