William Clark Russell and the Victorian Nautical Novel

William Clark Russell wrote more than forty nautical novels. Immensely popular in their time, his works were admired by many contemporary writers including Conan Doyle, Stevenson, Meredith and Swinburne. His most famous novel The Wreck of the Grosvenor has rarely been out of print since its first publication in 1877. Based on extensive archival research, Nash explores this remarkable career, from Russell's early unsuccessful attempts to write 'female' sensation novels until he found his true mtier. Illuminating such themes as gender ideology, the emergence of genre fiction and the influence of the marketplace on authorship, Nash places Russell's work at the centre of current debates on late Victorian literature and book history.