Manchester University Press
1 Introduction
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Abstract
The introduction to the volume sets Richard Marsh in his historical context and argues that our understanding of late-Victorian and Edwardian professional authorship remains incomplete without a consideration of Marsh’s oeuvre. The introduction discusses Marsh as an exemplary professional writer producing topical popular fiction for an expanding middlebrow market. The seeming ephemerality of his literary production meant that its value was not appreciated by twentieth-century critics who were constructing the English literary canon. Marsh’s writing, however, deserves to be reread, as its negotiation of mainstream and counter-hegemonic discourses challenges our assumptions about fin-de-siècle literary culture. His novels and short stories engaged with and contributed to contemporary debates about aesthetic and economic value and interrogated the politics of gender, sexuality, empire and criminality.
Abstract
The introduction to the volume sets Richard Marsh in his historical context and argues that our understanding of late-Victorian and Edwardian professional authorship remains incomplete without a consideration of Marsh’s oeuvre. The introduction discusses Marsh as an exemplary professional writer producing topical popular fiction for an expanding middlebrow market. The seeming ephemerality of his literary production meant that its value was not appreciated by twentieth-century critics who were constructing the English literary canon. Marsh’s writing, however, deserves to be reread, as its negotiation of mainstream and counter-hegemonic discourses challenges our assumptions about fin-de-siècle literary culture. His novels and short stories engaged with and contributed to contemporary debates about aesthetic and economic value and interrogated the politics of gender, sexuality, empire and criminality.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors viii
- Acknowledgements xii
- 1 Introduction 1
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Part I: Richard Marsh and topical discourses of crime
- 2 Tall tales and true 27
- 3 Mrs Musgrave’s stain of madness 45
- 4 ‘The most dangerous thing in England’? 63
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Part II: Richard Marsh, masculinity and money
- 5 Speculative society, risk and the crime thriller 87
- 6 ‘The crowd would have it that I was a hero’ 106
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Part III: Richard Marsh and the imperial Gothic
- 7 ‘In that Egyptian den’ 127
- 8 Automata, plot machinery and the imperial Gothic in Richard Marsh’s The Goddess 148
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Part IV: Richard Marsh and object relations
- 9 ‘Something was going from me – the capacity, as it were, to be myself’ 171
- 10 Decadent aesthetics and Richard Marsh’s The Mystery of Philip Bennion’s Death 190
- 11 ‘Something on which you may exercise your ingenuity’ 208
- Index 225
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of figures vii
- List of contributors viii
- Acknowledgements xii
- 1 Introduction 1
-
Part I: Richard Marsh and topical discourses of crime
- 2 Tall tales and true 27
- 3 Mrs Musgrave’s stain of madness 45
- 4 ‘The most dangerous thing in England’? 63
-
Part II: Richard Marsh, masculinity and money
- 5 Speculative society, risk and the crime thriller 87
- 6 ‘The crowd would have it that I was a hero’ 106
-
Part III: Richard Marsh and the imperial Gothic
- 7 ‘In that Egyptian den’ 127
- 8 Automata, plot machinery and the imperial Gothic in Richard Marsh’s The Goddess 148
-
Part IV: Richard Marsh and object relations
- 9 ‘Something was going from me – the capacity, as it were, to be myself’ 171
- 10 Decadent aesthetics and Richard Marsh’s The Mystery of Philip Bennion’s Death 190
- 11 ‘Something on which you may exercise your ingenuity’ 208
- Index 225
