1381… Available for preorder: “The Life and Legend of a Rebel Leader: Wat Tyler” (2018) 14 Jul 201730 May 2018 My book entitled The Life and Legend of a Rebel Leader: Wat Tyler (Pen & Sword, 2018) is now available to preorder on Amazon and Waterstones's website. Follow the Amazon…
19th Century… Society Gets the Criminals it Deserves: The Resurrection Man from G. W. M. Reynolds’ “The Mysteries of London” (1844-45) 30 Nov 201630 Nov 2016 [All images unless otherwise stated are my own, scanned from a first edition of Reynolds’ Mysteries that is in my own collection – permission to use is freely granted providing…
19th Century… George Emmett’s “Robin Hood and the Archers of Merrie Sherwood” (1868-69) 20 Oct 201620 Oct 2016 [All images taken from books in my personal collection – feel free to use] Further to my recent postings on Robin Hood in Victorian penny dreadfuls, this post sheds light…
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…
11th Century… Radical Robin Hood: “Little John and Will Scarlet” (1865) 14 Oct 2016 Introduction With the exception of Pierce Egan the Younger’s Robin Hood and Little John, or, The Merry Men of Sherwood Forest (1838-40), Robin Hood penny dreadfuls have generated very little…
16th Century… “Lazarillo de Tormes” (1554) 26 Aug 201627 Aug 2016 Introduction The anonymously-authored Lazarillo de Tormes was first published in Spain in 1554.[1] It is a picaresque novel – a term derived from picaro meaning ‘rogue’ or ‘rascal’. The genre…