Literature and the Late-Victorian Radical Press

Abstract

Literature and the Late-Victorian Radical Press Abstract: Amidst a larger surge in the number of books and periodicals published in late- nineteenth-century Britain, a corresponding surge occurred in the radical press. This counter- cultural press that emerged at the fin de siecle sought to define itself in opposition to commercial print and the capitalist press, and was deeply antagonistic to existing political, economic, and print publishing structures. Literature flourished across this counter-public print sphere, and major authors of the day such as William Morris and George Bernard Shaw published fiction, poetry, and literary criticism within it. Until recently, this corner of late-Victorian print culture has been of interest principally to historians, but literary critics have begun to take more interest in the late-Victorian radical press and in the literary cultures of socialist newspapers and journals such as the Clarion and the New Age. Amidst a larger surge in the number of books and periodicals published in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century, a corresponding surge occurred in the radical press: as Deian Hopkin calculates, several hundred periodicals representing a wide array of socialist perspectives were born, many to die soon after, in the decades surrounding the turn of the century (226). An independent infrastructure of radical presses, associated with various radical organizations and editors, emerged as an alternative means of periodical production apart from commercial, profit- oriented print. i Literature and literary discourse flourished across this counterpublic sphere, and major authors of the day published fiction, poetry, and journalism within it: in the 1880s, for example, William Morris spent five years editing and writing for the revolutionary paper Commonweal, while George Bernard Shaw cut his teeth as an author by serializing four novels in the socialist journals To-Day and Our Corner. Still, until recently, this corner of late-Victorian print culture has been of interest principally to historians, who have mined the radical archives in search of the origins of the socialist revival, the Labour Party, the internecine conflicts of the British left wing, and so on. ii In recent years, however, literary critics have begun to take more interest in the late-Victorian radical press and the rich literary history expressed within it; not only William Morris, but other major literary contributors, such as Edward Carpenter and Dollie