Victorian Periodicals Review

The nineteenth-century press was marked by revolutions. Over the course of the century, technological innovation, business strategy, increasing literacy rates, developing networks of distribution, and the gradual elimination of the "taxes on knowledge" generated an explosion of print that reached out to all sectors of society. Technological advances, Graham Law writes, "revolutionized not only how goods such as periodicals were made but also how they were circulated, with the power of steam soon driving both press and railway."¹ In an age when expanding railways transformed landscapes, giving rise to fresh perceptions of time and space and allowing the products of industry, whether goods or services, to reach consumers almost instantly, human activity changed beyond recognition. As the industrial society became more complex and mobile, professional networks developed, creating wide national and transnational circulatory systems. In their layout and contents, nineteenth-century newspapers and magazines shaped and reflected these transformations, covering the far-reaching changes that marked the period, disseminating novel ideas, or addressing upheavals in class, gender, and race. Beyond the confines of the printed page, the production, design, editorship, and readership of the press also changed, sometimes dramatically, resulting within a few decades in a radically transformed offer to the reading public. New temporal and spatial connectivity patterns emerged between readers, groups, and media across a multiplicity of journalistic genres, styles, and publishing contexts.

The essays presented in this special issue were developed from papers delivered at the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals (RSVP) conference "Revolution(s), Evolution(s), Circulation(s)," hosted online by Temple University in September 2021. Originally, this conference theme had been slated for 2020 at an in-person conference at Temple's main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This setting, the capital city of the United [End Page 153] States during the American Revolution, seemed a fitting one to host discussions of the changing political, social, scientific, material, and social realities of the Victorian period, how Victorians responded to them, and how these responses circulated in or altered the nature of the press. When the original call for papers went out in late 2019, however, we could not have anticipated just how much the conference committee, organizers, and participants would need to "evolve" our own scholarship, work, and lives in the course of a few short months. The risks and upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic meant that the RSVP executive board, headed by President Natalie Houston, made the difficult decision to postpone the conference until 2021, when we ultimately conducted the event virtually.

RSVP reacted quickly to the challenge of COVID-19 by evolving its approach to its planned in-person conference. During the days and times scheduled for the original conference in September 2020, RSVP held a series of "Digital Salons," which included an interview with 2020 Colby Prize winner Thomas Smits, a roundtable on digital humanities and periodical scholarship, a "Twitter Taster" previewing scholarly work by RSVP members, and an RSVP social hour. These virtual spaces—which RSVP continues to host on a regular basis—have provided new ways for periodicals scholars across the world to connect when in-person meetings are untenable. This flexibility and innovation carried over into the 2021 conference. Members of the conference committee (Laura Vorachek, John Morton, Françoise Baillet, and Kristin Kondrlik), the RSVP executive board, and the conference hosts at Temple met periodically to discuss how to navigate the complicated situation we faced: how would we create an academic conference that would be most beneficial for attendees spread across the world and unable to meet face to face? Ultimately, we asked presenters to submit their presentations in advance via one of four formats: traditional written papers, prerecorded video presentations, blog posts, and podcasts. The scheduled presentation times, therefore, would focus on discussion of the pre-submitted presentations. The articles in this special issue are revolutionary because they are the product of this new, more conversation-based format.

The essays presented here consider the ways in which the concepts of revolution, evolution, and circulation resonated within the Victorian publishing world. Addressing the multiple facets of these interconnected notions as...