Authorship, Gender and Power in Victorian Culture: Harriet Martineau and the Victorian Periodical Press

The contributions of Victorian women writers to periodical journalism have received little attention in recent criticism. Yet most major women writers of the Victorian period began their careers as contributors to the periodical press and continued to publish in the reviews throughout their lives. Due to the convention of anonymity associated with most Victorian periodicals, journalism was a relatively accessible medium of discourse for women writers. In addition to publishing their fiction and poetry in major periodicals such as Blackwood’s Magazine, women writers also published political essays, travelogues and book reviews. Masked behind the universalized ‘editorial we’, women writers were able to express themselves publicly on the pressing social and political issues of their day — without risking fame, which for a Victorian woman always translated into something more like infamy.