This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The friend and rival of Dickens, William Harrison Ainsworth was a prolific historical novelist, whose works helped changed the course of Victorian literature. This comprehensive eBook presents the largest collection of Ainsworth’s works ever compiled in a single edition, with numerous illustrations, rare texts appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 2) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Ainsworth’s life and works * Concise introductions to the novels * 23 novels, with individual contents tables * Many rare novels appearing in digital print for the first time, including Ainsworth’s first novel SIR JOHN CHIVERTON, available nowhere else * Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * Many novels are fully illustrated with their original artwork * Includes Ainsworth’s ballads and early short stories * Easily locate the poems or short stories you want to read * Features a brief biography * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres * UPDATED with three novels (‘Cardinal Pole’; ‘The Constable de Bourbon’; ‘Chetwynd Calverley’), two short stories and improved texts CONTENTS: The Novels Sir John Chiverton (1826) Rookwood (1834) Jack Sheppard (1839) The Tower of London (1840) Guy Fawkes (1840) Old St Paul’s (1841) The Miser’s Daughter (1842) Windsor Castle (1842) The Lancashire Witches (1849) Auriol (1850) The Star-Chamber (1854) The Life and Adventures of Mervyn Clitheroe (1858) Ovingdean Grange (1860) Cardinal Pole (1863) The Constable de Bourbon (1866) Talbot Harland (1870) Tower Hill (1871) Boscobel (1871) The Good Old Times (1873) Preston Fight (1875) The Leaguer of Lathom (1876) Chetwynd Calverley (1876) Stanley Brereton (1881) The Shorter Fiction The Spectre Bride (1821) December Tales (1823) A Night’s Adventure in Rome (1850) The Old London Merchant (1850) The Poetry Ballads (1855) The Biography Short Biography: William Harrison Ainsworth (1900) by Stewart Marsh Ellis

William Harrison Ainsworth, a prolific writer now as obscure as he once was famous, reinvented the gothic novel in an English setting, a radical re-write of Scott's model of the historical romance and an antecedent of the contemporary urban gothic of Dickens and Reynolds. This study examines Ainsworth's literary career from a writer of magazine tales of terror in the 1820s to the massive influence of his gothic/Newgate romance of 1834, Rookwood; his friendships with Lamb, Lockhart, and Dickens; his fall from literary grace during the Newgate controversy (a moral panic engendered by the supposedly pernicious effects of cheap, theatrical adaptations of Ainsworth's underworld romance Jack Sheppard). legacy of Ainsworth's subsequent historical novels, taking The Lancashire Witches to be his final, major work and the last of the original gothic novels. The novels The Tower of London, Guy Fawkes, Old St. Paul's and Windsor Castle are read as epic tragedy rather than simply as bad romance. The study re-examines Ainsworth's singular vision of the outlaw, English history and religious intolerance as being at political odds with the new Victorian value system, particularly with regard to Catholics and the urban poor. A final chapter explores Ainsworth's later life and fiction and his adoption by his native Mancunians as The Lancashire Novelist. The book includes extracts from Ainsworth's correspondence and journalism, detailing his close relationship with, among others, Scott, Dickens, Forster, Thackeray, Cruikshank, Bulwer-Lytton and G.P.R. James.