G.W.M. Reynolds emerged as a significant figure in London Chartism in the spring of 1848, and would later gain a substantial level of fame as the publisher of radical newspapers and author of gothic novels.

In an evening meeting at London’s Bow Street Police Museum titled Writing Up a Storm in Paris and London: GWM Reynolds, Dickens’ Radical Rival on Thursday 20 July, Dr Jennifer Conary and Dr Mary L Shannon, from the G.W.M Reynolds Society, will look at how the radical journalist, social reformer, author, and rival to Charles Dickens, turned a taxation protest in Trafalgar Square into a call to follow the example of the French Revolution.

They will be discussing who G.W.M Reynolds was and why he matters, with a look at his life in Paris as a young man, the experiences that led to his journal, his encounters with con men, and the depictions of the Paris police in his book Pickwick Abroad (mimicking Dickens).

Bankrupted in Paris, Reynolds then returned to England and moved to Wellington Street, in the heart of Covent Garden. Here he worked as a journalist and fiction author, producing his seminal long-running serial The Mysteries of London, and was considered by his contemporaries to be the most popular writer of his time. Add to this his role in radical politics, brushes with the London police and his involvement in the Trafalgar Square riots of 1848 to discover one of the most important voices of the Victorian era.

Jennifer and Mary will also be signing copies of their book G.W.M. Reynolds Reimagined.

Mary L. Shannon is a writer, broadcaster, and Senior Lecturer at the University of Roehampton, London. She is President of the GWM Reynolds Society.

Jennifer Conary is an Associate Professor at De Paul University, Chicago, and Vice President of the GWM Reynolds Society.

Together they are co-editors of the new book G.W.M. Reynolds Reimagined, which brings together numerous essays on Reynolds to argue that he is an important yet still overlooked figure in Victorian literary and political culture.

Further details and booking form here.