G.W.M. Reynolds

G.W.M. Reynolds
Author: Anne Humpherys
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 516
Release: 2017-03-02
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1351935089

G.W.M. Reynolds (1814-1879) had a major impact on the mid-Victorian era that until now has been largely unacknowledged. A prolific novelist whose work had a massive circulation, and an influential journalist and editor, he was a man of contradictions in both his life and writing: a middle-class figure who devoted his life to working class issues but seldom missed a chance to profit from the exploitation of current issues; the founder of the radical newspaper Reynolds Weekly, as well as a bestselling author of historical romances, gothic and sensation novels, oriental tales, and domestic fiction; a perennial bankrupt who nevertheless ended his life prosperously. A figure of such diversity requires a collaborative study. Bringing together a distinguished group of scholars, this volume does justice to the full range of Reynolds's achievement and influence. With proper emphasis on new work in the field, the contributors take on Reynolds's involvement with Chartism, serial publication, the mass market periodical, commodity culture, and the introduction of French literature into British consciousness, to name just a few of the topics covered. The Mysteries of London, the century's most widely read serial, receives the extensive treatment this long-running urban gothic work deserves. Adding to the volume's usefulness are comprehensive bibliographies of Reynolds's own writings and secondary criticism relevant to the study of this central figure in mid-nineteenth-century Britain.

G.W.M. Reynolds Reimagined

G.W.M. Reynolds Reimagined
Author: Jennifer Conary
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2023-04-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1000821609

This essay collection proposes that G.W.M. Reynolds’s contribution to Victorian print culture reveals the interrelations between authorship, genre, and radicalism in popular print culture of the nineteenth century. As a best-selling author of popular fiction marketed to the lower classes, and a passionate champion of radical politics and "the industrious classes," Reynolds and his work demonstrate the relevance of Victorian Studies to topics of pressing contemporary concern including populism, working-class fiction, the concept of ‘originality’, and the collective scholarly endeavour to ‘widen’ and ‘undiscipline’ Victorian Studies. Bringing together well-known and newly-emerging scholars from across different disciplinary perspectives, the volume explores the importance of Reynolds Studies to scholarship on the nineteenth-century. This book will appeal to students and scholars of the nineteenth-century press, popular culture, and of authorship, as well as to Victorian Studies scholars interested in the translation of Victorian texts into new and indigenous markets.

G. W. M. Reynolds and His Fiction

G. W. M. Reynolds and His Fiction
Author: Stephen Knight
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2018-12-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0429018231

George Reynolds is arguably the most prolific of all nineteenth-century English novelists, reaching an enormous audience through his thirty-six novels. Often selling in very large numbers in weekly one-penny installments, his works were known as by the most popular English novelist ever. Yet today, he remains almost unknown in the canon of English Literature. A serious radical, strongly pro-woman, and a leading Chartist seeking the vote for all men, Reynolds’ vigorous heroines differ notably from the Victorian novelists’ timid norm. He was strongly pro-Jewish and pro-Gypsy, very interested in French and Italian society, but wrote for ordinary English working people. Dickens thought him a dangerous leftist: for all these reasons, he was excluded from the elite literary world. G. W. M. Reynolds: The Man Who Outsold Dickens reestablishes Reynolds as a major figure of mid-nineteenth-century fiction and an author of European range and status. This book examines his massive popularity and notable concern with the problems of ordinary people, especially women, in the complex and often dangerous new world of the modern city. With the support of his wife Susannah, Reynolds’ enormous influence would also make a contribution to the cause of mass political education through his role in the development of popular fiction and journalism. This book is a major innovation in the field of Victorian literary studies, with relevance to popular cultural studies, the politics of literature, and publishing history, presenting properly a much overlooked major English novelist.

The Dime Novel in Children's Literature

The Dime Novel in Children's Literature
Author: Vicki Anderson
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2014-10-16
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0786483024

With their rakish characters, sensationalist plots, improbable adventures and objectionable language (like swell and golly), dime novels in their heyday were widely considered a threat to the morals of impressionable youth. Roundly criticized by church leaders and educators of the time, these short, quick-moving, pocket-sized publications were also, inevitably, wildly popular with readers of all ages. This work looks at the evolution of the dime novel and at the authors, publishers, illustrators, and subject matter of the genre. Also discussed are related types of children's literature, such as story papers, chapbooks, broadsides, serial books, pulp magazines, comic books and today's paperback books. The author shows how these works reveal much about early American life and thought and how they reflect cultural nationalism through their ideological teachings in personal morality and ethics, humanitarian reform and political thought. Overall, this book is a thoughtful consideration of the dime novel's contribution to the genre of children's literature. Eight appendices provide a wealth of information, offering an annotated bibliography of dime novels and listing series books, story paper periodicals, characters, authors and their pseudonyms, and more. A reference section, index and illustrations are all included.