Adam Abraham's meticulously researched, expertly theorized, and engagingly written Plagiarizing the Victorian Novel upends traditional conceptions of the canon by arguing that the oeuvres of Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton, and George Eliot were shaped by the allographic “aftertexts” that not only followed chronologically after, but also aggressively “came after” their works. The playful epigraphs he threads throughout the book—citations from Daniel Defoe to Umberto Eco—remind readers: “Unoriginality is nothing new” (1). Yet Abraham harnesses this unoriginality to offer new readings of Dickens's novelistic form, Bulwer Lytton's narrative style, and George Eliot's authorial persona.
After deftly outlining the histories of “second order” texts and synthesizing the theories that Gérard Genette, Marjorie Garber, Linda Hutcheon, Terry Castle, and David Brewer use to define them, Abraham settles on “aftertexts” as the umbrella term encompassing texts that “simulate and interrogate their predecessors” (19). Though oddly prominent in its title, the book only addresses...
