“Flip a Switch, a Fairy Dies”
Pornokitsch writer (and Kitschies judge) Jared Shurin writes about fairies as fuel and the vast potential of Steampunk as a resource for discussing industrialization.
5000 Words on Northanger vs Udolpho
Some great analysis of a lurid Gothic novel, feminism, the nature of the novel, etc, by way of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey…
Bulking Up
Adam Roberts (perhaps still scarred by his encounter with The Wheel of Time) takes a look at the relatively brisk 400 pages of Rivers of London and reflects on the appeal of a certain type of bulked-up reading experience, with a detour to talk about Sir Walter Scott: […]
Plea Bargains and Loveless Marriages
Scholars are combing digitized records from London’s Old Bailey and discovering fascinating trends in plea bargaining, divorce and bigamy in the 1800s.
Meet the Author Who Outsells Rowling, Dickens and Patterson
AbeBooks has a nice profile of Georgette Heyer, a writer of all kinds of fiction, but most influential as an author of Regency romances. The profile includes a gallery of covers from her books.
The Great English Slaying
“A murder is somehow more quintessentially English when committed on the cobbles of a foggy East End alley. If there’s a silhouetted top hat, a rustle of crinoline and a scream cut short with straight razor, all the better.” The Guardian has more on “the Great English Slaying.”
The Cultural Gutter 