Popular Fiction

by Ken Gelder

In this important book, Ken Gelder offers a lively, progressive and comprehensive account of popular fiction as a distinctive literary field. Drawing on a wide range of popular novelists, from Sir Walter Scott and Marie Corelli to Ian Fleming, J. K. Rowling and Stephen King, his book describes for the first time how this field works and what its unique features are. In addition, Gelder provides a critical history of three primary genres - romance, crime fiction and science fiction - and looks at the role of bookshops, fanzines and prozines in the distribution and evaluation of popular fiction. Finally, he examines five bestselling popular novelists in detail - John Grisham, Michael Crichton, Anne Rice, Jackie Collins and J. R. R. Tolkien - to see how popular fiction is used, discussed and identified in contemporary culture.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Academic

192 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 2004

Reviews

[Jes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sat down to skim the first chapter and ended up reading the whole thing in one go. A good, conversational, very useful analysis of the differences between popular fiction and 'Literature', in terms of the modes of reading and values that structure each field. This would be an excellent text to teach in a class on popular/genre fiction, or in any setting where you want students to think about why literary critics are often so disdainful of (or baffled by) popular lit.

[Rebeka · Rating 5 out of 5]

really interesting and useful
clear arguments

[• Domeniko • · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.30

[H. Givens · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entirely welcome book for me, addressing popular fiction as an entity worth attention and study. Most of that introductory, basic material wasn't news to me, but it's nice to have it written out in such a readable and coherent way, not just saying that the field is interesting but actually laying out how genres function, how their writers function within them, and how the popular fiction industry works.

The case studies were all interesting, but I think Gelder could've done more to tie them back to his central thesis. I wasn't entirely sure what he was illustrating with all of them.