Waters’ use of the plots and motives of the sensational novel is also associated with a broad picture of the social troubles, that provoke criminal plots of this genre. The connection between Waters and Dickens is genetic: the social basis becomes a necessary coordinate system for the development of the plot (sketches of the life of representatives of different strata, the creation of documentary sketches of urban life attention to specific circumstances and environment, which form a particular character).

The role of Dickens’ text in understanding the theme of social and urban landscape in Sarah Waters’ novels is not limited to creating a postmodern pastiche. The writer shows that the dynamism of urban social topography, the complexity of cultural and gender self-determination of a person of Victorian era not only existed, but also had paramount importance for him/her. Waters’ novels use the Dickensian code and popular sensational plots in order to rethink class and gender issues, to show the social topography of Victorian era from today’s perspective, with its close interest in social marginalities and outsiders (travesty actors, representatives of non-traditional communities, criminals, spiritualists, the secret life of respectable classes). The author’s forms of interaction with the Victorian text are investigated with references to the author’s revisionist stand of a professional historian, to her creative reflection on Victorian canon in the spirit of the historiographical novel, and interest in popular genres of Victorian era (Dickens’ socio-psychological novel, sensational novel, publications in the popular magazine “All the Year Round”).

The article examines the specifics of the work of the modern British writer Sarah Waters with Victorian canon.

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