ABSTRACT
Women play a smaller role than usual in Reynolds' fiction, but fully familiar are the imprisonment scenes, a few visits to Paris, and the lengthy trial at the end of several major plotters, including Rumbold. Reynolds lived until 1879, but wrote no more fiction, though he remained active in the field of journalism. This extraordinary story is quite opposite in tone and style to The Mysteries of London, then appearing, but it was apparently read by at least one literary person. Reynolds's Miscellany for January 1847 has a comment accusing Bulwer of imitating Reynolds' Faust, as well as The Mysteries of London, in his novel Lucretia which came out in 1846. The medievalist novels, whether primarily fantasy or history, and the later texts that explore the world of central and Eastern Europe may turn away from English social conflict, but they retain some focus on the issues of working people and the sociopolitical challenges they can face.
