ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the earliest years of Edward Lloyd’s career as a publisher of fiction, from 1836 to 1841. It argues that Thomas Peckett Prest was responsible for providing Lloyd with ties to the stage and addresses how Lloyd harnessed the marketing power of song in the titles he bestowed on certain serials. The chapter discusses the role Lloyd’s publications played in circulating a global multimedia culture, and the discrepancy between the publisher’s wealth and the dire poverty suffered by the culture workers who contributed to this circulation. Lloyd’s earliest newspaper is therefore an important source for early Victorian theatrical studies. The love story of Lucy Neal is set during a Jamaican slave insurgency, yet Lloyd’s preface locates it in the United States; the rest of the text remains unchanged. Lloyd was taking people, stories, and titles from the world of the stage as well as publicity.
