New Directions in Popular Fiction

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. The Fields of Popular Fiction

   • Ken Gelder

   Pages 1-19

3. Histories of Popular Genres

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

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   2. Love in the Time of Finance: Eliza Haywood and the Rise of the Scenic Novel

      • Joe Hughes

      Pages 23-41

   3. Colonial Australian Detectives, Character Type and the Colonial Economy

      • Ken Gelder, Rachael Weaver

      Pages 43-66

   4. ‘The Floodgates of Inkland were Opened’: Aestheticising the Whitechapel Murders

      • Grace Moore

      Pages 67-86

   5. Imperial Affairs: The British Empire and the Romantic Novel, 1890–1939

      • Hsu-Ming Teo

      Pages 87-110

   6. ‘The Future of our Delicate Network of Empire’: The Riddle of the Sands and the Birth of the British Spy Thriller

      • Merrick Burrow

      Pages 111-133

   7. Did Indians Read Dime Novels?: Re-Indigenising the Western at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

      • Christine Bold

      Pages 135-156

   8. Unno Jūza and the Uses of Science in Prewar Japanese Popular Fiction

      • Seth Jacobowitz

      Pages 157-175

   9. The New Weird

      • Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock

      Pages 177-199

   10. From Middle Earth to Westeros: Medievalism, Proliferation and Paratextuality

       • Kim Wilkins

       Pages 201-221

   11. Denise Mina’s Garnethill Trilogy: Feminist Crime Fiction at the Millennium

       • Sabine Vanacker

       Pages 223-238

   12. Popular Fiction in Québec: National Identity and ‘American’ Genres

       • Amy J. Ransom

       Pages 239-260

   13. Glass and Game: The Speculative Girl Hero

       • Catherine Driscoll, Alexandra Heatwole

       Pages 261-283

4. Authors, Distribution, (Re)Production

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 285-285

      PDF

   2. Mediating Popular Fictions: From the Magic Lantern to the Cinematograph

      • Helen Groth

      Pages 287-307

   3. ‘The Power of Her Pen’: Marie Corelli, Authorial Identity and Literary Value

      • Kirsten MacLeod

      Pages 309-326

   4. Popular Fiction in Performance: Gaskell, Collins and Stevenson on Stage

      • Catherine Wynne

      Pages 327-348

   5. Beyond the Antipodes: Australian Popular Fiction in Transnational Networks

      • David Carter

      Pages 349-370

This book brings together new contributions in Popular Fiction Studies, giving us a vivid sense of new directions in analysis and focus. It looks into the histories of popular genres such as the amatory novel, imperial romance, the western, Australian detective fiction, Whitechapel Gothic novels, the British spy thriller, Japanese mysteries, the 'new weird', fantasy, girl hero action novels and Quebecois science fiction. It also examines the production, reproduction and distribution of popular fiction as it carves out space for itself in transnational marketplaces and across different media entertainment systems; and it discusses the careers of popular authors and the various investments in popular fiction by readers and fans. This book will be indispensable for anyone with a serious interest in this prolific but highly distinctive literary field.

• Genre
• Author
• Market
• Entertainment
• Transnational

• University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

  Ken Gelder

Ken Gelder is Professor of English at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His books include Reading the Vampire (1994), Uncanny Australia: Sacredness and Identity in a Postcolonial Nation (1998, with Jane M. Jacobs), Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices of a Literary Field (2004), Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice (2007) and New Vampire Cinema (2012).

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