Potterism

Probably Macaulay’s most well known pre-WW2 novel, from 1920 Creating a lot of pre-order interest already • ‘A Tragi-Farcical Tract’ is Macaulay’s self-deprecating way of indicating ‘here I rant about the lazy minds of the British newspaper reading public, but also show that they’re not all that stupid, and that pride comes before a fall’. • Potterism is a way of thinking, named after the invented Potter newspaper empire which ran many weekly and daily papers from the Edwardian period through to the 1920s • Potterism has, for one of its surest bases, fear. The other bases are ignorance, vulgarity, mental laziness, sentimentality, and greed. • Potterism has no use for facts. • Potterism is all for short and easy cuts and showy results. • The plot is about how Jane Potter gets what she wants: a job, a husband, her chance as a novelist, and who and what she tramples over on the way. She begins as an anti-Potter, rejecting the rubbish her father’s newspaper empire publishes, but she ends up a thorough Potter, in all its worst aspects. • Anti-Semitism is key to the plot. The Introduction by Sarah Lonsdale, and the Notes by Kate Macdonald, deal with this issue thoroughly, giving the social and political context, and arguing that Macaulay deliberately used anti-Semitism as a means to show how weakness and strength manifest, and how anti-Semitism was the easiest slur and the most indelible stain. Will appeal to fans of political and social satire. For courses on mass media and fake news, and on the psychology of the masses. Other key words for the content are: early feminism, newspaper history, anti-Semitism, 1920s Britain. Cover image is a contemporary hair slide advert, chosen because the image embodies Jane Potter: smug, pretty, sly and knowing that she will get what she wants.