The Redefinition of the Public Sphere in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Press: Mary Elizabeth Braddon and the Debate on Anonymity

Abstract

In a speech addressing the Members of Parliament in 1866, Gladstone opened his remarks by stating that the periodical press was an example of the improvements introduced since the Reform Bill of 1832. What he called the “emancipation of the press” allowed for a broader circulation of papers that covered political life “in numbers almost defying the powers of statistics.”¹