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INTRODUCTION


 This module is designed to introduce you to a representative cross-section of twentieth century British popular fiction. The texts selected have been chosen so as to reflect the varieties, forms and development of modern popular fiction, and further because of the opportunities they provide for raising significant and wide-ranging social themes and issues of the relationship between popular fiction and modern society.

 Popular fiction can variously be described as "lowbrow/middlebrow" fiction written or designed for a mass market or readership. One of the concerns of this course is the extent to which such fiction reflects, reinforces or directs popular values, beliefs and values. Is it simply the product of the single author, or might we see popular fictional forms as carriers or voices of dominant or radical ideologies? Can we examine works of popular fiction in the same way that we read and study works of "high fiction", within the "canon"? These are some of the questions and issues which we will attempt to look at throughout the module.

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