ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 opens up the issues through an examination of Chartist print culture and reading practices – the latter an area that, for all the recent attention to Chartist fiction by literary scholars, has been largely neglected. Visual and oral forms of communication are also considered alongside print culture, and the interactions between them are explored. The problems Chartists encountered with erecting monuments are elucidated and the makeshift ways they were forced to adopt in the commemorative practices are related to continental attempts at pantheonisation (one of the many instances of synchronicity between Britain and Europe to emerge in the following pages). By focusing on dissemination, the contours of the radical tradition slowly begin to emerge. As this and subsequent chapters will show, tracing the contours of the radical tradition casts unique and interesting light on the Chartist movement. When viewed from this perspective, Chartism emerges as a movement that was not bounded by a distinctly British frame: Chartists ranged freely across countries, continents and epochs in their search for radical antecedents. Commemoration was thus an important component of Chartist internationalism, which is re-examined here from the fresh perspective of pantheonism. Chapter 1 concludes with a section on the gender politics of Chartist commemoration which highlights the important, albeit often hidden, role played by Chartist women in the making and maintaining of the radical tradition. The chapter also explores why Mary Wollstonecraft was such a marginal figure in the Chartist pantheon, even amongst Chartist women. These questions are explored by revisiting the area of radical dining and toasting.
