Victorian Bolton is a research project led by Dr Kim Edwards Keates at the University of Bolton, focusing on the town’s rich literary heritage and nineteenth-century cultural legacies.
While ‘seated at a window overlooking the sea at Blackpool on a sunny Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1871’, W. F. Tillotson ‘outlined a project he had formed’ to establish the Bolton Weekly Journal (25 Feb, 1910, p. 16), credited by The Academy as the ‘first system of “newspaper literature”’ (24 Aug, 1889, p. 118). Tillotson’s proposed innovation initially focused on the syndicated serialisation of novels and commissioning sensation fiction from popular writers such as Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Wilkie Collins alongside topical, local, and political news. The newly formed Fiction Bureau was to become a lucrative success, gaining a reputation for publishing stories with ‘a ready market’, as Conan Doyle later remarked on sending an unsolicited short story (27th March, 1889). Initially publishing two or three serialised novels a year, by 1878 the Journal sought to attract local literary talent through writing competitions, offering ‘PRIZES of £50 for the BEST NEW AND ORIGINAL SERIAL TALES, written by Residents of Bolton and the Neighbourhood; or, if by Authors residing at a greater distance, the subject MUST be of a Local Character’ (Bolton Evening News, 1st March, 1878). This was a significant investment in local writing and exploration of ‘social life in Lancashire at the present day’ (ibid); £50 in 1878 had the purchasing power of approximately £3500 today.
By 1890, the Bolton Weekly Journal was publishing short stories alongside serialised novels, and in 1893, the newspaper was extended from 9 pages to 11 pages to accommodate the increasing number of short fiction and serialised titles. While Victorian short stories have not typically received the same degree of critical attention as the Victorian novel, ‘in part due to the ephemeral nature of the periodical publishing’, as Victoria Margree notes, it is ‘also [as] a result of the critical bias of twentieth-century canon builders who deemed the short story an inferior form’ (Margree, 2018, p.163). Indeed, the perception that short stories were a less popular and mediocre form circulated throughout the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. The Academy and Literature conducted a survey on the ‘public taste’ for short stories in 1902, noting that Tillotson’s Newspaper Syndicate had published 200 short stories in the previous twelve months, outnumbering the well-known publishers of literary fiction, Harper’s Magazine (88 stories), The Strand Magazine (62 stories), and The Pall Mall Magazine (63 stories). The author of the survey, E. A. B., concludes that ‘If these lists do not prove that short stories will sell, will be appreciated, and will make popular reputations, when they are clever enough, then nothing will’ (1902, p. 397).
Below you will find a database listing the writers, serialised novels, and the short stories published in the Bolton Weekly Journal up to 1900. The database is inspired by the work of Troy J. Bassett’s, At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837-1901, and seeks to recover the lost work of popular Victorian writers. The database will be continually updated with information relating to biographical detail and will seek to republish the Victorian literary texts that have likely been lost and unread for over 100 years.
4 January 1890
Conan Doyle
‘The Great Brown-Pericord Motor’
1 March 1890 – 23 August 1890
J Monk Foster
For Love of a Lancashire Lass: A Romance of Factory Life
20 December 1890
Carmen Sylva
‘The Witch’s Citadel’
20 December 1890 – 27 December 1890
Silas K. Hocking
‘John Silent, The Cornishman: A Man Possessed’
27 December 1890
Commander V. Lovett Cameron
‘Through the Jaws of Hell’
3 January 1891 – 18 April 1891
J Monk Foster
Slaves of Fate
25 April 1891 – 9 May 1891
Justin McCarthy
‘A Living Vision’
16 May 1891 – 30 May 1891
Bret Harte
‘Col. Starbottle’s Client’
6 June 1891 – 20 June 1891
Henry Herman
‘For Old Virginia!: An Incident of the War of Succession’
27 June 1891 – 11 July 1891
R. M. Ballantyne
‘Reuben’s Luck: Tale of the Frozen North’
18 July 1891 – 8 August 1891
Helen Mathers
‘My Jo, John’
15 August 1891 – 5 September 1891
The Marquis of Lorne
‘From Shadow to Sunlight’
19 September 1891 – 2 April 1892
Mrs. Newman
‘Jacob Warner’s Revenge’
26 December 1891
John J. O’Shea
‘A Ghost on a Bicycle’
5 September 1891 – 12 September 1891
J Monk Foster
A Miner’s Million
2 April 1892 – 3 September 1892
J Monk Foster
A Crimson Fortune: A Story of Life in the Cotton Mills
24 December 1892
George R. Simms
‘The Priest’s Secret’
31 December 1892
J. Monk Foster
‘A Maid of the Mine’
27 May 1893 – 22 July 1893
William Henry Moyes
‘The Mormon’s Daughter: A Story of Incident, Mystery, and Sensation’
27 May 1893
James Greenwood
‘”Straightenough”: A Lodging-House Romance, Stranger than Truth’
3 June 1893
James Greenwood
‘A Bottle of Diamond Port’
10 June 1893
James Greenwood
‘The Narrow Escape of Rachel Wrigglesworth’
17 June 1893
James Greenwood
‘In love with Meg Murrell’
24 June 1893
James Greenwood
‘Beware the Wasps’
1 July 1893
James Greenwood
‘Catching a Tartar’
8 July 1893
James Greenwood
‘Dumb-Bells of Barrowclyffe’
15 July 1893
James Greenwood
‘Within a Hair’s Breadth!’
22 July 1893
James Greenwood
‘The Real Ned Robinson’
29 July 1893
James Greenwood
‘The Blight of Brimstone Beck’
29 July 1893 – 5 August 1893
Geo R. Sims
‘My Two Wives’
5 August 1893 – 30 September 1893
W. H. Moyes
When Least Expected, A Story of Surprises
12 August 1893 – 19 August 1893
Florence Warden
‘The Dover Express’
19 August 1893 – 21 October 1893
Edmund Downey
Behind the Door: A Murder Mystery
26 August 1893 – 2 September 1893
Grant Allen
‘Masie Bowman’s Fate’
9 September 1893 – 16 September 1893
Richard Dowling
‘The Other and I: A Shadow Story’
23 September 1893 – 30 September 1893
Mabel Collins
‘A Bitter Cup: A Love Story’
7 October 1893 – 14 October 1893
James Greenwood
‘Widgery’s Flight’
7 October 1893 – 13 January 1894
Mary Albert
The Luckiest Man in the World
21 October 1893 – 4 November 1893
Hume Nisbet
‘Through the Gap: A New Guinea Incident’
28 October 1893 – 27 January 1894
Keith Fleming
The Sins of the Fathers
11 November 1893 – 18 November 1893
Julian Hawthorne
‘A Modern Girl’s Story’
25 November 1893
W. Clark Russell
‘Strange Adventure of a South Seaman’
2 December 1893
Grant Allen
‘The Governor’s Story’
9 December 1893
George R. Sims
‘A Five Pound Note’
16 December 1893
Florence Marryat
‘”Butterfly”: A Story of the Stage’
23 December 1893
W. Clark Russell
‘The Strange Tragedy of the “White Star”‘
23 December 1893
Denzil Vane
‘Exchange is No Robbery’
30 December 1893
Edmund Downey
‘My Friend’s Valise’
6 January 1894
Beatrice Whitby
‘Miss Masters’
13 January 1894
Fitzgerald Molloy
‘Laura Yelverton’s Choice’
20 January 1894
Iza Duffus Hardy
‘Captain Phil’
20 January 1894 – 19 May 1894
J. Monk Foster
The White Gipsy: Tale of Mines and Miners
27 January 1894
Mary Cross
‘Lord Willard’s Peril’
27 January 1894 – 28 July 1894
Adeline Sergeant
Marjory’s Mistake
3 February 1894
Finch Mason
‘So Highly Respectable’
10 February 1894
Walter Bruce
‘In Search of a Wife’
17 February 1894
Jessie M. E. Saxby
‘Something Wrong Somewhere’
24 February 1894
H. Sutherland Edwards
‘The Lovers of Natalia’
3 March 1894 – 10 March 1894
Ouida
‘A Lemon Tree’
17 March 1894 – 2 June 1894
C. M. Archibald
The Black Watch
26 May 1894 – 22 September 1894
Fitzgerald Molloy
In Wheels of Fire
9 June 1894 – 11 August 1894
Fitzgerald Molloy
Lights and Shadows: The Curious Adventures of a Wooden Leg
4 August 1894 – 22 September 1894
Fergus Hume
‘The Lone Inn: A Mystery’
18 August 1894 – 3 November 1894
Henry Herman
The Great Beckleswaithe Mystery
25 August 1894
Florence Marryat
‘The Dark Woman’
29 September 1894 – 4 January 1895
Mrs Hungerford
The Red House Mystery
29 September 1894 – 17 November 1894
Commander V. L. Cameron
‘The Strange Adventures of Minnie Solway’
10 November 1894
Carmen Sylva
‘The Syren: A Tragedy’
17 November 1894
J. S. Fletcher
‘Uncle Beckwith’s Masterpiece’
24 November 1894 – 6 April 1895
Monk Foster
Judith Saxon, The Pitman’s Daughter
22 December 1894
C. S. Macrae
‘Two Christmas Eves’
22 December 1894
Fred Harvey
‘A Christmas Romance in Los Angeles’
22 December 1894
Jennett Humphreys
‘Some Christmas Recollections’
5 January 1895
Thatcher Hissel
‘Egur Egut to Cleethorpes’
12 January 1895
J. Barnes
‘Robin Cheetham’s Wedding’
12 January 1895 – 20 April 1895
Arthur W. Marchmont
Sir Jaffray’s Wife
19 January 1895
James Barnes
‘The Barber’s Account Book’
26 January 1895
James Barnes
‘Selling His Whiskers’
2 February 1895
J. Barnes
‘Hunting a Husband’
2 February 1895
J. Barnes
‘Stretcher’s Wager’
9 February 1895
James Barnes
‘The Latest Dynamite Mystery’
16 February 1895
James Barnes
‘Jack Fause’s Badger’
23 February 1895
James Barnes
‘Sam Redfern’s Little Plot’
2 March 1895
James Barnes
‘Nellie Beeche’s Lover; Or, a Prize Not to be Shot For’
9 March 1895
James Barnes
‘The Parson’s Ducks; and how the mayor of Moss-town ran a race’
16 March 1895
James Barnes
‘The Artist’s Little Joke’
23 March 1895
Lieutenant Thatcher
‘The Morton Battalion at the Windsor Review’
30 March 1895
James Barnes
‘A Tit-bit from Newton Heath’
27 April 1895 – 31 August 1895
Ernest Glanville
The Golden Rock
27 April 1895 –
Robert Buchanan
Lady Kilpatrick: a tale of to-day
6 July 1895
James Barnes
‘Curing the Rheumatiz’
6 July 1895 – 21 September 1895
Maggie Swan
Life’s Blindfold Game
3 August 1895
James Barnes
‘Love and Glue, or, Ben Seddon’s Courtship’
17 August 1895
Stanley Hamilton
‘The Digger’s Wedding, An Australian Romance’
24 August 1895
Geo R. Sims
‘A Dead Man’s Papers’
31 August 1895 – 7 September 1895
Margaret Hill
‘The Riddle, or Murra MacDonald’s Tryst; a Scotch Story’
7 September 1895
Adeline Sergeant
‘The Mission of Margaret. A Story of Christmas by Land and Sea’
14 September 1895
G. Manville Fenn
‘A Lost Heart (an old story retold)’
14 September 1895
W. Clark Russell
‘Cornered!’
21 September 1895
Monk Foster
‘The Mystery of the Florida Mine’
21 September 1895
Elinor Halsted
‘The Little ‘Un’
28 September 1895
Mrs Hungerford
“Was it a Spirit?” A Christmas story’
28 September 1895
Adeline Sergeant
‘Brothers’
28 September 1895
W. E. Norris
‘The McCleverty’
19 October 1895 – 1 February 1896
Annie Thomas
A Lover of the Day
19 October 1895 – 28 March 1896
Dora Russell
A Strange Message
4 January 1896
George Augustus Sala
‘The Potter of Perfferkuchenstein’
4 January 1896
Geo R. Sims
‘Her Ladyship’s Papa’
4 January 1896
Joseph Hocking
‘Dreamy Dave’
11 January 1896
George R. Sims
‘The Chamber-maid’s Story’
18 January 1896 – 25 January 1896
Gordon Stables
‘The House of Duntheim’
1 February 1896 – 8 February 1896
John Saunders
‘The Ambitious Widow’
8 February 1896 – 18 April 1896
Bessie Temple
Liz
15 February 1896 – 29 February 1896
Frederick Boyle
‘Wooing an Amazon’
7 March 1896 – 21 March 1896
Florence Marryat
‘The Luckiest Girl in Yorkshire’
28 March 1896
W. Clark Russell
‘The Honour of the Flag, A Thames Tragedy’
4 April 1896 – 11 April 1896
Grant Allen
‘Criss-Cross Love’
4 April 1896 – 18 April 1896
Mrs Alexander
‘The Crack of Doom’
18 April 1896 – 25 July 1896
John K. Leys
The Broken Fetter
25 April 1896
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
‘Poor Uncle Jacob’
25 April 1896 – 9 May 1896
William Westall
‘Her American Niece’
2 May 1896
Mrs Hungerford
‘Lady Blackmore’s Deliverance’
9 May 1896
W. E. Norris
‘A Ghastly Predicament’
16 May 1896 – 23 May 1896
Mrs Oliphant
‘The Story of a Wedding Tour’
16 May 1896 – 1 August 1896
John Strange Winter
The Colonel’s Daughter
30 May 1896
Joseph Hatton
‘The Robber’s Garden’
6 June 1896 – 13 June 1896
Mrs Lynn Linton
‘Twixt Cup and Lip’
20 June 1896
Fred Boyle
‘A Lesson’
27 June 1896 – 4 July 1896
Helen Mathers
‘My Other Self’
11 July 1896 – 18 July 1896
Richard Ashe King
‘The Captain’s Sweetheart’
25 July 1896 – 1 August 1896
Conan Doyle
‘The Fool of Harvey’s Sluice’
1 August 1896 – 12 December 1896
G. A. Henty
The Queen’s Cup
8 August 1896
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
‘Wild Justice’
9 January 1897
George R. Sims
‘A Family Gathering’
9 January 1897 – 27 March 1897
Florence Marryat
In the Name of Liberty
16 January 1897
Campbell Praed
‘The Bride’s Ordeal’
23 January 1897
George R. Sims
‘The Blue Domino’
23 January 1897 – 3 July 1897
Mary H. Tennyson
Within Her Grasp
30 January 1897
Florence Warden
‘Mr Grierson’s Widow’
6 February 1897
George R. Sims
‘The Hundred Pound Note’
13 February 1897
James Greenwood
‘Quits’
20 February 1897
Dalrymple Belgrave
‘The Torn Telegram: A Tale of the Turf’
27 February 1897
George R. Sims
‘Blind!’
6 March 1897
Edmund Downey
‘A Cockney Comedy’
13 March 1897
Beatrice Whitby
‘Welcome Friend’
20 March 1897
George R. Sims
‘The Senior Partner’
27 March 1897
Iza Duffus Hardy
‘The Fate of Gregory Hume’
3 April 1897
George R. Sims
‘The Grass Widow’
3 April 1897 – 1 May 1897
Annie S. Swan
Roger Marcham’s Ward
10 April 1897
W. W. Fenn
‘The Testimony of Hugh Merryday’
17 April 1897
George R. Sims
‘Opkins’
17 April 1897
G. B. Burgin
‘A Romantic Voyage’
24 April 1897
J. Johnson Leak
‘A Paroxysm of Passion’
1 May 1897
G. B. Burgin
‘Calista Comes Home’
8 May 1897
George R. Sims
‘The Lost Explorer’
10 July 1897 – 30 October 1897
Ernest Glanville
The Lover’s Quest
8 May 1897 – 18 September 1897
J. Monk Foster
The Watchman of Orsden Moss
6 November 1897 – 8 January 1898
(Mrs.) George Corbett
The Star of Yukon: A Tale of the Canadian Goldfields
22 January 1898 – 7 May 1898
E. W. Hornung
Young Blood
14 May 1898 – 22 October 1898
William Le Queux
The Bond of Blood
6 August 1898 – 12 November 1898
Ernest Glanville
His Enemy’s Daughter
5 November 1898 – 22 April 1899
William Black
Wild Eelin
7 January 1899
A. Brasier
‘Too Late’
14 January 1899
J. Foster Fraser
‘Batters’
21 January 1899
C. Y. Hargreaves
‘In Deadly Peril’
28 January 1899
Lucy Hardy
‘My Hotel Adventure’
4 February 1899
Hume Nisbet
‘My Clarissa’
11 February 1899
B. M. Croker
‘Madame Vouvray’s Secret’
18 February 1899
Rhoda Broughton
‘In Five Acts’
25 February 1899
Richard Dowling
‘The Biter Bit’
4 March 1899
Arthur W. Marchmont
‘Sister Margaret’
11 March 1899
Mavor Allen
‘Two and Three’
8 April 1899 – 22 July 1899
Iza Duffus Hardy
MacGilleroy’s Millions
8 April 1899
H. G. Wells
‘Mr Marshall’s Doppelgänger’
15 April 1899
Ernest Glanville
‘The Man Who Stood Bail’
29 April 1899 – 15 July 1899
Mary Angela Dickens
On the Edge of a Precipice
6 May 1899
Kate A. Simpson
‘Hearts or Diamonds?’
13 May 1899
Mrs Henniker
‘John Grigg’s Romance’
20 May 1899
Sir Walter Besant
‘The Secret of Success’
24 June 1899
Lilian Quiller Couch
‘The Wife of a Sinner’
1 July 1899
E. W. Hornung
‘The Crimean Shirt’
8 July 1899
John J. Sandeman
‘An Awful Experience’
15 July 1899
Francis Gribble
‘The Special Commission: Being the Narrative of Elfrida Parkinson Now Indiscreetly Made Public’
22 July 1899
Phoebe Hart
‘The Lost Letter’
22 July 1899 – 19 August 1899
Richard Marsh
’Something to His Advantage’
29 July 1899
Clara Louise Turnham
‘On Neutral Ground’
29 July 1899
J. Maclaren Cobban
‘A Bag of Gold’
5 August 1899 – 11 November 1899
John W. Mayall
Bitter Blood
5 August 1899
Lily Turner
‘Not Always to the Strong’
12 August 1899
Constance Smith
‘A Grave Responsibility’
19 August 1899
Edgar Jepson
‘The Dead That Wept’
26 August 1899
Walter Jerrold
‘The Missing Miser’
26 August 1899 – 6 January 1900
J. Monk Foster
The Forge of Life
2 September 1899
B. M. Croker
‘”The Spider” An Australian Tragedy’
9 September 1899
Arthur Hastings
‘Mrs Vanderdyke’s Revenge’
16 September 1899
Rita
‘The Voice on the Stairs’
23 September 1899
John K. Leys
‘A Millionaire’s Bride’
30 September 1899
Inez Kirkpatrick
‘Consuela’
7 October 1899
Fergus Hume
‘The Professor’s Mummy’
14 October 1899
H. Park Howden
‘An Underground Tragedy’
21 October 1899
Clara Mulholland
‘Muriel’s Atonement’
28 October 1899
Ernest H. Stephens
‘The Death Camera’
4 November 1899
Mrs J. K. Lawson
‘Hetty’s Mistake’
11 November 1899
F. Frankfort Moore
‘One Touch of Nature’
18 November 1899
Richard Marsh
‘The Burglary at Azalea Villa’
25 November 1899
E. Everett Green
‘The Talking Parrot’
2 December 1899
Hume Nisbet
‘A Desperate Endeavour’
9 December 1899
W. L. Alden
‘Cash Down’
16 December 1899
Fergus Hume
‘The Ghost in Brocade’
16 December 1899
Geo R. Sims
‘God Bless the Master of this House’
23 December 1899
W. L. Alden
‘A Christmas Bomb’
23 December 1899
Jean Middlemass
‘A Christmas Singer’
30 December 1899
John K. Leys
‘One Hundred Pounds Reward’
30 December 1899
Maud Venables Vernon
‘A Story of Two Christmas Eves’
Bibliography
Anon. (1886) ‘The Short Story’. Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art. (Feb, 20th) Vol 61. Iss. 1582, pp. 258-259.:
Anon. (1885) ‘Notes and News’. The Academy, 1869-1902. (July 11th) Iss. 688, p. 26-27.
E. A. B. (1902) ‘Short Fallacies about the Short Story’, The Academy and Literature, 1902-1905. (Oct, 11th) Iss. 1588, pp. 396-397.
Margree, V. (2018) ‘The Victorian Short Story Forum: An Introduction’, Victorian Review, 44.2, 163-166.