The ‘Illimitable Dominion’ of Charles Dickens: Transatlantic Print Culture and the Spring of 1842

What is it about?

The article is a new interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale "The Masque of the Red Death" that shows how it was a satirical response to Charles Dickens's time in the USA. It also provides a history of intellectual property in the USA and its impact on literature and culture in the nineteenth century.

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Why is it important?

This is the first major reading of "The Masque of the Red Death" in twenty years. It provides a wholly original take on the tale and considers it in light of new evidence made available by the digitisation of American nineteenth-century newspapers and important recent work on ideas of reprinting, piracy and copyright.