'This outstanding book paints a different picture of 1830s and 1840s politics as it captures how literature influences history and not just reflects it.'
Choice
Reprinted with permission from Choice Reviews. All rights reserved. Copyright by the American Library Association
It represents a fascinating addition to scholarship on Victorian popular literature and, at times, a genuinely entertaining read which would benefit scholars working on popular fiction, the penny blood, radicalism, and the connection between popular literature and politics.
Anna Gasperini, Journal of Victorian Culture
The strengths of Breton's book are numerous and considerable. They include his skepticism of easy, academically fashionable ideological explanations of cultural phenomena ... Breton vividly demonstrates that popular literature was radical because radicalism appealed to plebeian Victorians.
Rebecca Nesvet, Victorian Periodicals Review
Introduction
1 The Old, New, Borrowed and Blue Newgate Calendar
2 Jack Sheppard, the Newgate Novel
3 Penny Radicalism? Sweeny Todd and the Bloods
4 Mysteries and Ambiguities: G. W. M. Reynolds and The Mysteries of London
5 Distant Friends of the People: Howitt's Journal and Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine
Conclusion
Index