G. W. M. Reynolds Society

G. W. M. Reynolds Society

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The international G.W.M. Reynolds Society exists to promote the enjoyment and study of the work of G.W.M. Reynolds. Visit our Website: gwmreynoldssociety.com

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G. W. M. Reynolds Society
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‘A Tale for Christmas Introduction by Stephen Knight This story, quite short at 4300 words, appeared on Boxing Day 1846 in the Christmas edition of Reynolds’s Miscellany, which had only started in November that year. It was not the page one feature – that was Reynolds’ continuing serialisation of…

gwmreynoldssociety.com‘A Tale for ChristmasIntroduction by Stephen Knight This story, quite short at 4300 words, appeared on Boxing Day 1846 in the Christmas edition of Reynolds’s Miscellany, which had only started in November that year. It was not the page one feature – that was Reynolds’ continuing serialisation of his novel Wagner, the Wehr Wolf, but it did have a half-page illumination of the final Christmas dinner, with the family and visitors in view and the young couple admiring each other in the foreground – but the central male has his back to us, perhaps symbolic of his negative past.
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‘The Father: An Episode in the Life of a Nobleman’ Introduction by Stephen Knight The shortest of all the Reynolds stories, at just 2500 words, this also has the earliest  known date, appearing in The Monthly magazine in September 1838 – Reynolds had started editing it in August 1837. The title is…

gwmreynoldssociety.com‘The Father: An Episode in the Life of a Nobleman’Introduction by Stephen Knight The shortest of all the Reynolds stories, at just 2500 words, this also has the earliest  known date, appearing in The Monthly magazine in September 1838 – Reynolds had started editing it in August 1837. The title is ambiguous: the father is not a nobleman but a fairly successful London shop-keeper, another widower, who is financially assisted by a lord because of the father’s lovely daughter, after the three meet by accident in the street.
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‘The Gipsy-Boy’ Introduction by Stephen Knight This fairly short story, at 4400 words, shares a range of similarities, and reversals, with `Ellen Maxwell’. Rather than at sea, here the action is in the army in Britain, not far from London. The main characters are, as in the other story, an…

gwmreynoldssociety.com‘The Gipsy-Boy’Introduction by Stephen Knight This fairly short story, at 4400 words, shares a range of similarities, and reversals, with `Ellen Maxwell’. Rather than at sea, here the action is in the army in Britain, not far from London. The main characters are, as in the other story, an intelligent, well-bred young man acting at a low level under orders, a sensitive beauty placed under extreme pressures, and, remarkably, another rather brutal and self-assertive colonel.
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‘Ellen Maxwell’ Introduction by Stephen Knight First appearing in April 1841 in The Teetotaler, a journal Reynolds started in June 1840, but left in September 1841, this story of nearly 5000 words was reprinted in Reynolds’ Miscellany as late as September 1868, when Reynolds had given up writing…

gwmreynoldssociety.com‘Ellen Maxwell’Introduction by Stephen Knight First appearing in April 1841 in The Teetotaler, a journal Reynolds started in June 1840, but left in September 1841, this story of nearly 5000 words was reprinted in Reynolds’ Miscellany as late as September 1868, when Reynolds had given up writing novels as well as short stories. A more closely woven narrative than the essentially suggestive stories reprinted so far, it deals with the two main Reynoldsian themes of brutish higher classes and suffering but noble, and usually finally successful, young women.
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‘The Two Sisters’ Introduction By Stephen Knight This distinctly short story, of only 2800 words, is one of the six reprinted here which appeared in Master Timothy’s Bookcase, or The Magic Lanthorn of the World. This was first published as a monthly series in 1841-2, then as a book, and also…

gwmreynoldssociety.com‘The Two Sisters’Introduction By Stephen Knight This distinctly short story, of only 2800 words, is one of the six reprinted here which appeared in Master Timothy’s Bookcase, or The Magic Lanthorn of the World. This was first published as a monthly series in 1841-2, then as a book, and also reprinted as a series in 1847. Reynolds took the idea from Dicken’s…
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Short Stories from the Knight Collection Public Hello! Hopefully you've been enjoying reading the monthly releases of GWM Reynolds' short stories with Doctor Knight's introductions. While those blog posts will continue to be released monthly, and we hope you'll continue to read and engage with…

gwmreynoldssociety.comShort Stories from the Knight Collection PublicHello! Hopefully you've been enjoying reading the monthly releases of GWM Reynolds' short stories with Doctor Knight's introductions. While those blog posts will continue to be released monthly, and we hope you'll continue to read and engage with them, the society has also decided to make all of the stories available right now. If you look at the menu at the top of the society website, there is a new page added called "Knight Collection Short Stories." On that page, there are links to all 23 stories.
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‘The Two Christmas Days’ Introduction By Stephen Knight This story was published in Reynolds’s Miscellany on December 29th, 1860, and then in The Young Fisherman (1864). In that collection, as well as three novellas (see A General Introduction) he reprinted a number of earlier-published short…

gwmreynoldssociety.com‘The Two Christmas Days’Introduction By Stephen Knight This story was published in Reynolds’s Miscellany on December 29th, 1860, and then in The Young Fisherman (1864). In that collection, as well as three novellas (see A General Introduction) he reprinted a number of earlier-published short stories and some others which have not been found earlier but are also probably from that period. This story seems likely, from its theme, to be an earlier one the original publication of which has not been traced.
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A General Introduction to “The Short Stories of W. G. M. Reynolds” By Stephen Knight 1. George William Macarthur Reynolds (1814-79) was the most widely-read novelist of the nineteenth century in Britain. He published over twenty million words in novels – five times as much as Dickens and twice as…

gwmreynoldssociety.comA General Introduction to “The Short Stories of W. G. M. Reynolds”By Stephen Knight 1. George William Macarthur Reynolds (1814-79) was the most widely-read novelist of the nineteenth century in Britain. He published over twenty million words in novels – five times as much as Dickens and twice as much as the famously popular Bulwer Lytton. This came from thirty-eight novels, many of them in the popular range, but two were his famous series…
G. W. M. Reynolds Society
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An Announcement Hello! My name is Katelyn, and I am an undergraduate literature and history student working with the G. W. M. Reynolds society to release some of Reynolds’s short stories. Curated by Dr. Stephen Knight, Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne, these stories have been…

gwmreynoldssociety.comAn AnnouncementHello! My name is Katelyn, and I am an undergraduate literature and history student working with the G. W. M. Reynolds society to release some of Reynolds’s short stories. Curated by Dr. Stephen Knight, Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne, these stories have been collected from Reynolds’s various newspaper and magazine publications. Despite his success and fame during his own time, Reynolds’s work is often out of print and difficult to access, so we hope that by making them free to access digitally we can promote the use of Reynolds across college classrooms and in scholarly research.
G. W. M. Reynolds Society
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A Preface to “The Short Stories of G. W. M. Reynolds” By Stephen Knight Having worked and published on Reynolds’ fiction for some years, starting with his grand The Mysteries of London as a major example of the mid-nineteenth century ‘Mysteries’ genre, and then moving through all his novels in my…

gwmreynoldssociety.comA Preface to “The Short Stories of G. W. M. Reynolds”By Stephen Knight Having worked and published on Reynolds’ fiction for some years, starting with his grand The Mysteries of London as a major example of the mid-nineteenth century ‘Mysteries’ genre, and then moving through all his novels in my study of 2019, it kept coming to my attention that one of the elements in the major maltreatment of this prolific, rich and intriguing radical author by the English literary establishment was that though his novels were available — both in elderly copies from his great Victorian popularity and increasingly from the new genre of mechanical reprints — no work had been done on his short stories, especially not in collecting and reprinting them.
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Introductory Post from New Board Member Sucheta Bhattacharya By Sucheta Bhattacharya My acquaintance with the novels of George William MacArthur Reynolds happened around 1996-97 when I was introduced to The Mysteries of London. It was not the mammoth compendium of colourful and riotous episodes…

gwmreynoldssociety.comIntroductory Post from New Board Member Sucheta BhattacharyaBy Sucheta Bhattacharya My acquaintance with the novels of George William MacArthur Reynolds happened around 1996-97 when I was introduced to The Mysteries of London. It was not the mammoth compendium of colourful and riotous episodes that I would read later, but an abridged version, edited by Trefor Thomas – spicy enough to whet my appetite but not yet exposing me to the entirety of the mindboggling narrative strategy deployed by Reynolds.

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