Edward Lloyd and His World

The publisher Edward Lloyd (1815-1890) helped shape Victorian popular culture in waysthat have left a legacy that lasts right up to today. He was a major pioneer of both popular fiction and journalism but has never received extended scholarly investigation until now. Lloydshaped the modern popular press: Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper became the first paper to sell over a million copies. Along with publishing songs and broadsides, Lloyd dominated the fiction market in the early Victorian period issuing Gothic stories such as Varney the Vampire (1845-7) and other ’penny dreadfuls’, which became bestsellers. Lloyd’s publications introduced the enduring figure of Sweeney Todd whilst his authors penned plagiarisms of Dickens’s novels, such as Oliver Twiss (1838-9). Many readers in the early Victorian period may have been as likely to have encountered the author of Pickwick in a Lloyd-published plagiarism as in the pages of the original author. This book makes us rethink the early reception of Dickens. In this interdisciplinary collection, leading scholars explore the world of Edward Lloyd and his stable of writers, such as Thomas Peckett Prest and James Malcolm Rymer. The Lloyd brand shaped popular taste in the age of Dickens and the Chartists. Edward Lloyd and his World fills a major gap in the histories of popular fiction and journalism, whilst developing links with Victorian politics, theatre and music.

Australian History and Society · History · 19th century · English literature · General · Great britain · History and criticism · Influence · Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.) · Journalism · Language Arts & Disciplines · Literary Criticism · Littérature anglaise · Publishers and publishing

• Rethinking the history of British popular culture, 1850–1914

  Open Access•Rohan Mcwilliam•History Compass•2023

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