Evolution of amusing literature

The present doctoral thesis focuses on a literal phenomenon, which is still difficult to outline and classify - the so-called second-rate literature - in the context of historical and cultural developments in the Czech lands. The accent is put primarily on the so-called mass entertaining (bedside) literature for men, which was and, to a certain degree, still is represented by such adventure paperback serials (Western pulp fiction) as Rodokaps, Dodokaps, Rozruch G. F. Unger, etc. In the introductory chapter of this thesis, the author attempts to define this kind of literature terminologically, confronting his considerations with the views presented by classical literary critics - primarily the writer, journalist, playwright and essayist Karel Čapek and the literary historian Josef Hrabák. Detailed attention is paid to the historical predecessors of the mass literature in four subsequent chapters: travel books, chronicles, broadside ballads and folk reading, and adventure stories. The author gives detailed description of their respective historical developments, highlighting the features in each of them that boosted the mass growth of men's reading. The chapters devoted to a specifically Czech phenomenon - the existence of inter-war adventure paperback serials, the so-called Western pulp fiction (e.g...