عنوان

Periodical places :

TLets325656

Periodical places :

[Thesis]

King, Andrew Lawson.

The London Journal 1845-1883.

Birkbeck (University of London)

2000

Ph.D.

Birkbeck (University of London)

2000

This thesis centres on one of the most widely read illustrated fiction magazinesof the nineteenth century, The London Journal. Despite its popularity, this pennyweekly has received scant attention from either media historians or critics, partlybecause of the lack of bibliographical tools. My account of its first series (1845 -1883) aims not only to make up for this lack (notably through its electronicappendices), but, in treating it as a case study, to explore various methods ofwriting about periodicals in general. I argue the necessity for an interdisciplinaryvision that recognises that periodicals are commodities that occupy specificplaces in a changing market. "Place" here can be understood as where theperiodical is located in cultural and geographical space by those who describe it,as well as where it positions itself through its contents in terms of gender andother identity categories.After an Introduction in which I review academic work on the periodical and layout my theoretical presuppositions, I view the magazine from four main angles.Chapter 2 discusses nineteenth-century accounts of The London Journal, treatingit not as a material body but as a polyvalent discursive entity. In the third chapterI read the magazine through the optic of production, examining availablecirculation figures, labour costs, and profits. I sketch the lives of several of itseditors, proprietors and authors, relating them to changes in the magazine'scontents, and considering the effects of rivalry with competitors in the samecultural zone and of relations with other now more canonical literary areas.Chapter 4 looks at The London Journal's changing gender profile over its firstseries, linking it to politics and to consumerism. The electronic appendix mapsThe London Journal bibliographically. Throughout I seek to locate and therebydefetishise the commodity-text, not least by treating some units of reading thatare today considered paracanonical novels as parts of a periodical, rather than asfreestanding units. These serials comprise Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret(1863) and a version of Zola's The Ladies' Paradise (1883). A Conclusion seeksan autocritique and proposes areas for continued research.

Illustrated fiction magazines; Victorian

King, Andrew Lawson.

Birkbeck (University of London)

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y