ÊLittle of the old town, however, is now left. The lover of antiquityÑif any such should visit ManchesterÑwill search in vain for those picturesque black and white timber habitations, with pointed gables and latticed windows, that were common enough sixty years ago. Entire streets, embellished by such houses, have been swept away in the course of modern improvement. But I recollect them well. No great effort of imagination was therefore needed to reconstruct the old town as it existed in the middle of the last century; but I was saved from the possibility of error by an excellent plan, almost of the precise date, designed by John A. Berry, to which I made constant reference during my task. Views are given in this plan of the principal houses then recently erected, and as all these houses were occupied by Prince Charles and the Highland Chiefs during their stay in Manchester, I could conduct the Rebel leaders to their quarters without difficulty. One of the houses, situated in Deansgate, belonged to my mother's uncle, Mr. Touchet. This is gone, as is Mr. Dickenson's fine house in Market Street Lane, where the Prince was lodged. Indeed, there is scarcely a house left in the town that has the slightest historical association belonging to it. When I was a boy, some elderly personages with whom I was acquainted were kind enough to describe to me events connected with Prince Charles's visit to Manchester, and the stories I then heard made a lasting impression upon me. The Jacobite feeling must have been still strong among my old friends, since they expressed much sympathy with the principal personages mentioned in this TaleÑfor the gallant Colonel Townley, Doctor Deacon and his unfortunate sons, Jemmy Dawson, whose hapless fate has been so tenderly sung by Shenstone, and, above all, for poor Tom Syddall. The latter, I know not why, unless it be that his head was affixed on the old Exchange, has always been a sort of hero in Manchester.

Reproduction of the original: The Manchester Rebels of The Fatal ́45 by William Harrison Ainsworth

This monograph is a wide-ranging and sophisticated analysis of representations in text and image of the English past between 1830 and 1870. It consists of a series of inter-related case-studies of illustrated history books, ranging from editions of David Humes History of England to W. H. Ainsworths The Tower of London (1840). It contributes to present debates on nationalism, highlighting the complex and variable nature of cultural constructions of identity. Simultaneously, if offers an overall interpretation of historiographical change in early and mid-Victorian Britain, focusing in particular on the transition from picturesque reconstructions of the English past to the scientific approaches of the professional historian. Genuinely interdisciplinary, Picturing the Past presents new perspectives on traditional studies of Victorian historiography, literature, and illustration. It explores relationships between text and image, author, illustrator, and publisher, in the production of illustrated historical texts, often drawing on neglected material in publishers archives. The tendency to analyse text and image, fiction and non-fiction, popular and elite publications in isolation from each other is challenged in the interests of a more complex and nuanced portrait of the middle-class Victorian historical consciousness.