Popular Fiction

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.