Putting it About is a collection of essays focused on popular culture in Spain in the long nineteenth century, with emphasis on two aspects: the nature of popular thinking about issues of right and wrong, retribution, and right and wrong behaviour, and the way that such thought is communicated to its various publics. Featuring figures such as the bandit and the fallen woman, and touching on issues of class and seemly behaviour, the first six essays draw on a rich collection of pliegos sueltos of the period and examine how they can be read in order to see a popular view of right and wrong, with emphasis on heroism, power, justice, but also with an eye to humour and subversion. The following three examine structures of restraint that relate to popular and canonical literature, and competition for control of mind and body. The final four essays foreground more sharply issues of choice relating to wrongdoing and rightdoing.
Alison Sinclair, who retired in 2014, was Professor of Modern Spanish Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow and former President of Clare College. She specialises in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Peninsular literature, culture and intellectual history, covering a broad spectrum of authors and topics, and with an ongoing interest in questions of popular culture and its transmission.