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 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.
This collection includes 23 different short stories, which have been split into three sections based on their settings. Dr. Knight has written short introductions to each story adding helpful context and analysis. On the first Wednesday of every month we will be releasing a new story and accompanying introduction to the blog until the collection is complete. Dr. Knight has also included a preface and introduction to help readers new to Reynolds enter the collection. The preface will be available on the society website tomorrow, and the introduction will drop the following month on Wednesday, April 1st.
I have personally enjoyed reading this collection so much, and I am excited for you all to explore Reynolds’s work over the next two years’ worth of stories. From family dramas like ‘The Two Sisters’ (coming in June) to gothic stories of crime and death such as ‘The Engraver’ and ‘The Assassin’ (February and March of next year), Reynolds’s short fiction includes the same intrigue and rich prose as his novels. There is something for everyone, and unlike his longer works, these pieces are perfect for classroom discussion in Victorianist circles. In the typical Reynolds style, they contain complicated and real characters across Europe and the Near East as they encounter romance and danger.
The G. W. M. Reynolds society looks forward to seeing you tomorrow for the start of this new collection, and then on the first Wednesday of each month to dive into these short stories with us!
G. W. M. Reynolds Society 