The writing subject --
The gendered reader --
Editorship and gender --
Gender and the 'politics of home' --
Gender and cultural imperialism --
Feminism and the press --
Gender, commodity and the late nineteenth-century periodical.

This is the first full-length book to examine masculinities and femininities as defined and interrogated in these periodicals. It investigates readers, editors and journalists; and its considers the power of the press at home, in the domestic space, in metropolitan centres and at the margins of empire. The work is based on archival research into a wide range of publications from the 1830s to the fin de siecle; from enduring intellectual heavyweight quarterlies through more ephemeral women's and working men's magazines, to magazines for boys and girls. The study is informed by the theories and approaches of media and cultural studies and women's studies. A valuable appendix supplies information about the many periodicals of the period mentioned in the book