SUMMARY
This paper investigates the ways in which the legal system affects the reading choices of Isabel Sleaford, as well as her marriage to George Gilbert and her subsequent fascination with Roland Lansdell. While much is often made of the effect sensation fiction has on Isabel’s choices, the atmosphere of crime and criminality in which she is steeped unwittingly has an equal effect on the novels she reads. Isabel (and Roland) are just as strongly affected by the written word of the law as they are by their tastes in reading material, and it is this collision between the law and the sensation novel that has disastrous effects on Isabel’s marriage to George and on Roland’s life, as well.