Eighteenth-Century Popular Culture: A Selection

by John Mullan (Editor)

This book is a carefully annotated selection of eighteenth-century writings about popular culture. During the eighteenth century, popular culture assumed a peculiar importance. In the early part of the century, high and low cultures often collided. Later in the century, politeness more and more required the distancing of genteel from vulgar amusements. This collection rediscovers some of the energies of the low and the vulgar in the period by examining particular themes (crime, religious enthusiasm, popular politics, for example) and telling particular stories (the career of a notorious criminal, the exploits of a religious sect, John Wilkes and the crowd). It also illustrates how the very idea of popular culture was formed in the period, providing examples of the ways in which it was discussed both by those who were fearful of it and those who were fascinated by it.

326 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

John Mullan is a Professor of English at University College London. He was General Editor of the Pickering & Chatto series Lives of the Great Romantics by Their Contemporaries, and Associate Editor for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. A regular radio broadcaster and literary journalist, he writes on contemporary fiction for the Guardian and was a judge for the 2009 Man Booker Prize. John is a specialist in eighteenth-century literature.

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Reviews

[Marsha Altman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly about the early 18th-century, pre-1750. Not what I was looking for in terms of research, and I wouldn't have bought it if the title was more specific, but that's my bad.

This book was a mishmash of segments selected from local papers at the time, with some background to each segment given before producing it, I'm assuming with some corrections because early 1700's cant English can be pretty unreadable and most of the passages were coherent. The topics chosen were all over the place, with no coherent historical narrative to the book overall, and some of the introductions were insufficient, especially to someone with little background in the time period. I barely made it through this book - seriously not recommended unless you want an introduction to various types of publications from the 1700's that you should be reading for historical information, by far the most useful part.