THE AUTHOR WHO OUTSOLD DICKENS: The Life and Work of W.H. Ainsworth By Stephen Carver Published by Pen & Sword History, January 2020 Now available from Pen & Sword here William Harrison Ainsworth (1805 – 1882) is probably the most successful 19th Century writer that most people haven’t heard of. Journalist, essayist, poet and, most… Continue reading The Author Who Outsold Dickens
Tag: 19th Century Journalism
Work in Progress
Hi Everyone You might have noticed that this blog has gone a little quiet lately, though if you're interested I recently did a piece on the ghost stories of Oliver Onions for Wordsworth Editions which you can find here. Anyway, I'm still around, but not posting right now because I'm currently working on this project… Continue reading Work in Progress
Finding Jack Vincent
As a child growing up in the 1970s, I possessed a passion for morbid nineteenth century popular literature. I had inherited this trait from my mother, a Catholic turned Spiritualist with a taste for gothic film and fiction. I was thus always dimly aware of the name ‘Jack Vincent’ through the cheap paperback anthologies of… Continue reading Finding Jack Vincent
Tales of Terror from the House of Blackwood
Although any horror story might be designated a ‘Tale of Terror,’ this term has come to have a particular association with the short sharp shockers of Regency and early-Victorian monthly magazines – particularly Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine – a form most perfectly realised in the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Unlike the subtler phantasmagoria of eighteenth… Continue reading Tales of Terror from the House of Blackwood
Life in London from Egan to Dickens: Regency Innocence versus Victorian Experience
If you do not want to dwell with evil-doers, do not live in London (1) I. Innocence: Pierce Egan’s Life in London. When the Victorians wanted to attack an author, they would invariably draw comparisons with the Regency writer Pierce Egan (1772 – 1849). John Forster, for instance, in a damning Examiner review of W.H.… Continue reading Life in London from Egan to Dickens: Regency Innocence versus Victorian Experience