Proquest Dissertations

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Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 EDUCATING THE PROPER WOMAN READER: VICTORIAN FAMILY LITERARY MAGAZINES AND THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF LITERARY CRITICISM Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Jennifer Phegley, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1999 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Marlene Longenecker, Adviser Professor Andrea Lunsford Professor Clare Simmons Adviser Department of English Professor Susan Williams mil Number: 99414C8 UMI Microform 9941408 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeh Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 ABSTRACT In nineteenth-century Britain and America, the popularity of novels and periodicals grew at a staggering rate as more and more readers gained access to a wide variety of inexpensive reading material. The critical response to this unprecedented abundance of print culture was to initiate a discourse that called for the regulation of women's reading in order to ensure the morality of the primary literacy educators of the family, elevate the literary taste of the middle class, and preserve the nation's culture. Many critics—who printed their work in elite literary reviews that catered to a predominantly male audience—saw women as the most susceptible victims of the "disease of reading" that was believed to be a threat to the entire social fabric of the nation. While these critics defined women readers as inherently uncritical and held them responsible for the vulgarization of the nation's literary culture, family literary magazines— commonly referred to as shilling monthlies—emerged in opposition to this criticism to provide an alternative program for the definition of culture and taste aimed at a wider, less educated audience predominantly figured as female. These magazines thereby established a culture of reading designed to educate rather than exclude women readers. This project examines the relationship between the debate over women readers in nineteenth-century periodicals and the establishment of the profession 11 of literary criticism by looking at how four family literary magazines— Harper’s, the Cornhill, Seigraim, and Victoria —define the proper woman reader. I illustrate how the concept of the woman reader served as a major defining force behind the divisions between high and low culture, the definitions of literary forms such as realism and sensationalism, and the development of the literary canon. I also uncover the ways in which literary critics elevated their work to the status of a scholarly profession and laid the foundation for twentieth-century critical traditions through their various attempts to dismiss, protect, or educate the woman reader. Thus, this inquiry reveals a vital and heretofore overlooked aspect of Anglo-American literary history that moves women from the margins to the center of nineteenth-century literary culture. Ill 'Sometimes I hear my voice and it's been here, silent all these years." —Tori Amos This is for every woman reader who has had the courage to make her voice heard. IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Marlene Longenecker, Andrea Lunsford, Clare Simmons, and Susan Williams who have challenged, questioned, and encouraged me throughout my work on this project. I am grateful to the Department of English for awarding several fellowships that enabled me to devote extended periods of time to my research and writing. I wish to thank the Graduate School for the Graduate Student Alumni Research Award that allowed me to travel to the Harry Ransom Research Center at the University of Texas, Austin and to the Cincinnati Public Library. I also thank the Department of Women's Studies for providing me with the Elizabeth Gee Award for Research on Women. Several formal and informal groups of respondents within the English Department deserve recognition for the valuable insights they contributed to early drafts of this document. I also wish to extend my appreciation to Interdisciplinary Nineteenth Century Studies, the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, and the Victorians Institute for providing lively forums in which to discuss my work. Finally, I thank my family and loved ones without whose support the completion of this dissertation would not have been possible. VITA July 13,1970........................................ Bom - Flint, Michigan 1995......................................................M.A. in English, The Ohio State University 1993-present........................................Graduate Teaching and Research Associate 1995-1996.............................................First-Year Writing Program Administrator 1997-1998.............................................University Writing Board Administrator PUBLICATIONS "Writing Writing Lives: The Collaborative Production of a Composition Text in a Large First-Year Writing Program" (with Sara Games, et al.). (Re)Visioning Composition Textbooks: Conflicts of Culture, Ideology, and Pedagogy. Eds., Xin Liu Cale and Frederic C. Cale. New York: State University of New York Press, 1999. 249-66. "Considering Research Methods in Rhetoric and Composition" (with Andrea Lunsford, et al.) Ethics and Representation in Qualitative Studies of Literacy. Eds., Gesa Kirsch and Peter Mortensen. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1996. vii-xv. Writing Lives: Exploring Literacy and Community (with Sara Games, et al.). New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English v i TABLE O FC O N TEm s Page Dedication...................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments.....................................................................................................v V ita...............................................................................................................................vi List of Figures.............................................................................................................viii Chapters: Introduction. The Scene of Women's Reading: Victorian Periodicals, Professional Critics, and the Development of the Family Literary Magazine... 1 1. Making the American Reader British: Transatlantic Literary Taste in Harper's Magazine, 1850-55........................................................................................30 2. Clearing Away "The Briars and Brambles": The Education and Professionalization of the Cornhill tvlagazine's Women Readers, 1860-64 .......... 71 3. (Im)Proper Reading for Women: Belgravia Magazine and the Defense of the Sensation Novel, 1866-71 .............................................................................. 109 4. Victoria's Secret: The Woman's Movement from Reader to Writer, 1863-67 .......................................................................................... 163 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................208 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. "The Blind Scholar and his Daughter" ........................................................... 139 2. "Cousin Phillis and Her Book" ...........................................................................140 3. 'Bessy's Spectacles".............................................................................................141 4. "In the Firelight" ...................................................................................................142 5. "One Summer Month" .........................................................................................143 6. "Summer Reminiscences" ...................................................................................144 Vlll INTRODUCTION THE SCENE OF WOMEN'S READING: VICTORIAN PERIODICALS, PROFESSIONAL CRITICS, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAMILY LITERARY MAGAZINE John Ruskin's emphatic warning to parents to "keep the modem magazine and novel out of your girl's

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