De-Radicalizing Popular Literature: From William Hone to Pierce Egan

This article examines the depoliticization of radical literature towards the kind of popular cross-class literature that Dickens would later produce. Here I examine why Pierce Egan, a man that Louis James identifies as “part of the old order”, would look towards William Hone for advice when Hone was actively hitting out at the church, king and government in a series of wildly popular pamphlets. In this chapter I will examine the oddness of Egan’s appeal to Hone and how Egan depoliticizes Hone’s creative method and style to access the kind of cross-class readership that Dickens and Thackeray would later reach. Furthermore I find that Egan's influence lasted into the C.20 with his inclusion in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.