Abstract
Writers for journals and reviews in the first quarter of the nineteenth century imparted to middle-class readers an unparalleled power of reading, as Jon Klancher demonstrates. By ceaselessly mapping interpretive strategies, journals forged a distinctive identity against those above and below them (Klancher 1987, 50–2). This print boom in the early nineteenth century had a tremendous impact on ‘the way knowledge was conceptualized’ (Butler 1993, 122). Increasing fragmentation, compartmentalization and specialization of information involved a negotiation of gender as well as class relationships in terms of nationality. While the journals were working to establish certain forms of theoretical and political knowledge as masculine and middle-class, publishers began defining the women’s market in the 1820s and the juvenile market at the end of the decade through gift books and annuals. From the appearance of Rudolph Ackermann’s Forget-Me-Not, a Christmas and New Year’s Present in 1823 to the thirtieth and final issue of the Keepsake in 1857, the annual market was fiercely competitive, with sixty-three gift books making an appearance in 1832 and more than two hundred by the end of the decade.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Works cited
Adams, James Eli. ‘The Hero as Spectacle: Carlyle and the Persistence of Dandyism,’ Victorian Literature & the Victorian Visual Imagination, eds Carol T. Christ and John O. Jordan. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1995, 213–32.
Altick, Richard D. The English Common Reader: A Social History of the Mass Reading Public 1800–1900. Chicago and London, 1957.
[Anon.]. ‘The Literary Souvenir, for 1832,’ Athenaeum 209 (29 Oct. 1831a), 704–05.
[Anon.] ‘The Keepsake, for 1832,’ Athenaeum 211 (12 Nov 1831b), 736–7.
Blanchard, Laman. Life and Literary Remains of L.E.L. 2 vols Philadelphia, PA, 1841.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. Cambridge, 1984.
Butler, Marilyn. ‘Culture’s Medium: The Role of the Review,’ The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism, ed. Stuart Curran. Cambridge, 1993. 120–47.
Carlyle, Thomas. ‘The Hero as Man of Letters: Johnson, Rousseau, Burns,’ On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, ed. Carl Niemery. Lincoln, 1966, 154–95.
Davidoff, Leonore and Catherine Hall. Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850. Chicago, IL, 1987.
Dyson, Anthony. Pictures to Print: The Nineteenth-Century Engraving Trade. London, 1984.
Erickson, Lee. The Economy of Literary Form: English Literature and the Industrialization of Publishing, 1800–1850. Baltimore and London, 1996.
EO. [Pringle, Thomas]. ‘Prologue,’ The Friendship’s Offering. London, 1830, v–ii.
Faxon, Fredrick W. Literary Annuals and Gift Books: A Bibliography, 1823–1903. Middlesex, 1973.
Foucault, Michel. 1977. ‘What Is an Author?’ Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Ithaca, NY 1977, 113–38.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. London, 1987.
Hallam, Arthur Henry. The Letters of Arthur Henry Hallam, ed. Jack Kolb. Columbus, OH, 1981.
Hofkosh, Sonia. ‘Disfiguring Economies: Mary Shelley’s Short Stories,’ The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein, ed. Audrey A. Fisch, Anne K. Mellor, Esther H. Schor. New York, 1993, 204–19.
[Hunt, Leigh]. ‘Pocket-Books and Keepsakes,’ The Keepsake. London, 1828, 1–18.
Jack, Ian. English Literature, 1815–1832. Oxford, 1963.
Jaffe, Audrey. ‘Spectacular Sympathy: Visuality and Ideology in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol,’ PMLA 109.2 (1994), 254–65.
Jamieson, Eleanore. ‘The Binding Styles of the Gift Books and Annuals,’ Literary Annuals and Gift Books, ed. Fredrick W. Faxon. Middlesex, 1973, 7–17.
[Johnstone, Christian Isobel]. ‘The Books of the Season,’ Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine, 8.4 (1837), 678–88.
Klancher, Jon P. The Making of English Reading Audiences, 1790–1832. Madison, 1987.
Lamb, Charles. The Letters of Charles Lamb, Newly Arranged, with Additions, ed. Alfred Ainger. 2 vols. London, 1891.
Landon, Letitia Elizabeth. Fisher’s Drawing Room Scrap-Book. 8 vols. London, 1832–1839.
Leighton, Angela. Victorian Women Poets: Writing Against the Heart. Charlottesville, VA, 1992.
Mellor, Anne. K. Romanticism and Gender. New York, 1993.
Michasiw, Kim Ian. ‘Nine Revisionist Theses on the Picturesque,’ Representations 38 (1992), 76–100.
Muir, Percy. Victorian Illustrated Books. London, 1989.
Renier, Anne. Friendship’s Offering: An Essay on the Annuals and Gift Books of the Nineteenth Century. London, 1964.
[Reynolds, Fredric Mansel]. The Keepsake. London, 1831, iii–v.
Reynolds, Margaret. ‘Introduction I,’ Victorian Women Poets: An Anthology, ed. Angela Leighton and Margaret Reynolds. Oxford, 1995, xxv–xxxiv.
Richards, Thomas. The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851–1914. Stanford, 1990.
Siemans, Lloyd G. ‘The Poet as Huckster: Some Victorians in the Toyshop of Literature,’ English Language Notes 16 (1978), 129–44.
Southey, Robert. Letters of Robert Southey to John May, 1797–1838, ed. Charles Ramos. Austin, TX, 1976.
Southey, Robert. New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Curry. 2 vols. New York and London, 1965.
Stephenson, Glennis. Letitia Landon: The Woman Behind L.E.L.. Manchester and New York, 1995.
[Thackeray, William Makepeace.] ‘A Word on the Annuals,’ Fraser’s Magazine, 16 (1837), 757–63.
Watts, Alaric A. ‘Introduction,’ The Literary Souvenir. London, 1831, vii–x.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2000 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Linley, M. (2000). A Centre that Would not Hold: Annuals and Cultural Democracy. In: Brake, L., Bell, B., Finkelstein, D. (eds) Nineteenth-Century Media and the Construction of Identities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62885-8_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62885-8_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-62887-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-62885-8
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)