The Unknown Relatives analyzes a large body of Victorian literary texts dealing with the topic of Catholicism and Catholics, written from the non-Catholic perspective. The readings of these texts are inspired by psychoanalytic criticism, primarily by the work of Freud and Kristeva and includes the readings of a number of Victorian authors, both canonical like Charlotte Bronté, William Thackeray, and Charles Dickens and lesser-known ones such as George Borrow, John Shorthouse, and Mrs Humphry Ward.