| Acknowledgements | |
| Chronology | |
| Preface | |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Blood and Thunder: A Gothic Apprenticeship | p. 47 |
| Essential juvenilia, 1821-1823 | p. 47 |
| The best of the rest: December Tales, 1823 | p. 73 |
| The first novel: Sir John Chiverton, 1826 | p. 95 |
| Fame and Infamy: Rookwood, A Romance, 1834 | p. 121 |
| Life in London : business, family and Fraser's, 1826-1834 | p. 121 |
| The design of Romance: Rookwood, Scott and the gothic | p. 131 |
| The Phantom Steed: the outlaw narrative of Rookwood | p. 151 |
| Writing the Underworld: Jack Sheppard, A Romance, 1839 | p. 171 |
| 'A sort of Hogarthian novel' | p. 171 |
| Vagabondiana: Jack Sheppard and social exploration | p. 195 |
| The storm: the Newgate controversy | p. 219 |
| The Historical Novelist: Prophecy, Passivity and Tragedy | p. 231 |
| Twin-born romances: Guy Fawkes and The Tower of London, 1840 | p. 231 |
| Hell on earth: Old St. Paul's; A Tale of the Plague and the Fire, 1841 | p. 270 |
| The devil and his works: Windsor Castle, 1843 and Auriol, 1844 | p. 285 |
| The Lancashire Novelist | p. 305 |
| A dream of flying: The Lancashire Witches. A Romance of Pendle Forest, 1848 | p. 305 |
| The Lancashire novels | p. 344 |
| The Greatest Axe-and-Neck Romancer of Our Time | p. 371 |
| Growing old gracefully: 1850-1881 | p. 371 |
| Man of La Manchester | p. 388 |
| Conclusion | p. 405 |
| On the authorship of Sir John Chiverton. A debate from beyond the grave | p. 413 |
| The original conclusion of Catherine, A Story by Thackeray | p. 421 |
| 'Old Grindrod's Ghost's: A Ballad | p. 423 |
| The Works of William Harrison Ainsworth | p. 427 |
| Bibliography | p. 435 |
| Index | p. 447 |
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