G. W. M. Reynolds: Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Politics and the Press (review)

Most Victorianists know the prolific G. W. M. Reynolds either as a demotic Dickens or as a Chartist journalist, but he was much more. While other popular authors have disappeared, Reynolds's racy prose remains strikingly readable; his formula of melodramatic plotting, anti-establishment diatribes, bold women, and mysterious villains can still capture many readers. His astonishing versatility and vast oeuvre, published under different pseudonyms, mark him as a man of his time; little is now in print, and much remains unknown about the man. This anthology is most welcome for its remarkable breadth, with essays ranging from Reynolds's early life in Paris after his revolt against a military career, through to his reputation as a radical writer in twentieth-century Britain and Bengal. Like any good collection, it both defines current work and suggests new areas in need of further research.

The editors have included an invaluable bibliography of Reynolds's known writings, and secondary material about him. They also unravel the complicated publishing history of his two-part masterpiece, The Mysteries of London (1844–48) and The Mysteries of the Court of London (1848–55 or 56). The series was first published as penny weekly numbers, then as monthly six-penny numbers, and finally as single volumes of fifty-two numbers, for a total of twelve volumes. Each initial number included a dramatic woodcut accompanying columns of tiny print; a penny bought you a lot of reading. Reynolds's Miscellany began as a monthly in 1846 and survived under several different names as a weekly until 1967 without losing its reputation as a radical working-class paper. Reynolds was a literary hack, but one with an uncanny ability to grasp the current mood of his readers and to exploit their interests, whether it be flogging in the Navy or the private life of the Queen.

Several essays confirm the importance of archival work. The two essays on Reynolds's time in France, by Sarah James and Rohan McWilliam, as well as Barry Chevasco's analysis of the relationship between Eugène Sue's Les Mystères des Paris (1842–43) and Reynolds's Mysteries of London, are fine examples of careful research. James describes how Reynolds took French novels that focused on "money, class and duplicity" and transformed them into melodramas of adventure and sentiment (22–23). His open admiration for powerful women was not popular in early-Victorian England, nor was his Republicanism and Francophilia. These authors also explode the easy accusations of plagiarism or self-plagiarism that have plagued Reynolds from the beginning of his career. Clearly Reynolds did plagiarize ideas, characters, and plots, but it would be more accurate to describe him as someone who borrowed and reworked popular themes. As Williams says, in early-nineteenth-century Britain "a fictional character was simply too important to be the property of one author alone" (41). Chevasco convincingly argues that Reynolds was less influenced by Sue than critics have assumed. The plot and purpose of the two novels are quite different, even if the titles are similar.

Although Reynolds went on to become more popular than Charles Dickens or William Makepeace Thackeray, his road to success was strewn with bankruptcy, failure, and sheer hard work. Andrew King's careful study of Reynolds's Miscellany reveals how very difficult it was to win both subscribers and advertisers in order to survive as a penny weekly. In his 1848 bankruptcy hearing, Reynolds admitted that the journal had never sold more than 6,000 copies, nowhere near the 26,000 he needed to break even. King argues that Reynolds became successful later because he attracted several able writers and illustrators from the London Journal. He also took up Chartism after 1848, which gave him fresh subject matter in exposés of conditions in the coal mines, the military, and other dangerous occupations.

Michael Shirley and Ian Haywood carry the story...