Nineteenth-century British periodicals regarded the press as a phenomenon of the age. Contemporaries considered it ubiquitous, competing everywhere with pulpits and governments to become the voice of the people. Given the approximately 100,000 publications in the United Kingdom and the volume of publications outside, this conclusion was logical. Commentary on press activity matched its productivity. Those penning for serials did not confine their remarks to domestic developments, frequently measuring ones in other areas, albeit with a British yardstick. Although onlookers saw the press from numerous vantage points, everyone cast it as a major player in the culture of a society. Spotlighting the press gave it status, deserved or undeserved. This bibliography shows how writers in the press shaped the discourse on the press by offering a substantial sample of opinion on common concerns, specific journals, and individuals.

What was this press that fascinated so many? Essayists then and this book now categorize “the press” as anything published regularly: annuals, quarterlies, monthlies, fortnightlies, weeklies, and dailies. Catalogers increasingly reserved the term journalism for the newspaper. From the 1820s through the 1890s, the decades mainly covered here, observers recorded at length how and why the press changed dramatically. Nationally, they watched as elite reviews and great London newspapers waxed and waned, legions of specialized monthlies and weeklies opened and closed, penny and then halfpenny gazettes in the country and in the city challenged and sometimes vanquished older ones, and annuals died ingloriously.