ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book argues that in Victorian popular literature, the heroine's dress functions not as verisimilar or frivolous descriptive detail but as a signifier to be read. Changes in the colour, texture and style of the heroine's dress represent her development and movement through a narrative and the changing fashions in popular literature of the period; in short, dress tells the heroine's story. In mid- to late-Victorian popular literature, the heroines are transformed from angelic or devious women in white muslin, to passionate femmes fatales or aesthetes in rich silks and velvets, mysterious women in paisley shawls, to New Women in grey, and rational-dressing and cross-dressing writers and politicians. These descriptions testify to changing fashions in women's dress, indicates changing social and narrative possibilities for heroines within contemporary notions of femininity and sexuality, and within styles and genres of popular literature.
