This new study of the intersection of romance novels with vocal music records a society on the cusp of modernisation, with a printing industry emerging to serve people's growing appetites for entertainment amidst their changing views of religion and the occult. No mere diversion, fiction was integral to musical culture and together both art forms reveal key intellectual currents that circulated in the early nineteenth-century British home and were shared by many consumers. Roger Hansford explores relationships between music produced in the early 1800s for domestic consumption and the fictional genre of romance, offering a new view of romanticism in British print culture. He surveys romance novels by Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Sir Walter Scott, James Hogg, Edward Bulwer and Charles Kingsley in the period 1790-1850, interrogating the ways that music served to create mood and atmosphere, enlivened social scenes and contributed to plot developments. He explores the connections between musical scenes in romance fiction and the domestic song literature, treating both types of source and their intersection as examples of material culture. Hansford's intersectional reading revolves around a series of imaginative figures - including the minstrel, fairies, mermaids, ghosts, and witches, and Christians engaged both in virtue and vice - the identities of which remained consistent as influence passed between the art forms. While romance authors quoted song lyrics and included musical descriptions and characters, their novels recorded and modelled the performance of songs by the middle and upper classes, influencing the work of composers and the actions of performers who read romance fiction.

This new study of the intersection of romance novels with vocal music records a society on the cusp of modernisation, with a printing industry emerging to serve people's growing appetites for entertainment amidst their changing views of religion and the occult. No mere diversion, fiction was integral to musical culture and together both art forms reveal key intellectual currents that circulated in the early nineteenth-century British home and were shared by many consumers. Roger Hansford explores relationships between music produced in the early 1800s for domestic consumption and the fictional genre of romance, offering a new view of romanticism in British print culture. He surveys romance novels by Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Sir Walter Scott, James Hogg, Edward Bulwer and Charles Kingsley in the period 1790-1850, interrogating the ways that music served to create mood and atmosphere, enlivened social scenes and contributed to plot developments. He explores the connections between musical scenes in romance fiction and the domestic song literature, treating both types of source and their intersection as examples of material culture. Hansford's intersectional reading revolves around a series of imaginative figures - including the minstrel, fairies, mermaids, ghosts, and witches, and Christians engaged both in virtue and vice - the identities of which remained consistent as influence passed between the art forms. While romance authors quoted song lyrics and included musical descriptions and characters, their novels recorded and modelled the performance of songs by the middle and upper classes, influencing the work of composers and the actions of performers who read romance fiction.

Despite recent academic interest in oral history and working-class writing, few other autobiographies reveal daily life for early twentieth-century itinerant gasworks bricklayers, or 'retort-setters'. Charles Hansford recounts constructing his own home single-handedly aged twenty-one, describes economic privations and poor weather conditions. 'Brick Bonds' documents his relationships with fellow workers and specific building techniques they used (a bond is a brick-laying pattern). His personal memories of enemy action in wartime, working-class social and leisure pursuits in London, the 1924 National Building Strike, and notable ships like Titanic and Bismarck are set into historical context. Hansford reveals an evolving class awareness and trade union activism; a declared Socialist, he readily left building sites in protest, even into the 1970s. His career encompassed Fawley Refinery, Royal Netley War Hospital, British Overseas Airways Company flying-boat bases, and Harrods store in London.

Home to the UK's largest refinery, Fawley is among the most at-risk parts of the country for petrochemical fires. Its fire service is vital to the area's infrastructure and its firefighters must always be prepared. For the first time, the story of this fire station and of the Waterside's private and military fire brigades is told. From establishment in the early twentieth century, through the development of the fire engine and firefighting techniques, to combating modern-day terrorist threats, Fawley's firefighters have witnessed it all. This book looks at how the station and its crew, now reduced from full- to part-time staffing, have evolved in the face of new dangers and challenges.