Metanarrative suspense in four sensation novels.

This thesis explains how sensation novelists Ellen Wood, Charles Reade, Wilkie Collins, and M.E. Braddon use secondary narratives, or metanarratives, as defined by critic Gerard Genette, to create textual suspense. These four novelists use metanarratives that suspend the main narrative and allow the narrator to interact with the reader to foster moral reform or urge the reader to solve the novel's mysteries. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss Wood and Reade's use of metanarratives to fulfill their objective of personal and social moral reform. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on Collins and Braddon's placement of textual clues in metanarratives which help the reader solve mysteries and puzzles while increasing the author's popularity.