Literature for the masses appeared on an unprecedented scale in the
first half of the 19th-century. This was the earliest response to
new and voracious demands for cheap books of all kinds. This famous
and innovative book enquires as to the nature of this new material,
the responses to it, and its audiences amidst the new reading
public which it illuminatesThe technological advances in printing,
and the urbanisation of the population were key influences. So,
too, were new entrepreneurial energies amongst author and
publishers.Professor James shows what were the realities and the
resonances of this new culture. He examines the effects of a new
urban culture, its complicated class relations, the difficult
history of the radical press, and the relationships between popular
fiction and 'literature'. His is a detailed and engaging, well
illustrated study of the growth of literacy and the vivacious and
enormously varied popular literature of both entertainment,
improvement, and instruction which was published. This included
chapbooks and broadsheets, plagiarisms of Dickens in penny serial
numbers, gothic tales of terror, 'blood-and-murder',
'ghost-and-goblin' fiction, exuberant historical novels, domestic
stories, romances, and tales of fashionable life.The first edition
was welcomed by Raymond Williams, who wrote that "Dr. James has
done so thorough a job that all students of the period will be
permanently in his debt...the success of the enquiry, in research
terms is outstanding: a solid contribution to the necessary
rewriting of nineteenth-century cultural history."This expanded
edition includes new material on how this important study started
with, D. Phil work on the Barry Ono Collection; existing
non-academic collectors and enthusiasts (Lawson, Algar, Jay,
Medcraft, Summers); theatrical artistes (Barry Ono , Frank
Pettingell); research on 'Old Boys blood and thunder' serials (E.S.
Turner), early academic studies of popular fiction and its
audience; literary studies (J.M.S. Tompkins, Margaret Dalziel);
readership (Richard Altick, Raymond Williams); social issues (Q.D.
Leavis, Richard Hoggart).The author has also added a short epilogue
on other work in the field by radical historians, including E. P.
Thompson, Ian Haywood, and Rohan McWilliam.On working-class
readership (by David Vincent); on serial fiction and popular
traditions, journalism, melodrama and the visual arts; and on
recent studies of Edward Lloyd, J.M. Rymer, G.W.M. Reynolds;
reprinted fiction by Valancourt et al. He has added a guide to
relevant websites for ongoing study.
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