The Penny Politics of Victorian Popular Fiction

Penny politics explores how and why Victorian popular literature from the 1830s and 1840s appealed to politicised, intermittently radicalised working-class audiences by supplementing its violent, counter-cultural entertainments with openly political content. -- .

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Penny politics offers a new way to read early Victorian popular fiction such as Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London. It locates forms of radical discourse in the popular literature that emerged simultaneously with Brittan’s longest and most significant people’s movement. It listens for echoes of Chartist fiction in popular fiction. The book rethinks the relationship between the popular and political, understanding that radical politics had popular appeal and that the lines separating a genuine radicalism from commercial success are complicated and never absolute. With archival work into Newgate calendars and Chartist periodicals, as well as media history and culture, it brings together histories of the popular and political so as to rewrite the radical canon. -- .