VICTORIAN STUDIES PRACTITIONERS have often applauded themselves on their openness to views, topics, and approaches not immediately recognizable as already part of the field. I put the formulation this way because Victorian studies scholars and critics also prize the field for its capaciousness; they tend to think of the field as large and already all-inclusive. It houses many genres and sub-disciplines and it first welcomed certain kinds of critical theory when other historical fields moved more slowly to accept them.