ABSTRACT
The close connection between food and revolutionary sentiments becomes obvious when looking at the alleged cause for the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny. Apart from attacking the aesthetic shortcomings of the genre and uttering their concern for the reading body, food rhetoric also proved to be a highly effectual and convenient way of voicing a wide variety of extra-literary anxieties. Many nineteenth-century critics who objected to sensation fiction especially deplored the fact that sensation novels were primarily written for amusement and those readers, once hooked by sensational writing, inevitably craved for more. Many critics obviously feared that by sharing the meal of sensation fiction, a sense of community could be established between readers of different social classes, which eventually might lead to an eradication of social distinctions. In order to discourage people from continuing to read sensation fiction, conservative critics called up a whole arsenal of arguments, attacking the genre on both moral and literary grounds.
