Enter Rumour

The common perception of Britain's Victorian era as one of strict and strait-laced conformity has long been subject to rebuttal, and Robert Bernard Martin's Enter Rumour (1962) was an early and distinguished endeavour in this line. Herein Martin weighs the evidence of four scandalous incidents that aroused great public interest during the first dozen years of Victoria's reign, each of them emanating from 'what the Victorians might have called the higher orders of society.' Martin recounts the sorry tale of Lady Flora Hastings, victim of Court gossip; Lord Eglinton, who tried and failed to revive the medieval tournament; the strange case of the St Cross Hospital Charity; and George Hudson, 'Railway King', whose rise and fall remains a story for our times. Martin examines sources expertly and further explores how three of these scandals were transformed into fiction - by none less than Dickens, Disraeli and Trollope.

Major study of the literary treatment of rumour and renown across the canon of authors from Homer to Alexander Pope, including readings in historiographical and dramatic texts, and authors such as Petrarch, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. Of interest to students of classical and comparative literature and of reception studies.

Henry IV, Part 2 is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599. It is the third part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 and succeeded by Henry V. The play is often seen as an extension of aspects of Henry IV, Part 1, rather than a straightforward continuation of the historical narrative, placing more emphasis on the highly popular character of Falstaff and introducing other comic figures as part of his entourage, including Ancient Pistol, Doll Tearsheet, and Justice Robert Shallow. Several scenes specifically parallel episodes in Part 1.