Penny politics offers a new way to read early Victorian popular fiction such as Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London. It locates forms of radical discourse in the popular literature that emerged simultaneously with Brittan's longest and most significant people's movement. It listens for echoes of Chartist fiction in popular fiction. The book rethinks the relationship between the popular and political, understanding that radical politics had popular appeal and that the lines separating a genuine radicalism from commercial success are complicated and never absolute. With archival work into Newgate calendars and Chartist periodicals, as well as media history and culture, it brings together histories of the popular and political so as to rewrite the radical canon.

Reviews

'This outstanding book paints a different picture of 1830s and 1840s politics as it captures how literature influences history and not just reflects it.'
Choice
Reprinted with permission from Choice Reviews. All rights reserved. Copyright by the American Library Association

It represents a fascinating addition to scholarship on Victorian popular literature and, at times, a genuinely entertaining read which would benefit scholars working on popular fiction, the penny blood, radicalism, and the connection between popular literature and politics.
Anna Gasperini, Journal of Victorian Culture

The strengths of Breton's book are numerous and considerable. They include his skepticism of easy, academically fashionable ideological explanations of cultural phenomena ... Breton vividly demonstrates that popular literature was radical because radicalism appealed to plebeian Victorians.
Rebecca Nesvet, Victorian Periodicals Review

Introduction
1 The Old, New, Borrowed and Blue Newgate Calendar
2 Jack Sheppard, the Newgate Novel
3 Penny Radicalism? Sweeny Todd and the Bloods
4 Mysteries and Ambiguities: G. W. M. Reynolds and The Mysteries of London
5 Distant Friends of the People: Howitt's Journal and Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Magazine
Conclusion
Index