De-Radicalizing Popular Literature: From William Hone to Pierce Egan

Abstract

In the first chapter of Life in London, or the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq. and his Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis (1820–1821) Pierce Egan (1772–1849) reaches out to a host of authors who have found “FAME.” His “Invocation” asks for “a portion of that real departed talent” of Fielding, Goldsmith, Smollett, and Sterne.1 Egan desires the “passports” to excellence that the author of Don Juan has. He asks Blackwood’s to “be merciful” because it “hits so very hard.”2 A space in Hannah Humphry’s shop front is wanted, even if “only one pane of glass.”3 Egan calls out to Ackerman, who published William Combe’s and Thomas Rowlandson’s Dr Syntax, for “friendly assistance.”4 He would like John Murray to publish him and critics to notice his work: “Professors of the Royal Academy, let me entreat you not to avert your microscopic eyes from my palpitating efforts.”5