Blog

The modern popular romance novel, as a form of fiction which has “a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending” (RWA, “About”), has many recognised subgenres, including historical, paranormal, religious, science fiction and suspense, not least because the plot of the romance combines extremely well with those of many other forms of … Continue reading “‘An Introduction to Popular Romance 2’ by Laura Vivanco”

Romance, as Barbara Fuchs has observed, “is a notoriously slippery category. Critics disagree about whether it is a genre or a mode, about its origins and history, even about what it encompasses” (1). I’d like to discuss first some definitions of popular romance and then its “origins and history.”  Pamela Regis, author of the influential … Continue reading “‘An Introduction to Popular Romance 1’ by Laura Vivanco”

When Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol first appeared on Victorian bookshelves in 1843 it was a milestone in both Dickens’s career and the future of Christmas print. Written in a fever of emotion and energy, laughter and tears, Dickens’s Carol was the product of fits of writing punctuated by long walks in the middle of … Continue reading “‘Popular Literature at Christmas: Reading and Ritual’ by Kate Forrester”