Jane Austen in Mid-Victorian Periodicals

Abstract

Victorian periodicals were an important part of the literary marketplace that shaped Jane Austen’s critical reception during the nineteenth century. Moreover, throughout the century, periodical authors used the critical conversation around Austen to create a space for themselves and their work in the press by beginning to shape a critical canon, as well as by raising and responding to questions about the nature of Victorian women’s authorship. Focusing on articles published during the mid-Victorian period (1852–1868), prior to the publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh’s 1870 A Memoir of Jane Austen, this essay considers Austen’s presence in periodical writing in the middle of the nineteenth century and explores how writers used both Austen herself and her writings to accomplish their own authorial ends.