Gender and the Victorian Periodical

Periodicals in the Victorian era portrayed and reinforced gender notions and ideals. Indeed, the Victorian periodical press was a critical cultural site for the representation of competing gender ideologies. This is a full-length book examining masculinities and femininities as defined and interrogated in these periodicals. It investigates readers, editors, and journalists; and it considers the power of the press at home, in the domestic space, in metropolitan centres and at the margins of empire. The work is based on archival research into a wide range of publications from the 1830s to the fin de siècle; from enduring intellectual heavyweight quarterlies through more ephemeral women’s and working men’s magazines, to magazines for boys and girls. The study is informed by the theories and approaches of media and cultural studies and women’s studies. A valuable appendix supplies information about the many periodicals of the period mentioned in the book.

• Sheds new light on the shaping role of the press in relation to nineteenth-century gender ideologies • Examines the development of the press as a powerful social and political medium • Explores a broad range of periodicals which are catalogued in a useful appendix

List of plates; Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The writing subject; 2. The gendered reader; 3. Editorship and gender; 4. Gender and the ‘Politics of Home’; 5. Gender and cultural imperialism; 6. Feminism and the press; 7. Gender, commodity and the late nineteenth-century periodical; Conclusion; Notes; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

‘This is a sensitive study that engages with the most challenging aspects of popular writing … fascinating chapters …’ Times Literary Supplement

\'… wide ranging and important … a seamless text.\' George Eliot Review