Cheapness, Predictability, and Cliché: Beaches in Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals

The chapter examines the beach topos in a number of popular nineteenth-century British mass-market periodicals such as the London Reader, Every Week, and Bow Bells. It argues that the beach serves as a generator for plot. The beach is a social neutral ground where different social classes can meet, and drama occurs. It argues that short stories from the mentioned periodicals can be understood as ‘topos fiction’ because the brevity encourages the writer to find an organizing concept, trope, or central spot around which the action revolves. The beach is one of these organising topoi. The short stories in question are by no means canonical but rather formulaic forms in which the beach serves as a coordinating force, which works at the risk of becoming a cliché.