The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana Quotes

“Most importantly, Ally Sloper represents the first major recurring character in comics, and its first superstar. Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday (1884-1923) is “widely acknowledged as the publication that established the [comics] form,”[101] and Sloper himself, as Roger Sabin notes, is the form’s first star, comics’ first character to become a major merchandizing figure. Credit for this is usually given to Richard F. Outcault’s Yellow Kid, but “the Yellow Kid did not appear until 1894.”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“The Allan Quatermain Adventures (1885-1927). The Allan Quaterman Adventures were written by H. Rider Haggard and began with King Solomon’s Mines. Haggard (1856-1925) was a prolific, popular, and influential novelist whose works are still read with pleasure today. Although Haggard spun the Allan Quatermain saga out into a total of eighteen novels and story collections, the central two novels in the Allan Quatermain Adventures are King Solomon’s Mines and Allan Quatermain (1887). (Properly speaking She is tied in to the Allan Quatermain Adventures but is the start of a separate series, the Ayesha Adventures).”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Alice was not aimed at changing anyone’s mind. There is no moralizing or didactic aspect to Alice and Through the Looking Glass. Both are nonsense satires which lampoon adults but make no attempt to instruct children and are nearly absent of sentimentality. This was revolutionary in children’s fiction and allowed for the maturation of the genre.”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“(The Kiowa didn’t scalp, and the real Mescalero did not live in pueblos, but factual accuracy, for May, was something that happened to other writers).”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“But Horoscope is not home when Turpin comes to him for advice, so Horoscope's assistant, Titus Parable, poses as Horoscope.”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Ptolemy Horoscope is an astrologer and interpreter of the stars. In 1716 he is living in Little Britain, the “bibliopolitical part of London,”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Ptolemy Horoscope”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Hallblithe was created by William Morris and appeared in The Story of the Glittering Plain Which Has Also Been Called the”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“And the and-then-I-woke-up-and-it-was-all-a-dream ending is simply inexcusable in fiction intended for an audience over the age of four.   The Golden Bottle will take two hours from the readers’ life that they won’t get back.”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Mr. Gespenst was created by E.E. Kellett and appeared in “The Tables Turned” (Pearson’s Magazine, January 1903). Ernest Edward Kellett (1864-1950) wrote widely on subjects from literature to music to religion. He also created Nameless Man (VI). “The Tables Turned” is an amusing comic ghost story.”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Gertrude is sweet and trusting and innocent in the ways of men, which is why she falls victim to such a selfish, self-absorbed putz.”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Rodolphe manages to protect her from those who would ruin her, and eventually she is redeemed and sent to a convent, where her innate goodness is instantly recognized and she is made an abbess. (She dies from the honor).”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Shelley was also the wife of the great poet and rotter Percy Bysshe Shelley.”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“The plague is by far the most interesting part of The Betrothed.”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana

“Those interested in excellent, discomfort-inducing horror should read the first four chapters of The Beetle. Those interested in watching potential be wasted should continue beyond that.”
― Jess Nevins, The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana