Focusing on a process of reading 'conscripted' by Victorian sensation fiction, the article begins 'by outlining the European tradition of the Antipodes before discussing the conscription process using [Mary Elizabeth Braddon's] Lady Audley's Secret, and then comparing this to the discoveries and development of the early science of reading'. It concludes 'by alluding to the implications of this reading process for the formation of British imperial subjectivity, and the continuing role of the tradition of "the Antipodes"' (295).