First Published in 1977. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this pioneering work Victor Neuberg has assembled a wealth of information about popular literature, from the invention of the printing press to the present. This guide, by judicious selection, gives a vivid picture of the range and variety of popular literature and its producers. Besides describing the main genres, the author has also included the social, cultural and commercial background to the production of popular literature, factors that were crucial in influencing the forms it took.

First Published in 1977. This book defines popular literature, and traces its development in England from the beginnings of printing to the year 1897, and provides a critical survey of sources available for its study.

Alphabetically arranged articles discuss the major events, figures and movements of the twentieth century and how they have been depicted in literature.

A comprehensive assessment of Holocaust literature, from World War II to the present day

Key Concepts in Contemporary Popular Fiction represents an invaluable starting point for students wishing to familiarise themselves with this exciting and rapidly evolving area of literary studies. It provides an accessible, concise and reliable overview of core critical terminology, key theoretical approaches, and the major genres and sub-genres within popular fiction. Because popular fiction is significantly shaped by commercial forces, the book also provides critical and historical contexts for terminology related to e-books, e-publishing, and self-publishing platforms. By using focusing in particular on post-2000 trends in popular fiction, the book provides a truly up-to-date snapshot of the subject area and its critical contexts.

The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. “Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again “Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box, and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America. For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues. In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion. But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.

Detection existed in fiction long before Poe and Doyle. Its real origins lurk in the popular press of the early Nineteenth century, where the detective and the case were steadily developed. The well-known masters of early crime fiction, including Collins and Dickens, drew on this material, found in texts that have rarely been reprinted or even discussed. In this revealing book, Heather Worthington combines scholarly and archival study with theoretically informed analysis to unearth the foundations of detective fiction. This is essential reading for those researching in, studying, or just fascinated by crime fiction.

This companion to Victorian popular fiction includes more than 300 cross-referenced entries on works written for the British mass market. Biographical sketches cover the writers and their publishers, the topics that concerned them and the genres they helped to establish or refine. Entries introduce readers to long-overlooked authors who were widely read in their time, with suggestions for further reading and emerging resources for the study of popular fiction.