Down from London: Seaside Reading in the Railway Age

The seaside was a nerve center for the UK rail network in the first hundred years, managing and making visible the complex interplay between health, death, gender, and sexuality. This monograph discusses 130 novels of the railway age to show how the seaside infiltrates a diverse range of literature, subverting the boundaries between high and low literary culture. It also explores the sometimes fraught relationship between seaside towns and the metropolis, as London visitors are represented in and are the target audience for literary accounts of the seaside holiday. The act of reading by the sea is overdetermined and problematic, leading to the development of text-free literary tourism in the late nineteenth century.

Format: Hardback
Length: 288 pages
Publication date: 01 March 2022
Publisher: Liverpool University Press

In the early days of the UK rail network, the seaside emerged as a bustling hub, overseeing and illuminating the intricate web of health, mortality, gender, and sexuality that characterized the era. This monograph delves into a selection of approximately 130 novels from the railway age, showcasing how the seaside permeates a wide array of literature, challenging the boundaries between high and low literary culture. The seaside holiday sparked a revival of innovative literary forms, including early twentieth-century holiday crime and romance fiction, which drew inspiration from the sensational tactics employed by mid-nineteenth-century authors.

The location of reading holds equal significance to the content being consumed, and case studies on literary Brighton and Dickensian Kent examine the sometimes tense interplay between seaside towns and the urban metropolis. As London visitors flock to these coastal destinations, they become both the subjects and the intended audience of literary accounts of the seaside holiday. The act of reading by the sea is complex and multifaceted, presenting a dilemma that is partially addressed through the emergence of text-free literary tourism in the late nineteenth century. Drawing upon strategies from literary criticism, histories of reading, libraries, and the book, as well as literary tourism, this book reclaims 'seaside reading as both a literary sub-genre and a highly contentious mode of engagement.

Dimension: 239 x 163 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781800854611