Keywords

Library of Fiction, Family Story-Teller, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Charles Whitehead, Charles Dickens, Chapman and Hall

Abstract

In Summer of 2021, the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at the Harold B. Lee Library acquired volumes one and two of a collection of short stories called The Library of Fiction, or Family Story-teller. The first volume of this collection, originally released in monthly installments published by Chapman and Hall beginning in April of 1836, contains 42 pieces of literature written by a number of Victorian authors. Some of these authors (like Mary Russell Mitford, Edward Mayhew, G. P. R. James, and W. H. Wills) were popular in their time but have been largely forgotten. This is not the case for the collection’s most famous contributor: Charles Dickens. Dickens contributed two of his newly published Sketches by Boz to The Library of Fiction, ensuring the survival of a volume that might otherwise hold little value to anyone other than Victorian literary critics.

In Fall of 2021, the students enrolled in ENGL 340 (Introduction to Book History) at Brigham Young University created a critical edition of the first volume of The Library of Fiction. This critical edition examines the content, publication history, reception, and bibliographic format of the volume and analyzes ten of the individual stories. Full bibliographic information is included, as is an appendix tracking the pre-circulation and re-circulation of several of the stories.

Document Type

Class Project or Paper

Publication Date

2022-01-01

Language

English

College

Humanities

Department

English

University Standing at Time of Publication

Junior

Course

English 340

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