18th century… Victor Hugo’s “The Last Day of a Condemned Man” (1829) 7 Jul 2017 Last week Google celebrated the life of Victor Hugo (1802-85) with some quirky illustrations on its masthead, so I thought I would do the same by writing a post on…
19th Century… When “Upperworld” and “Underworld” Meet: Social Class and Crime in “The Mysteries of London (1844-46) 15 Mar 2017 [The following is the text of a talk given at Lancaster University's 'Class and the Past Conference' on 16 March 2017]. Introduction George William MacArthur Reynolds’ The Mysteries of London,…
18th century… Rob Roy (1671-1734) 13 Jan 2017 A famous man is Robin Hood, The English ballad-singer's joy! And Scotland has a thief as good, An outlaw of as daring mood; She has her brave ROB ROY! Then…
19th Century… E. L. Blanchard’s “The Mysteries of London” (1849-50) 16 Dec 201616 Dec 2016 My previous post was about Thomas Miller’s continuation of G. W. M. Reynolds’ penny blood The Mysteries of London (Reynolds and Miller’s series were published between 1844 – 1848 and…
18th century… The First Robin Hood Novel: Robert Southey’s “Harold, or the Castle of Morford” (1791) 18 Nov 2016 The first Robin Hood novel to be published was the anonymous Robin Hood: A Tale of the Olden Time (1819). A few months after this Walter Scott published his enormously…
19th Century… Pernicious Trash? “The Prince of Archers, or, The Boyhood Days of Robin Hood”(1883) 16 Oct 2016 There is now before us such a veritable mountain of pernicious trash, mostly in paper covers, and “Price One Penny”; so-called novelettes, tales, stories of adventure, mystery and crime; pictures…
