Contemporary research in periodical literature has demonstrated conclusively that the nineteenth century in Britain was the age of the periodical. It also has shown that, in Victorian society, the circulation of periodicals and newspapers was both larger and more influential than that of books. The six essays in this volume investigate the extent to which this was equally true of Britain's colonies during the period up to 1900. In chapters devoted to periodical publishing in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Southern Africa, and the 'outposts' of the Empire (Ceylon, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Malaya and Singapore, Malta, and the West Indies), the contributors also consider the function and importance of periodicals in colonial life. They identify and describe all locally produced publications that appeared at weekly or longer intervals and that contained, for example, local news, poetry, fiction, criticism, commentary on the arts, news from home, shipping information and commodities reports. Each chapter presents an evaluation of the quantity and quality of guides available to periodical literature in each region, from basic bibliographies of periodicals, directories, and finding aids, to microfilm records and databases on the Internet. Periodicals of Queen Victoria's Empire is an initial step towards understanding and analyzing what its editors regard as the 'unseen power' of the periodical press in the British Empire of the nineteenth century.

A comprehensive and authoritative overview of the diversity, range and impact of the newspaper and periodical press in nineteenth-century Britain.

Proposes a new basis for data-rich literary history

This groundbreaking new book outlines current developments in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australian and New Zealand serials bibliography. Researchers have been hampered by the lack of access to lists and contents of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century serials, including newspapers, and the chapters of this book discuss in some detail the progress being made on projects in this area. Other chapters deal with the contribution of the National Centre for Australian Studies to Australian studies and Australian bibliography. The importance of this center lies in its role in improving access to source and other material of Australian origin or interest of specific use to researchers. There are also accounts of current trends in serials bibliography, online newspaper services, current research projects in Australian studies, sports bibliographies, and newspaper and periodical bibliographies in Australia and New Zealand. Bibliographers, librarians, publishers, rare book dealers, as well as students, will find this book to be helpful and enlightening.

During the 19th century, throughout the Anglophone world, most fiction was first published in periodicals. In Australia, newspapers were not only the main source of periodical fiction, but the main source of fiction in general. Because of their importance as fiction publishers, and because they provided Australian readers with access to stories from around the world—from Britain, America and Australia, as well as Austria, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, and beyond—Australian newspapers represent an important record of the transnational circulation and reception of fiction in this period. Investigating almost 10,000 works of fiction in the world’s largest collection of mass-digitized historical newspapers (the National Library of Australia’s Trove database), A World of Fiction reconceptualizes how fiction traveled globally, and was received and understood locally, in the 19th century. Katherine Bode’s innovative approach to the new digital collections that are transforming research in the humanities are a model of how digital tools can transform how we understand digital collections and interpret literatures in the past.