Riding The Tosh Horse: Ethel M. Dell, A Written Life

Ethel M. Dell was a successful romantic novelist who reached a large audience with her popular and heady mix of heterosexual, implicit same-sex relationships, sexual deviances, gratuitous violence, death, and exoticized notions of Empire and masculinity. She was vilified by the establishment but used a multi-media marketing strategy to reach her lower middle class readers. Barbara Cartland stated that Ethel was her greatest influence.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 360 pages
Publication date: 21 February 2024
Publisher: The Self-Publishing Partnership Ltd

Ethel M. Dell, the renowned romantic novelist, lived a secluded life and deliberately refrained from promoting herself as a personality. Despite this, her formula for success proved remarkably effective. Over the course of her career, she published an impressive 98 titles, reaching a vast audience and generating approximately £4 million annually in today's values. Dell's novels featured a captivating blend of heterosexual relationships, implicit same-sex encounters, sexual deviances, gratuitous violence, death, and exoticized notions of Empire and masculinity. Despite being published alongside literary giants, she faced widespread vilification from the establishment, likely driven by jealousy over her substantial earnings. Ethel employed a highly successful multi-media marketing strategy that included magazine serialization, hard-copy books, film, theatre, and radio to reach her audience across the UK, the United States, Europe, and the British colonies. Her influence extended far beyond her contemporaries, with Barbara Cartland acknowledging her as her greatest influence. Ethel's pioneering work laid the groundwork for the success of Mills and Boon, solidifying her position as a trailblazer in the realm of mass-market romantic fiction.

Weight: 520g
Dimension: 209 x 149 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781839527203