Bibliography M-O

Items with the "**" have not been personally checked. This means that the details given in the entry may not be entirely accurate.

From this page you may return to the main Romance Scholarship page or go directly to

• Academics Who Write Romance
• Academic Online Essays (not published in academic journals or volumes)
• Autobiographies and Biographies of Romance Authors
• Bibliography
  • Bibliography A-C - the first part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
  • Bibliography D-G - the second part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
  • Bibliography H-L - the third part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
  • Bibliography P-S - the fifth part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
  • Bibliography T-Z - the last part of our bibliography of academic articles and books about romance.
• Bibliography of Scholarship in Languages Other than English.
• Dissertation Abstracts
• Guides to the Genre
• Romance in the Media - lists news items/features items about romance.
  • Romance in the Media A-I
  • Romance in the Media J-Z
• Romance Resources for Academics - lists romance-related resources which may be of interest to academics.
• Writers on Romance - lists items written about the genre by romance authors but not published in academic journals or books.

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M

Macdonald, Andrew, Gina Macdonald, and MaryAnn Sheridan. 2000.

Shape-shifting: images of Native Americans in recent popular fiction. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. (Chapter on The Romance Genre: Welcome to Club Cherokee). Excerpt.

Maher, Jennifer, 2001. 

'Ripping the Bodice: Eating, Reading, and Revolt', College Literature, 28.1:64-83.

Makinen, Merja, 2001. 

Feminist Popular Fiction. (New York: Palgrave). [Includes a chapter on 'The Romance' - for table of contents see here. This chapter gives an overview of much of the feminist criticism of the genre (both positive and negative) and concludes with three case studies, only two of which Makinen really considers to be romances: Susan Napier's Deal of a Lifetime and Lisa Shapiro's Color of Winter.]

Mangat, T.K., 1998. 

'The surgeon in popular fiction - The Mills and Boon doctor-nurse romance', Theoretical Surgery, 3.2:89-92.

Mann, Peter H., 1969. 

The Romantic Novel: A Survey of Reading Habits (London: Mills & Boon). **

Mann, Peter H., 1974. 

A New Survey: The Facts About Romantic Fiction. (London: Mills & Boon). **

Mann, Peter H., 1979. 

‘Romantic Fiction and its Readers’ in Entertainment: A Cross-Cultural Examination, ed. H.D. Fischer & S. R. Melnick (New York: Hastings House), pp. 34-42. **

Mann, Peter H., 1981. 

'The Romantic Novel and its Readers', Journal of Popular Culture, 15.1: 9-18.

Mann, Peter H., 1985. 

'Romantic Fiction and Its Readership', Poetics, 14.1-2: 95-105.

Margolies, David, 1982-1983. 

‘Mills & Boon: Guilt without Sex’, Red Letters, 14: 5-13.

Margolis, Harriet, 1992. 

'Feminist Irony or Poisonous Fantasy?: Category Romance and the Conscious Reader,' Yearbook of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Fine Arts. Ed. William E. Grim and Michael B. Harper. 3. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. 165-78.

Margolis, Harriet, 1995. 

“The Lover's Value(s): Women's Romance Novels in an Exchange-Based Society.” Conference Papers (New Zealand Women's Studies Association Annual Meeting, 1994). 78-82.

Margolis, Harriet, 1997. 

"A Childe in Love, Or Is It Just Fantasy? The Values of Women's Genres." Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2: 121-144.

Markert, John, 1985. 

'Romance Publishing and the Production of Culture', Poetics, 14.1-2: 69-93.

Markert, John. 1987. 

"The Publishing Decision: Managerial Policy and Its Effect on Editorial Decision Making-The Case of Romance Publishing." Book Research Quarterly 3, no. 2: 33-59.

Marks, Pamela. 1999. 

'The Good Provider in Romance Novels', in Romantic Conventions, see below, pp. 10-22. Excerpt

Martin, Darcy, 2003. 

'Womanhood Reinvented: Eve Dallas, Protagonist in J. D. Robb's "In Death" Series', The 2000-2003 Proceedings of the SW/Texas PCA/ACA Conference, Ed. Leslie Fife, pp. 1989-2019. Whole proceedings online here.

Mason, Gillian, 2008. 

'Rosemary Rogers', Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 2.2/3. [Formerly at [1]. This link no longer works but a pdf of the entire issue can be downloaded from [2]].

Masteller, Jean Carwile, 1996. 

'Romancing the Reader: From Laura Jean Libbey to Harlequin Romance and Beyond', in Pioneers, Passionate Ladies, and Private Eyes: Dime Novels, Series Books, and Paperbacks, ed. Larry E. Sullivan, and Lydia Cushman Schurman (New York: Haworth Press). **

Maynard, Lee Anna, 2008. 

'LaVyrle Spencer', Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 2.2/3. [Formerly at [3]. This link no longer works but a pdf of the entire issue can be downloaded from [4]].

McAleer, Joseph. 1990. 

'Scenes from Love and Marriage: Mills and Boon and the Popular Publishing Industry in Britain, 1908-1950', Twentieth Century British History, 1.3: 264-288.

McAleer, Joseph, 1999. 

Passion's Fortune: The Story of Mills & Boon (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Contents page and excerpts available here. Pdf of the Introduction and Chapter 8 available available from here.

McAleer, Joseph, 2011. 

'Love, Romance, and the National Health Service', Classes, Cultures, & Politics: Essays on British History for Ross McKibbin, ed. Clare V. J. Griffiths, James J. Nott, & William Whyte (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 173-191. ["The rise of the 'Doctor-Nurse' romance in the 1950s coincided with the NHS and, in fact, helped to promote and reinforce it. Mills & Boon authors, most of them former nurses, were ambassadors for the system and would tolerate no criticism of it" (190).] Excerpt

McAlpine, Rachel, 1998. 

The Passionate Pen: New Zealand’s Romance Writers Talk to Rachel McAlpine, (Christchurch, N.Z.: Hazard Press). [This seems to include interviews with Victoria Aldridge, Rilla Berg, Gloria Beven, Eva Burfield, Daphne Clair, Robyn Donald, Catherine Hay, Rosalie Henaghan, Miriam MacGregor, Mary Moore, Susan Napier, Jessie Nichols, Ivy Preston, Essie Summers, Rachelle Swift ]**

McCafferty, Kate, 1994. 

‘Palimpsest of Desire: The Re-Emergence of the American Captivity Narrative as Pulp Romance’, Journal of Popular Culture, 27.4: 43-56.

McCay, Mary A., 2001. 

'Love's Labors Won:Romance Fiction and the Politics of Love.' New Orleans Review, 27.1:171-183.

McCracken, Scott, 1998. 

Pulp: Reading Popular Fiction (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Chapter 3 is on 'Popular romance'. Excerpt

McKay, Jade and Elizabeth Parsons, 2009. 

‘Out of Wedlock: The Consummation and Consumption of Marriage in Contemporary Romance Fiction’, Genders 50.[5]

McKnight-Trontz, Jennifer, 2002. 

The Look of Love: The Art of the Romance Novel (New York: Princeton Architectural Press). [This is about the cover art of romance novels from the 1940s to the 1970s] [Excerpt via Google Books, Description, small gallery of photos and an audio report from NPR radio, and search inside via Amazon - Index page and excerpts]

McNamara, Sallie, 2000. 

"Georgette Heyer: the historical romance and the consumption of the erotic, 1918-1939." in All the world and her husband: women in twentieth-century consumer culture, (London: Cassell): 82-96. See Google Books

McNeil, Helen, 1981. 

'She Trembled at His Touch', Quarto (May 1981): 17-18. [According to Nickianne Moody, (see below for details of her essay, "Sex and the Single Couple") McNeil describes "five plot types in Mills & Boon fiction of the 1970s" (144). **

McReynolds, Louise, 1998. 

'Reading the Russian Romance: What Did the Keys to Happiness Unlock?", Journal of Popular Culture, 31.4: 95-108. Excerpt [The novel in question may not end with a happily-ever-after.]

McWilliam, Kelly, 2009. 

'Romance in foreign accents: Harlequin-Mills & Boon in Australia', Continuum 23.2: 137-145. Abstract and pdf.

Melman, Billie, 1988. 

Women and the Popular Imagination in the Twenties: Flappers and Nymphs (London: Macmillan). [Chapter 2 is titled "'Sex Novels': A New Kind of Best-seller"; Chapter 6 is titled "1919-1928: 'The Sheik of Araby' - Freedom in Captivity in the Desert Romance." Also of interest may be two of the chapters on "story papers": Chapter 7, "'A Lass of Lancashire': The Mill Girl as Emblem of Working-Class Virtues" and Chapter 9, "The Emigrant: Romance and the Empire."]

Ménard, A. Dana and Christine Cabrera, 2011. 

' ‘Whatever the Approach, Tab B Still Fits into Slot A’: Twenty Years of Sex Scripts in Romance Novels', Sexuality & Culture 15.3: 240-255. Abstract

Mendez Jose Luis, 1986. 

"The Novels of Corin Tellado." Studies in Latin American Popular Culture. 5:31-40. (Tellado is a Spanish author of romance novels)

Miles, Angela, 1988. 

‘Confessions of a Harlequin Reader: Learning Romance and the Myth of Male Mothers’, Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, 12, no. 1-2: 1-36. ** Reprinted in The Hysterical Male: New Feminist Theory, Eds. Arthur & Marilouise Kroker (Montreal: New World Perspectives, 1991), pp. ???-???.

Milton, Suzanne, 2008. 

'Teaching the Romance Novel: An Introduction', Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice 2.2/3. [Formerly at [6] and now (perhaps with a different title) at [7]].

Mitchell, Diana, 1995. 

'If You Can't Beat'em, Join 'em: Using the Romance Series to Confront Gender Stereotypes', The ALAN Review, 22.2.[8]

Mitchell, Karen S., 1996. 

‘Ever After: Reading the Women Who Read (and Re-Write) Romances’, Theatre Topics, 6.1: 51-69. [As might be supposed from the title of the Journal, this is about drama: the author 'decided to stage a performance centered on the popular romance genre and the women who read these novels']

Modleski, Tania, 1980. 

‘The Disappearing Act: A Study of Harlequin Romances’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5: 435-448.

Modleski, Tania, 1982. 

Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-produced fantasies for women (New York: Routledge).

Modleski, Tania, 1997. 

"My Life as a Romance Reader." Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 3.1-2: 15-28.

Modleski, Tania, 1998. 

"My Life as a Romance Writer." Paradoxa: Studies in World Literary Genres 4.9: 134-144. (See below for details of the reply to Modleski by Mussell).

Moffitt, Mary Anne, 1986. 

"Function of Hero and Heroine in Women's Formula Fiction: A Gaining of Self through Separation, Identification, and Assimilation." . Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association (36th, Chicago, IL, May 22-26, 1986), 40 pgs. ERIC document ED274005.

Moffitt, Mary Anne, 1987. 

"Understanding the Appeal of the Romance Novel for the Adolescent Girl: A Reader-Response Approach." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association (37th, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 21-25, 1987), 46 pgs ERIC document ED284190.

Moffitt, Mary Anne, 1987. 

"Understanding the "Guidebooks" to Writing Romance Fiction as Reinforcement of Self through the "Formula" Model." Paper presented at the Joint Meeting of the Central States Speech Association and the Southern Speech Communication Association (St. Louis, MO, April 9-12, 1987), 25 pgs., ERIC document ED281250.

Moffitt, Mary Anne, 1993. 

"Leisure Fiction and the Audience: Meaning and Communication Strategies." Women's Studies in Communication 16.2 : 27-61. (Examination of the leisure practice called romance reading, pursued by two audiences distinguished primarily through age differences)

Montague, Holly, 1992. 

'Sweet and Pleasant Passion: Female and Male Fantasy in Ancient Romance Novels', in Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome, ed. Amy Richlin (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 231-249. [First page and, if you scroll down the page, an abstract.]

Moody, Nickianne, 1998. 

‘Mills & Boon’s Temptations: Sex and the Single Couple in the 1990s’ in Fatal Attractions: Rescripting Romance in Contemporary Literature and Film, ed. Lynne Pearce & Gina Wisker (London: Pluto), pp. 141-156.

Moore, Kate and Eric Murphy Selinger, 2012. 

'The Heroine as Reader, the Reader as Heroine: Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation', Journal of Popular Romance Studies 2.2.[9].

Moore, Michael, and Daniela Kramer, 1999.

"Satir for Beginners: Incongruent Communication Patterns in Romantic Fiction." ETC: A Review of General Semantics 56.4: 429-37. First couple of paragraphs

Moran, Albert, 1990. 

'"No More Virgins": Writing Romance - an Interview with Emma Darcy', Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture, 4.1.[10]

Morgan, Paula, 2003. 

“Like Bush Fire in My Arms”: Interrogating the World of Caribbean Romance, Journal of Popular Culture 36.4: 804-827.

Mosley, Shelley, John Charles, and Julie Havir, 1995. 

'The Librarian as Effete Snob: Why Romance?', Wilson Library Bulletin, 69: 24–25.**

Moss, Gemma, 1993. 

'The Place for Romance in Young People's Writing', Texts of Desire: Essays on Fiction, Femininity and Schooling, ed. Linda Christian-Smith. (London: Falmer), pp. 106-???. Excerpt

Motte, Warren, 2012. 

"A Walk on the Sheikh Side." Formes Poétiques Contemporaines 9: 119-134. [Whole issue available for download.]

Moudileno, Lydie, 2008

"The Troubling Popularity of West African Romance Novels." Research in African Literatures 39.4: 120-132. [Abstract]

Muhomah, C, 2002. 

'What do women want?: Versions of masculinity in Kenyan romantic fiction,' English Studies in Africa, 45, no. 2 (2002): 77-90.

Mukherjea, Ananya. 2011. 

"Team Bella: Fans Navigating Desire, Security, and Feminism." In Theorizing Twilight: Critical Essays on What's at Stake in a Post-Vampire World, 70-83. Ed. Maggie Parke and Natalie Wilson. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011.

Mukherjea, Ananya, 2011. 

'My Vampire Boyfriend: Postfeminism, “Perfect” Masculinity, and the Contemporary Appeal of Paranormal Romance', Studies in Popular Culture 33.2.[11]

Mulhern, Chieko Irie, 1989. 

'Japanese Harlequin Romances as Transcultural Woman's Fiction', The Journal of Asian Studies, 48.1: 50-70.

Mussell, Kay J., 1975. 

'Beautiful and Damned: The Sexual Woman in Gothic Fiction', Journal of Popular Culture, 9.1: 84-89. Excerpt

Mussell, Kay J. 1983. 

'"But Why Do They Read Those Things?": The Female Audience and the Gothic Novel.' in Ed. Juliann Fleenor The Female Gothic, (Montreal: Eden Press) pp. 57-68.**

Mussell, Kay, 1984. 

Fantasy and Reconciliation: Contemporary Formulas of Women's Romance Fiction (Westport CT: Greenwood Press). Excerpts

Mussell, Kay. 1978. 

"Romantic Fiction." In Handbook of American Popular Culture, vol. 2, edited by M. Thomas Inge, 317-43. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.**

Mussell, Kay, 1997. 

'Where's Love Gone? Transformations in Romance Fiction and Scholarship', Paradoxa, 3.1-2: 3-14.

Mussell, Kay, 1997. 

'Paradoxa Interview with Jayne Ann Krentz', Paradoxa, 3.1-2: 46-57.

Mussell, Kay, 1997. 

'Paradoxa Interview with Nora Roberts', Paradoxa 3.1-2: 155-163.

Mussell, Kay, 1997. 

'Paradoxa Interview with Barbara G. Mertz', Paradoxa 3.1-2: 180-183.

Mussell, Kay, 1997. 

'Paradoxa Interview with Janet Dailey', Paradoxa 3.1-2: 214-218.

Mussell, Kay, 1997. 

'On-Line Romance', Paradoxa 3.1-2: 246-249.

Mussell, Kay, 1998. 

'Kay Mussell Replies to Tania Modleski', Paradoxa 4.9: 145-147.

N

Nakagawa, Chiho, 2011. 

“Safe Sex with Defanged Vampires: New Vampire Heroes in Twilight and the Southern Vampire Mysteries”, Journal of Popular Romance Studies 2.1.[12]

Nash, Walter, 1990. 

Language in Popular Fiction (London: Routledge). [Includes quotes from Barbara Cartland's The Naked Battle (104), Anne Weale's Bed Of Roses (106) and Summer’s Awakening, Claudia Jameson's Escape to Love and Barbara Perkins' Marina's Sister.] Excerpt

Ndalianis, Angela. 2012. 

The Horror Sensorium: Media and the Senses. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Includes chapter "Paranormal Romance: Anita Blake, Sookie Stackhouse and the Monsters Who Love Them."

Neal, Lynn S, 2006. 

Romancing God: Evangelical Women and Inspirational Fiction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press). [Description of the book and newspaper interview with the author about it.]

Neuman, Susan B., 1985. 

"The Uses of Reading Mass-Produced Romance Fiction." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Reading Association (30th, New Orleans, LA, May 5-9, 1985), 23 pgs. ERIC document ED263528.

Neylon, Virginia Lyn, 2003. 

'Reading and Writing the Romance Novel: An Analysis of Romance Fiction and Its Place in the Community College Classroom', Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (54th, New York, NY, March 19-22, 2003). 20 pgs. ERIC Document ED477339. [Available on the web in html or as a Word document from the author's webpage]

Nielsen, Inge, 2000. 

"Caught in the Web of Love: Intercepting the Young Adult Reception of Qiongyao's Romances On-Line." Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 53.3-4: 235-253.

Nolan, Michelle, 2008. 

Love on the Racks : a History of American Romance Comics. (Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland). Description and link to table of contents.

North American Romance Writers, 1999. 

ed. Kay Mussell and Johanna Tuñón (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press).

Nowicka, Katarzyna, 2010. 

"Romancing the Masses – Problems of Light Romantic Fiction Translation in Poland" in 3rd Annual International Conference on Philology, Literature & Linguistics, 12 – 15 July 2010, Athens, Greece. Athens: Athens Institute for Education and Research.** [According to the abstract here, the paper "centre[s] around the formative role of translation in the process of light romantic fiction publishing, subordinate and passive position of the author and special responsibility of the editor who controls the procedure of trans-editing. The main impact is to be laid on the power relations between the Harlequin translator and the Publishing House represented by the editor. In addition, the figure of factory translator is to be presented in detail, considering professionalism, working conditions, environment and methods. The problems of mass literature rendition, such as haste, restrictions, standardization or commercialism, as well as translation mistakes resulting from them are to be presented and illustrated with the examples taken from the English and Polish issues of selected titles."]

Núñez Puente, Sonia, 2008. 

"The Romance Novel and Popular Culture during the Early Franco Regime in Spain: Towards the Construction of Other Discourses of Femininity." Journal of Gender Studies 17.3: 225-36. Abstract

Nye, David, 1988. 

"The Consumption of American Popular Culture." Text & Context: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 2.1: 85-93. (Harlequin Romances; relationship to popular culture; film; amusement park)

Nyquist, Mary, 1993. 

'Romance in the Forbidden Zone', in ReImagining Women: Representations of Women in Culture, ed. Shirley Neuman (ed. & introd.) and Glennis Stephenson (Toronto: U of Toronto Press),pp. 160-81.

O

O'Byrne, Patricia, 2008. 

"Popular Fiction in Postwar Spain: The Soothing, Subversive Novela Rosa." Journal of Romance Studies 8.2: 37-57. Abstract

Odag, Özen, 2008. 

"Of Men Who Read Romance and Women Who Read Adventure Stories: An Empirical Reception Study on the Emotional Engagement of Men and Women while Reading Narrative Texts." New Beginnings in Literary Studies. Auracher, Jan, ed.; Peer, Willie van, ed. (Newcastle upon Tyne, England: Cambridge Scholars), pp. 308-329.

Olivier, Séverine, 2012. 

"Francophone Perspectives on Romantic Fiction: From the Academic Field to Reader’s Experience." Journal of Popular Romance Studies 2.2. [13] [Part 1 gives an overview of Francophone romance scholarship and Part 2 is an interview with Agnès Caubet, "Romance Reader and Webmaster of Les Romantiques, fan website and webzine."]

Opas, Lisa Lena, and Fiona Tweedie, 1999.

"The Magic Carpet Ride: Reader Involvement in Romantic Fiction." Literary and Linguistic Computing: Journal of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing 14.1: 89-101. [An abstract of a conference paper with the same title, given by the authors the previous year, can be found here]

Osborne, Gwendolyn, 2002. 

"How Black Romance - Novels, that is - Came to Be." Black Issues Book Review Jan-Feb. 2002. 50.[14]

Osborne, Gwendolyn E., 2003. 

'In Search of Women Who Look Like Me: A Brief History of the African-American Romance', The 2000-2003 Proceedings of the SW/Texas PCA/ACA Conference, Ed. Leslie Fife, pp. 2020-2044. Whole proceedings online here.

Osborne, Gwendolyn E., 2004. 

"'Women Who Look Like Me': Cultural Identity and Reader Responses to African American Romance Novels." Race/Gender/Media: Considering Diversity Across Audiences, Content, and Producers, ed. Rebecca Ann Lind (New York: Pearson), pp. 61-68.

Osborne, Laurie E., 1999. 

"Romancing the Bard", Shakespeare and Appropriation, ed. Christy Desmet and Robert Sawyer (New York: Routledge), 47-64. Excerpt [Osborne has also created a Romancing the Bard website. Its contents are not identical to those in this article, but it may nonetheless be of interest. For more details see Romance Resources for Academics ].

Osborne, Laurie, 2000. 

"Sweet, Savage Shakespeare", Shakespeare without Class: Misappropriations of Cultural Capital, ed. Donald Hedrick and Bryan Reynolds (New York: Palgrave), 135-51. Excerpt

Osborne, Laurie E., 2002. 

"Harlequin Presents: That '70s Shakespeare and Beyond." in Shakespeare after Mass Media. Ed. Richard Burt (New York: Palgrave), pp. 127-149.(influence on Harlequin Romances). Excerpt

Ostrov Weisser, Susan, 2001. 

Women and Romance: A Reader. Ed. Susan Ostrov Weisser. New York: New York UP. Abstract and link to Table of Contents

Owen, Mairead, 1997. 

'Re-inventing romance: Reading popular romantic fiction', Women's Studies International Forum, 20.4:537-46. Abstract Excerpt