1st Edition
George Newnes and the New Journalism in Britain, 1880�1910 Culture and Profit
This is a study of the noted newspaper proprietor, publisher and editor, George Newnes and his involvement in the so-called New Journalism in Britain from 1880 to 1910. The author examines seven of Newnes’s most successful periodicals - Tit-Bits (1881), The Strand Magazine (1891), The Million (1892), The Westminster Gazette (1893), The Wide World Magazine (1898), The Ladies’ Field (1898) and The Captain (1899) - from a biographical, journalistic and broader cultural perspective. Newnes assumed a pioneering role in the creation of the penny miscellany paper, the short-story magazine, the true-story magazine and the respectable boys’ paper, in the development of colour printing, magazine illustration and photographic reproduction, and in the redefinition of both political and sporting journalism. His publications were shaped by his own distinctive brand of paternalism, his professional progression within the field of journalism, his liberal-democratic and imperialist beliefs, and his particular skill as an entrepreneur. This innovative periodical publisher utilised the techniques of personalised journalism, commercial promotion and audience targeting to establish an interactive relationship and a strong bond of identification with his many readers. Kate Jackson employs an interdisciplinary approach, building on recent scholarship in the field of periodical research, to demonstrate that Newnes balanced and synthesised various potentially conflicting imperatives to create a kind of synergy between business and benevolence, popular and quality journalism, old and new journalism and , ultimately, culture and profit.
Biography
Kate Jackson
'Jackson's work makes a serious contribution to our knowledge of turn-of-the-century British magazine publishing and reading culture, and how these Newnes publications served their readers.' H-Net Reviews 'Kate Jackson has written an extraordinarily rich and detailed history of culture in Britain of the 1880s and 1890s, full of vigorous individual characters, profound group identities of gender, class, and nation... Apart from a 1911 biography by a colleague, this is the first full-length study of Newnes, and it fills an important gap in Victorian periodical research. Specialists will value the book for its thorough coverage of a central proprietor and his major titles; technical matters such as illustrations and print technology are dealt with.' Victorian Periodicals Review 'Impressive theoretical analyses are liberally sprinkled throughout the book... [Kate Jackson's] writing is of a high quality and her conclusions are generally persuasive. Newnes, himself a contradictory figure as both liberal imperialist and moralizing populist, has been expertly resurrected by Jackson and shown to be central to his age.' Albion 'Kate Jackson has written an important book, which deserves to be widely read. Given the variety of historiographical and methodological lenses that she uses to decode these periodicals Jackson's study will also be of interest to historians working in the fields of popular politics, book history, empire, women's and gender history, and youth culture.' History '... a thought-provoking book that makes a significant contribution to our understanding of late Victorian and Edwardian culture... Both Ashgate and the general editors of The Nineteenth Century Series are to be congratulated for this fine addition to the series.' Australasian Victorian Studies Journals
