1st Edition
G. W. M. Reynolds and His Fiction The Man Who Outsold Dickens
By Stephen Knight
Copyright 2019
220 Pages
by
Routledge
220 Pages
by
Routledge
220 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
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... Read more
Preface Introduction 1. Reynolds and His Novels 2. Reynold’s Reception 3. Approaching Reynolds’ Fiction Chapter 1 Towards London and the Mysteries; First Moves in Fiction; Pickwick Abroad; Alfred de Rosann; Grace Darling; Robert Macaire; The Steam-Packet; The Drunkard’s Tale; Master Timothy’s Bookcase; Chapter 2 The Mysteries of London; Section 1: Volumes 1-2: The Markhams, Self-Managing Women, The Resurrection Man, and Other Criminals; Introduction; Major Male Figures; Major Female Figures; Minor Characters, Noble, Troubled, and Vicious; Criminals Great and Small; Socio-Political Commentary Section 2 A: Volumes 3-4: Chapters 1-119, 1826-7: Aristocratic Families, Insurgent Women, Contemporary Politics; 2.A.1 Aristocratic Interactions; 2.A.2 The Master Criminal; 2.A.3 Comic Non-Gentry; 2.A.4 Corrupt Non-Gentry, and Some Decent Relatives; 2.A.5 Minor Figures, Respectable and Criminal; Section 2 B: Volume 4: Chapters 120-209, 1846-7: Modern Gentry, Bourgeoisie, Seductresses, and Criminals. 2.B.1 The Gentry in the Present; 2.B 2 Modern Seductresses; 2.B.3 New Aristocratic Dramas; 2.B.4 Modern Criminals; 2.B.5 Satirical and Political Commentary; Section 3 The Mysteries of London, Series 3 and 4; Chapter 3 Mysteries Historicized: The Days of Hoga.
Biography
Stephen Knight (M.A., Oxford, Ph.D. Sydney, both in English Literature) taught at universities in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Leicester, and Cardiff, and is an honorary professor at Melbourne. He has written many articles and reviews, and this is his twentieth book: they include several on crime fiction, the prize-winning Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography (2003) and recently The Politics of Myth (2015); The Mysteries of the Cities (2012) has a chapter on Reynolds’ The Mysteries of London.
