Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton is Professor of Victorian Literature at Canterbury Christ Church University, where she directs the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers.

'This study explores the intersection of seaside resorts and reading fiction in the Victorian age, offering a richly researched account of the origins of today's sun-lounger paperback. Through the way she expertly weaves together cultural geographical and bibliographical methodologies, Oulton allows us to read the settings "seaside novels" deploy in direct, intimate and at times surprising relation to the seaside locations in which these books were so often read. The book thus draws upon the long-standing historicist riches of nineteenth-century scholarship to make an important contribution to the cutting-edge interdisciplinary field of Coastal Studies.'- Matthew Ingleby, Queen Mary University of London

• Introduction: Literary Champagne 1. ‘A fit and exquisite setting’: The Sea as Literary Metaphor 2. ‘Wonderful and mysterious life’: Genre Fiction and the Seaside Holiday 3. ‘A marine suburb of London’: Literary Brighton and the Railway 4. ‘Too much blamed much respectability’: Reading Culture and the Kent Resorts 5. ‘First and finest publicity agent’: Writing the Dickens Country Conclusion

Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton is Professor of Victorian Literature at Canterbury Christ Church University, where she directs the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers.

'This study explores the intersection of seaside resorts and reading fiction in the Victorian age, offering a richly researched account of the origins of today's sun-lounger paperback. Through the way she expertly weaves together cultural geographical and bibliographical methodologies, Oulton allows us to read the settings "seaside novels" deploy in direct, intimate and at times surprising relation to the seaside locations in which these books were so often read. The book thus draws upon the long-standing historicist riches of nineteenth-century scholarship to make an important contribution to the cutting-edge interdisciplinary field of Coastal Studies.'- Matthew Ingleby, Queen Mary University of London

• Introduction: Literary Champagne 1. ‘A fit and exquisite setting’: The Sea as Literary Metaphor 2. ‘Wonderful and mysterious life’: Genre Fiction and the Seaside Holiday 3. ‘A marine suburb of London’: Literary Brighton and the Railway 4. ‘Too much blamed much respectability’: Reading Culture and the Kent Resorts 5. ‘First and finest publicity agent’: Writing the Dickens Country Conclusion

Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton is Professor of Victorian Literature at Canterbury Christ Church University, where she directs the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers.

'This study explores the intersection of seaside resorts and reading fiction in the Victorian age, offering a richly researched account of the origins of today's sun-lounger paperback. Through the way she expertly weaves together cultural geographical and bibliographical methodologies, Oulton allows us to read the settings "seaside novels" deploy in direct, intimate and at times surprising relation to the seaside locations in which these books were so often read. The book thus draws upon the long-standing historicist riches of nineteenth-century scholarship to make an important contribution to the cutting-edge interdisciplinary field of Coastal Studies.'- Matthew Ingleby, Queen Mary University of London

• Introduction: Literary Champagne 1. ‘A fit and exquisite setting’: The Sea as Literary Metaphor 2. ‘Wonderful and mysterious life’: Genre Fiction and the Seaside Holiday 3. ‘A marine suburb of London’: Literary Brighton and the Railway 4. ‘Too much blamed much respectability’: Reading Culture and the Kent Resorts 5. ‘First and finest publicity agent’: Writing the Dickens Country Conclusion