Introduction: Addressing Readers: New Theoretical Perspectives

Virginie Iche & Sandrine Sorlin (Paul-Valery University of Montpellier, France)

I. Ethical Transactions with Readers

Chapter
1. Authorial risk-taking: The relationship between Dickens and his readers

Roger Sell (Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland)

Chapter
2. "I hope I shall please my readers": Negotiating the Author-Reader Relationship in Two Corpora of British Novels, 1778-1814

Juliette Misset (University of Strasbourg, France)

Chapter
3. "You are my fictional audience, and as such I appreciate you very much": Direct Address in Contemporary American Young Adult Fiction About Mental Health

Sara K. Day (Truman State University, USA)

II. Revisiting Authorial Agency

Chapter
4. Interpellation and Counter-interpellation in the Novel

Jean-Jacques Lecercle (University of Paris Ouest Nanterre, France)

Chapter
5. Deciphering the Joycean Address: Elusive Authority and Reader Agency in Ulysses

Olivier Hercend (Sorbonne University, France)

Chapter
6. "The Rest is Silence": Readerly Wo/anderings in the Unsaid

Claire Majola-Leblond (University Jean Moulin - Lyon 3, France)

III. Challenging Readers

Chapter
7. (Im)politeness and the Question of Address in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood: a Pragmatics Approach

Maurice Cronin (Paris Dauphine, France)

Chapter
8. Phatic, Polemical, and Metaleptic Addresses to Readers in William Gerhardie’s The Polyglots

Catherine Hoffmann (University of Le Havre-Normandie, France)

Chapter
9. Humouring the Reader in Alan Bennett’s "A Chip in the Sugar"

Vanina Jobert-Martini & Manuel Jobert (University Jean Moulin - Lyon 3, France)

IV. From Oral to Digital Fiction and Back

Chapter
10. "You know, are you you?" Being versus Playing the Second-Person in Digital Fiction

Alice Bell (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)

Chapter
11. Addressing the Reader and/or Character in Gamebooks: Ryan North’s To Be or Not to Be and Romeo and/or Juliet

Baharak Darougari (University of Strasbourg, France)

Chapter
12. "Now, normally, I wouldn’t be telling you this and you, I’m sure, would be happier if I wasn’t." The Modern-Day Storyteller in Roddy Doyle’s Charlie Savage (2019)

Lea Boichard (University Savoie Mont Blanc, France)