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In order to explore the context in which suspense was used, I reviewed a sample of The British Newspaper Archive.

In the second half of the century (1850-1899) this had risen to 561,885 instances. During the first half of the century (1800-1849) there were 154,432 instances of the word ‘suspense’ in newspaper reports. The breakdown of these figures reveals how ‘suspense’ became a popular stylist device to dramatise news reports and capture readers’ attention. In the British Newspaper Archive, the word ‘suspense’ appears in newspaper headlines and reports 716,317 times during 1800-1899 (British Library, n.d.).

The archives of British newspapers and US film and entertainment trade journals reveal some interesting statistics and trends during the 19th-20th centuries. Suspense Narrativesīy exploring the historical cultural elements that shaped the narrative form of suspense we can gain a deeper insight into the historical association between suspense and fear. The wider cultural phenomenon of suspense assisted in the development of a specific ‘suspense’ film genre, the US domestic thriller and Hitchcock’s suspense thriller. Suspense narrative strategies were then used in the serial novel and later transferred to the serial film and promotional techniques across genres. This article explores the cultural and historical context of suspense narratives which began with the term ‘suspense’ being used to describe specific real-life news stories in newspapers and promotion reviews of theatrical plays and circus acts.