A Gentlewoman's Profession: the Emergence of Feminized

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A Gentlewoman’s Profession: The Emergence of Feminized Publishing at Richard Bentley and Son, 1858- 1898

Sarah Joann Lubelski

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Information University of Toronto

A Gentlewoman’s Profession: The Emergence of Feminized Publishing at Richard Bentley and Son, 1858-1898

Sarah Joann Lubelski

Doctor of Philosophy

Faculty of Information University of Toronto

2019 Abstract

Publishing has evolved into a feminized profession, with women filling approximately 84 percent of positions under the managerial level. Well into the twentieth century, however, it was men publishers, booksellers and librarians who dominated the book trade. Histories of the publishing industry have not explored this gendered shift in depth. Using the London-based firm of Richard Bentley and Son (1829-1898) as a site of investigation, this dissertation considers the gender identity of publishing processes, organizations, and labour through the history of the firm’s women publisher’s readers. Drawing primarily on archival materials, I explore how the women publisher’s readers gained power and influence over the publishing process and used their positions as gatekeepers to challenge traditional gender ideology.

This shift in the gendering of publishing and print materials at Bentley and Son reflects changes within the broader industry, and the evolution of gender ideology within the nineteenth- century social, cultural, political and legal landscapes. Beyond attending to a gap in historical scholarship, this exploration of the feminization of the publishing industry illuminates how gender ideology has shaped women’s entrance into, and movement within, professional environments, and provides a framework for analyzing print production through a gendered lens.

Chapter one examines how women publishing workers have been constructed and represented within scholarship and popular culture. In chapter two, Bentley and Son’s organizational structure is analyzed to highlight women’s labour and demonstrate the impact of gender on the circuit of literary production. Women’s professionalization within the firm and the industrialization of publishing is considered in tandem in chapter three. Chapters four and five explore how women’s entrance into publishing has impacted the nature of print. Microanalyses of individual titles’ publication histories show how Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers perpetuated the values and ideologies of the Victorian women’s movement through the publication of print materials that supported women’s empowerment. A macroanalysis of the firm’s publishing lists further showcases the feminization of the firm, revealing an increase in fiction titles for women in gender-progressive genres, and the publication of women-oriented works in previously masculinized non-fiction categories.

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Acknowledgments

The authorship of a work never encompasses the entire history of its production. This dissertation reflects the community that has surrounded me over the course of my PhD. I am deeply grateful for the support and wisdom of my supervisor Alan Galey, who has shown me that boundless curiosity, enthusiasm, and generosity are the cornerstones of academic research and teaching. My committee members, Lori Loeb and Siobhan Stevenson, have given me their invaluable time, insight, and expertise. It is a testament to my whole committee that this process has been as rewarding as it was challenging. I have continued to rely on the advice and wit of my MA supervisor, Jane Potter, for more than a decade. I am also indebted to the many librarians and archivists at the British Library, the London School of Economics’ Women’s Library, the University of California Los Angeles, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who helped me in the course of my research. My particular thanks to Adam Doskey and Elizabeth Hartman at UIUC, who took my sudden appearance in stride and became my co-explorers.

A PhD program can be isolating by design, but best when not undertaken alone. Thank you to Brian Griffin, Nathan Moles, Christie Oh, Mark Sedore, Elisa Tersigni, and Hillary Walker Gugan, who have walked this path with me. I am inspired daily by the strength, passion, intelligence, and humour of Jenny Benson, Allison Boyd, Jan Crosser-Cooke, and Dorothy MacLeod. These incredible women have lifted me up countless times, literally and figuratively, and I am lucky to call them friends.

My Mom is my first and most enduring cheerleader. Bubie has shown me the equal importance of joy and determination. Erin Cohen and Robyn Lubelski are part of my foundation, and I am grateful to have sisters who double as friends. Arie and Jonah Cohen are my favourite playmates and the best source of brightness. Jared French and our puppy Lucas fill my life with love and laughter. They are my home.

My final thanks are for those who are no longer with me but have nevertheless brought me here. This dissertation is dedicated to the loving memory of my Dad, who stayed beside me, and Fiona Hysert, who taught me that women ought to take up space.

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Acknowledgments ...... iv

Table of Contents ...... v

List of Figures ...... vi

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 1 Constructing the Woman Publishing Worker: A Historiographical Analysis ...... 30

Chapter 2 A Publisher’s Communications Circuit: Building an Industrialized Publishing Firm . 75

Chapter 3 Regendering Office Space: The Rise of the Woman Professional ...... 110

Chapter 4 Gender in Process: New Approaches to Gender on the Page ...... 150

Chapter 5 Gender in Print: Reading the Publisher’s Lists ...... 209

Conclusion ...... 250

Bibliography ...... 262

List of Figures

Chapter 2 2.1 The Communications Circuit………………………………………………………...90 2.2 The Whole Socioeconomic Conjecture………………………………………………91 2.3 The Bentley Circuit…………………………………………………………………..93 2.4 The Bentley Circuit Rough Draft…………………………………………………….97 2.5 Reader’s Report Form………………………………………………………………101 Chapter 4 4.1 Bentley’s Favourite Novels, 1886…………………………………………………..186 4.2 Bentley’s Favourite Novels, 1893…………………………………………………..187 4.3 Bentley’s Favourite Novels, 1897…………………………………………………..188 Chapter 5 5.1 Bentley’s Favourite Novels, 1897…………………………………………………..222 5.2 Title Page, A Selection of a Few of the More Prominent Books……………………229 5.3 Titles Selected for 1850, A Selection of a Few of the More Prominent Books…….229 5.4 Women- and Men-Oriented Fiction in A Selection of a Few of the More Prominent Books………………………………………………………………………………231

Introduction

Summarizing a 2016 survey of 34 mainstream publishing firms and eight review journals in the United States, journalist Alison Flood concludes that “publishing is blindingly white and female, with 79% of staff white and 78% women.”1 Eighty-eight percent of these women, the survey also revealed, identify as heterosexual. In other words, as bluntly stated on the site Electric Literature, “straight white women run publishing.”2 Excluding management, the percentage of women employees in publishing creeps even higher: 84 percent of positions below the executive level are filled by women.3 These statistics are hardly surprising. Like librarianship, teaching and nursing, publishing has been established as a “feminized profession”—a term used to identify professional fields that are numerically dominated by women or gendered as feminine. The question of how and when this process of feminization began—and how it impacted print production as a whole—remains largely unanswered. Editor Jake Morrissey muses that men have abandoned publishing due to the promise of higher paychecks in other industries.4 Morrissey’s guess has basis in fact. Author Suzanne Rindell explains that publishing is a notoriously low-paying industry, with salaries “not increasing to scale with inflation or comparable professions.”5 In addition to low salaries, professions associated with women are also culturally marginalized, suffering from a negative popular image and low social status, write Paul S. Piper and Barbara E. Collamer in a study on gender and librarianship.6 Similar studies of feminized professions, such as teaching, law, and increasingly medicine, commonly report that professions associated with women are considered less

1 Alison Flood, “Publishing Industry is Overwhelmingly White and Female, US Study Finds,” Guardian, January 27, 2016, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/27/us-study-finds-publishing-is-overwhelmingly-white-and- female. 2 “Straight White Women Run Publishing According to New Survey,” Electric Literature, January 27, 2016, http://electricliterature.com/straight-white-women-run-publishing-according-to-new-survey/. 3 Flood, “Publishing Industry.” 4 Suzanne Rindell, “Where Have All the Men Gone in Publishing?” Irish Times, June 14, 2016, https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/where-have-all-the-men-gone-in-publishing-1.2684165. 5 Ibid. 6 Paul S. Piper and Barbara E. Collamer, “Male Librarians: Men in a Feminized Profession,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 27 (2001): 406. 1 challenging, specialized, and desirable.7 Such inquiries are essential to understanding how gender ideology has, and does, shape professional spaces in historical and contemporary contexts. This dissertation explores the roots of the feminization of the publishing industry to elucidate how it has been defined by the gendering of publishing labour and print materials, and how gender ideology has been woven into its institutions, systems, and spaces.

The lack of diversity within the industry has been problematized from several perspectives. The survey, which was conducted by the firm Lee & Low, was seen to vindicate 2015 Man Booker Prize winner Marlon James’s claim that authors of colour were obliged to “pander to white women” to sell books and gave rise to an overdue discussion on racial and ethnic representation in the book industry.8 Although women are part of a marginalized group, they cannot necessarily relate to diverse experiences, notes Liz Dwyer.9 If we want the universe of the book to represent a diversity of human experiences, it is imperative to ensure that the publishing industry encourages and embraces a diverse workforce, she concludes. From a gendered perspective, questions have arisen as to how women’s dominance within publishing impacts not only the gender of the industry, but also the print materials it produces. Lawrence J. Kirshbaum of Time Warner Trade Publishing argued in 1997 that “publishing is a business where editors buy from their gut. And if those guts are female, the odds are you’re going to be getting a greater mix of books with female sensibilities.”10 While Kirshbaum’s reference to female “guts” is problematic—implying that “female sensibilities” are biologically ingrained rather than socially determined—his perspective is not unique.11 The degree to which publishing, and by extension print materials, have taken on characteristics or qualities socially defined as

7 See for example Sharon Bolton and Daniel Muzio, “The Paradoxical Processes of Feminization in the Professions: The Case of Established, Aspiring, and Semi-Professions,” Work, Employment & Society 22, no. 2 (June 2008): 281- 299. 8 Flood, “Publishing Industry.” 9 Liz Dwyer, “Don’t Blame White Guys for Publishing’s Diversity Problem,” TakePart, January 27, 2016, http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/01/27/dont-blame-white-guys-book-industry-diversity-problem. 10 Trip Gabriel, “Women Buy Fiction in Bulk and Publishers Take Notice,” New York Times, March 17, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/17/business/women-buy-fiction-in-bulk-and-publishers-take- notice.html?pagewanted=all. 11 Rob Boddice argues that assumptions surrounding the “mental difference between men and women” has historically been attributed to “nature” rather than “patriarchal oppression.” See Rob Boddice, “The Manly Mind? Revisiting the Victorian ‘Sex in Brain’ Debate,” Gender & History 23, no. 2 (August 2011): 321. 2

feminine is a question that underlies many analyses of the current industry. Indeed, there is speculation that women’s numerical dominance in publishing has a negative impact on men and boy readers. Former editor Jason Pinter speculates that the gender disparity in reading and book purchasing is due in part to the gender makeup of the industry.12 Women are known to be the primary purchasers of books, and women and girls the primary readers. According to Pinter, this is likely because “people like them are acquiring and marketing their books,” leaving men and boy readers behind. A more diverse industry, he adds, would “produce a different set of books” not necessarily “weighted towards the female side.”

These analyses largely represent the makeup of the publishing industry’s workforce as a sort of stasis. While Rindell, who has authored a novel about a woman editor set in 1953, acknowledges that the feminization of publishing is a contemporary phenomenon, other journalists and publishing professionals frame women’s numerical dominance as evidence of the industry’s continued inaccessibility. According to Nora Caplan-Bricker, the Lee & Low survey “quantified the extent to which publishing remains a Boring Old Fortress.” The results, she hopes, “will help to crack open the gates.”13 Her point is well made regarding the lack of diversity in race, ethnicity, sexual identity, and class. Simultaneously, however, these perspectives tend to gloss over the larger historical narrative surrounding the gendering of the industry. From a gendered lens, the prevalence of women in the contemporary publishing workplace marks a significant shift rather than a continuity. Well into the twentieth century, publishing was a masculinized profession—indeed, it was frequently referred to as a “gentleman’s profession,” which speaks to both the gender and class hierarchies that governed

12 Rachel Deahl, “Where the Boys are Not,” Publishers Weekly, September 20, 2010, https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/44510-where-the-boys-are- not.html. 13 Nora Caplan-Bricker, “New Survey Confirms Straight White Women’s Domination of Book Publishing,” Slate, February 1, 2016, http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/02/01/lee_low_survey_on_diversity_in_publishing_finds_it_s_overwhel mingly_straight.html. 3

the industry.14 Though women participated in literary production (authorship) and consumption

(readership), it was men publishers, booksellers and librarians who ruled the book trade.15

The dramatic shift in the gendering of the publishing industry, from a masculinized to feminized space, has yet to be accounted for in book history and publishing studies. Few sources on the history of mainstream or trade publishing address the topic of women professionals, and then only lightly; women’s integration into the industry is vaguely considered as part of mid- twentieth-century publishing history. Giles Clark and Angus Phillips observe that by the 1980s, badly paid women comprised the majority of the mass-market publishing workforce, still managed by far better-paid men.16 Women’s entrance into publishing is largely attributed to “the second wave of the feminist movement” and the “subsequent rise of women’s studies courses.”17 Although John Feather does acknowledge that there has been a shift in the gender of publishing workers, he does not specifically deal with the questions of when this began, or why.18 He gestures towards women’s presence in the industry at the same historical moment when the gentleman publisher disappears. From the 1950s to the 1970s, he recounts, family owned firms, which were passed down from father to son, began to fail, and were ultimately subsumed by the rising publishing conglomerates that we are familiar with in the twenty-first century. Feather’s lone paragraph on women in publishing during this period, dealing with feminist publishing and the emergence of Women in Publishing (WiP)—an organization that supports women’s networking in the trade—can be taken as an indication that women had become part of the publishing workforce by this point.

The paucity of gender analysis in the field has prompted book history scholars to call for inquiry into the impact of gender on the book. Although “‘the little world of the book’ has been a

14 Eileen Cadman, Gail Chester and Agnes Pivot argue that the image of the “gentleman publisher” persisted into the twentieth century and was a reference to a well-off male head-of-house, which was under the control of a family grouping, with racial and class implications. Eileen Cadman, Gail Chester and Agnes Pivot, Rolling Our Own: Women as Printers, Publishers and Distributors (London: Minority Press Group, 1981), 17. See also Sally Maceachern, “Publishing: Whose Profession?” Women’s Art Magazine, May-June 1991, 11. 15 Gaye Tuchman and Nina Fortin, Edging Women Out: Victorian Novelists, Publishers, and Social Change (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989), 24-25. 16 Giles Clark and Angus Phillips, Inside Book Publishing (New York and London: Routledge, 2014), 29-30. 17 Ibid., 31. 18 John Feather, A History of British Publishing, 2nd Ed. (London: Routledge, 2006), 205-210. 4

male domain,” Leslie Howsam observes, women can be identified as actors at every point in the cycle of literary production and distribution, including women authors, editors, printers, librarians and collectors.19 Book historians, she adds, need to develop new methods with which to approach these histories:

I want to suggest that book historians think about how the book has been implicated in those structures of masculine power and authority known to feminist scholarship as patriarchy. … rather than simply add women on to the research agenda, or restore female voices to the narrative of the rise of printing and the flourishing of print culture, I would like to see book historians focus on the gender identity of the book itself, both as physical object and as cultural product.

The call to adapt feminist theory and methodology to the practice of book history has been echoed by Trysh Travis.20 Positing that “book history scholars have done an exemplary job of locating women, but lagged behind when it comes to theorizing gender,” she suggests greater analysis of how gender and power have impacted the world of the book. Both Howsam and Travis note that such approaches have been used effectively in literary scholarship to investigate the histories of women’s authorship and readership.21

This dissertation seeks to answer that call by tracing the feminization of the publishing industry. However, beyond focusing on the gender identity of the book as a “physical object and cultural product,” as Howsam suggests, I examine the gender identity of publishing processes, labour, and organizations. Using the London-based publishing house of Richard Bentley and Son (1829-1898) as a site of investigation, this work reconstructs the Victorian publishing ecosystem to uncover and trace the impact of women’s labour. Materials drawn from the Bentley archive reveal the presence of women’s labour, both paid and unpaid, throughout the firm’s operations. Although there are few letters written by the women of the Bentley family contained in the Bentley archive, several attest to their interest in literary production and the family business, including the writing and editorial work of Richard Sr.’s children Charlotte and Annie Bentley, and the reading labour and networking performed by Anne Bentley in support of her husband

19 Leslie Howsam, “In My View: Women and Book History,” SHARP News 7, no. 4 (Autumn 1998): 1. 20 Trysh Travis, “The Women in Print Movement: History and Implications,” Book History 11 (2008): 276. 21 Ibid. 5

George.22 There is even more evidence of women’s paid labour as editors—including Florence Marryat and Ellen Wood—translators—such as Natalie MacFarren and Evelyn Abbot—and most significantly, women publisher’s readers. From 1858 up until the firm’s sale, Bentley and Son employed a cohort of middle- and upper-class women publisher’s readers. Although they were ostensibly hired to assess manuscripts for publication, the women publisher’s readers—the most prominent of whom were Geraldine Jewsbury, Catherine Jackson, Minna Fetherstonhaugh, Gertrude Mayer, Adeline Sergeant, Henrietta Pigott-Carleton and Mary Rose Godfrey—were involved in various aspects of the business, including literary, commissioning and acquisitions editing, marketing, and new product development. This work seeks to uncover the histories of these women professionals and foreground how gender impacted and functioned within the publishing ecosystem in which they operated.

Bentley and Son was by no means the only Victorian firm to make use of publishers’ readers. Feather notes that publishing houses were employing publishers’ readers as early as the 1830s, and they had become ubiquitous by the middle of the century.23 Their growing significance mirrored the expansion of the popular press; publisher’s readers became necessary to deal with the ever-increasing pile of manuscripts that arrived at publishers’ offices, and they were tasked with mitigating the risk that publishers were taking in publishing an increasing number of works by unknown authors by assessing both commercial and literary value.24 However, Feather also calls Bentley and Son a “pioneer” in its use of publishers’ readers. Clarifying this argument in a personal email, he explains that although he could not confirm that the firm was the only publisher using women publisher’s readers, the Bentleys’ systematic and long-term use of women publisher’s readers was unique; and while there are many cases of publishers consulting women authors prior to Jewsbury’s employment with Bentley and Son, it was not “‘reading’ in the sense in which it developed in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.”25 In other words, the work was positioned as a personal favour between friends, not remunerated and

22 See Ch. 2, pp. 77-79. Additionally, there is evidence that an unspecified “Miss Bentley” was commissioning translators. See Ch. 2, p. 79. 23 Feather, British Publishing, 139. 24 Ibid., 139-140. 25 Feather, email message to author, June 9, 2008. 6

professionalized. Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers, then, are an early example of a historical trend towards the feminization of the industry, and as the basis of a case study, they illuminate the mechanics behind the process.

The women’s presence at the firm was no coincidence. As I argue in chapter three, Richard Sr. and George had two main reasons for hiring women as publisher’s readers. The first was that the publishers were responding to new market conditions, specifically the growth of the female market for print. They believed that women would be best equipped to advise them on what women readers—the primary audience for fiction—would most want to read. The second was that throughout the mid- to late nineteenth century, the Bentleys came to gender the literary labour performed by publisher’s readers as feminine, positing that women were better-suited to the task. Although it was the Bentleys’ assessment of the literary marketplace and the gender of literary labour that enabled women to enter the firm as employees, they became an integral part of the publishing environment, and redefined their own roles. Letters and other archival documents attest to the varied nature of the women publisher’s readers’ labour. They liaised with authors and printers on editorial and marketing matters, enticed new authors to publish with the firm, and proposed new titles for a variety of lists, including history and fiction. Jewsbury and Mayer were particularly successful at leveraging their position as publisher’s readers into other forms of literary labour. Jewsbury, for example, became the editor of Ellen Wood’s famous novel, East Lynne. Mayer not only developed and edited an anthology focused on women writers, called Women of Letters, but she also became a salaried employee of the manuscripts department. The women publisher’s readers not only impacted the professional culture of the firm, but also its print culture. They used their influence to encourage a proliferation of fiction and non-fiction titles that challenged traditional gender paradigms and promoted progressive gender roles. This included works that advocated for women’s education, legal, and social rights, criticized traditional notions of marriage and sexuality, and celebrated women’s cultural and intellectual accomplishments.

While this dissertation attends to a gap in historical scholarship by examining when this shift occurred, it perhaps more significantly considers how this process was enacted and asks what the implications were for the publishing industry more holistically. Studying the mechanics of how professions feminize not only contributes to the historiography of a particular field, but 7

also serves to illuminate how gender ideology impacts women’s entrance into and movement within professional environments from a practical perspective. As Marjory Louise Lang observes in her investigation of early women journalists in Canada, women’s experiences in the workplace mirror the position of women in society. The expanded participation of paid presswomen at the end of the nineteenth century “publicized the situation and achievements of other women,” and signalled the “shifting expectations of women about the lives they would lead,” she explains.26 Yet, the fact of their womanhood also “governed their choices and chances” within their chosen profession, she adds: “although women journalists seemed to have ‘broken into’ a male- dominated occupation, most of them spent their working lives in a world of women. They worked with women to produce materials for women readers,” occupying “the borderlands of the press world, whose barons tolerated but barely acknowledged their presence.”27 Lang’s observation shows that the presence of women in a professional field does not on its own shift attitudes towards women in the workplace or correct the gender bias woven into organizational and professional structures.

Examining the successes and challenges professional fields have faced in the process of feminization is not merely an exercise in hindsight. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, many fields, including the science, technology, engineering and medical (STEM) professions, are grappling with shifts in the gendering of their workforce. According to Diana Bilimoria, Linley Lord, and Melissa Marinelli, governments are increasingly committing resources to drawing women into the STEM fields, and “equal opportunity legislation has resulted in changes in organization practice with an aim to improve the workforce participation and advancement to leadership of women in STEM.”28 Despite this push to open the STEM fields to women professionals, however, how women participate in these fields is still mediated by gender, the researchers say. They note that the “ideal worker” is still perceived to be a man,

26 Marjory Louise Lang, Women Who Made the News: Female Journalists in Canada, 1880-1945 (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1999), 4. 27 Ibid., 5-6. 28 Diana Bilimoria, Linley Lord and Melissa Marinelli, “An Introduction to Women in STEM Careers: International Perspectives on Increasing Workforce Participation, Advancement and Leadership,” in Women in STEM Careers: International Perspectives on Increasing Workforce Participation, Advancement and Leadership, eds. Diana Bilimoria and Linley Lord (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014), 3-4. 8

and women are marginalized within the professional environment.29 Consequently, they call attention to the need for education and workplace policies that will allow women to engage fully in STEM fields. As such studies of feminized or feminizing fields make clear, women’s entrance into a profession, and their integration, are separate issues. While getting women in the door may be difficult enough, the real challenge often lies in ensuring that social attitudes, policies and organizational structures support gender equality within the workplace. In laying bare the challenges, successes and failures of opening a profession to women, then, histories of feminized fields have the potential to guide contemporary fields in transition, inspiring better practices for the future.

The most basic challenge in writing such a history for the publishing field is uncovering women workers and the sites of their labour. The ubiquity of women writers and readers throughout history makes them more visible than women involved in other aspects of literary production, distribution and consumption. However, as Howsam indicates, this is not indicative of absence. Paula McDowell’s study of women in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English book trade is case-in-point; the work uncovers and explicates women’s involvement in various aspects of the book trade. Simultaneously, McDowell points to the difficulty of understanding women as a professional group and analyzing the impact of gender on the industry more broadly in this period. She observes that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, literary women were more defined by their family’s socio-economic status than their gender. “Working in all aspects of material literary production, and doing so for pay, the ‘women of Grub street’ composed a series of heterogeneous collectives, rather than homogeneous ‘subculture,’” she says. “Divisions of rank and occupation within social orders, competing religious and political allegiances, and an array of other differences for the most part prevented these women from understanding themselves as a group.”30 This aligns with Elaine Showalter’s claim that, for most of their history, their disconnectedness has prevented women from developing a literary tradition. Literary women were unaware of, and therefore unconnected to,

29 Ibid., 5-7. 30 Paula McDowell, The Women of Grub Street: Press, Politics and Gender in the London Literary Marketplace 1678-1780 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 5-6. 9

those who came before them, she argues.31 This was not a function of women’s ignorance, but the social and cultural devaluation of women’s intellectual labour that led to their exclusion from literary history and institutions, including the canon. As such, each generation was “forced to rediscover the past anew, forging again and again the consciousness of their sex,” writes Showalter. That women working in literary production were frequently the sole women among men family members, employers and workers similarly hindered the development of a professional collective.

While women’s literary histories have been compared by Showalter to Atlantis, meaning they are hidden from sight, men’s histories have been representational.32 From authorship to publishing, printing to bookselling, men have dominated literary production, dissemination and circulation, and their experiences have defined the book-historical narrative. This gendered hierarchy was on full display within the nineteenth-century British literary landscape. In her analysis of the British Museum reading room as a gendered space, Ruth Hoberman argues that women’s marginalization within the reading room reflects their diminished role within the cultural field. Women were not only treated as interlopers, she observes, pointing out that men patrons commonly complained about women readers’ improper use of the space, but they were also othered by the design of the space itself.33 Etched into the dome sitting atop the reading room are the names Chaucer, Caxton, Tindale, Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Locke, Addison, Swift, Pope, Gibbon, Wordsworth, Scott, Byron, Carlyle, Macaulay, Tennyson and Browning. These choices of inclusion and exclusion were the physical manifestation of “a model of cultural achievement clearly gendered as male,” she explains. 34 Hoberman’s study reveals the extent to which women were excluded from cultural labour, as well as British cultural and intellectual history. As her analysis implies, evaluations of cultural material have reinforced this gendered hierarchy. In her study of nineteenth-century literary criticism, for example, Nicola

31 Elaine Showalter, A Literature of Their Own: From Charlotte Brontë to Doris Lessing (London: Virago, 2003), 10-12. 32 Ibid., 11. 33 Ruth Hoberman, “Women in the British Museum Reading Room During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: From Quasi to Counterpublic,” Feminist Studies 28, no. 3 (2002): 497. 34 Ibid., 507. 10

Diane Thompson observes that gender was the “primary category … used by Victorian reviewers to conceptualize, interpret and evaluate novels.”35

Those within the authorial profession in the nineteenth century were motivated to perpetuate this notion of masculine achievement and feminine mediocrity, observes Jennie Batchelor, and to define literary genius as a masculine attribute. To professionalize the work of authorship and protect its cultural value, nineteenth-century authorial institutions constructed a “virulently masculine model of authorship … at the cost of marginalizing female literary endeavour as amateurism,” she argues.36 Walter Besant’s treatise on the value of authorship, “Literature as a Career,” exemplifies this line of thinking. While men writers are described as artists, scholars and gentlemen who nobly engage in authorship because it is “the breath of his life,” women are dismissed as the producers of “harmless, very dull” novels that are only read “by girls in dull and monotonous houses.”37 Furthermore, throughout the work, he frames the authorial experience as male, using the pronouns “he” and “his” and the terms “man of letters” and “literary man” to describe writers. In this context, women undertaking such work would be little more than outsiders. The masculinization of literary labour and achievement has had a long- term impact. While literary traditions have been defined by the work of men authors, women’s writing has been more likely to be dismissed as low-brow and dropped from publishers’ lists. Şima Begüm Imşir compares recovery projects such as the Women Writers in Turkey Project or the Orlando Project (focused on women writers in the British Isles) to archaeological work, in that they are “digging through the sands of the so-called canons which have excluded most of the women writers through the years.”38

The book trade has similarly been characterized by men actors and gendered as masculine. Like authors, booksellers, librarians and publishers were motivated to manufacture a

35 Nicola Diane Thompson, Reviewing Sex: Gender and the Reception of Victorian Novels (New York University Press, 1996), 1-2. 36 Jennie Batchelor, “The Claims of Literature: Women Applicants to the Royal Literary Fund, 1790-1810,” Women’s Writing 12, no. 3 (2005): 505. 37 Walter Besant, “Literature as a Career,” in Essays and Historiettes (London: Chatto and Windus, 1903), 328-335. (308-336) 38 Şima Begüm Imşir, “Hide and Seek: On the Trail of Women Writers,” Journal of Research in Gender Studies 1, no. 2 (2011): 111. 11

masculinized, upper-class identity for their profession to establish its authority and prestige. As Penelope J. Corfield explains, professions attempted to erect barriers to entry within the nineteenth century—such as educational requirements and association memberships—to create the impression of specialized knowledge. 39 The professions that did not have official barriers, including authorship and publishing, constructed their own to achieve a similar impression of exclusivity and social power. By characterizing publishing and other aspects of book production as the work of gentlemen, as previously described, those within the profession signalled that it belonged to men of education and economic means. This is not a wholly inaccurate reflection of the book trade. While Besant downplayed the existence of women writers and authors in order to present authorship as a masculine profession, there were so few women in the nineteenth-century book trade that they did not need to be obscured. Referring to the nineteenth century publishing industry in particular, Jacalyn Eddy observes that although it would not have been “unusual” to find women working in publishing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

their presence had becoming increasingly rare during the nineteenth century. A few women, certainly, attained successful careers in publishing, frequently as a result of kinship ties with the publisher, but the industry did not offer real professional opportunities to most, or even many, qualified women until the 1920s, a decade of particular prosperity for the publishing industry.40

It is perhaps impossible to identify a singular cause for this demographic shift. However, Eddy gestures towards attitudes surrounding women’s employment as an underlying factor. The belief that women who chose to leave the domestic space were “unnatural” meant that a woman was required to “choose between a family and a career,” she explains.41 This attitude would have impacted women in the nineteenth century more than in the centuries before due to a shift in the physical spaces that the work of publishing, printing and bookselling occupied. It was in the nineteenth century that this work moved out of the home and into offices and industrial spaces. As previously mentioned, Feather has observed that the industrial publishing firms that arose in

39 Penelope J. Corfield, Power and the Professions in Britain, 1700-1850 (New York and London: Routledge, 1995), 209-210, 244-245. 40 Jacalyn Eddy, Bookwomen: Creating an Empire in Children’s Book Publishing, 1919-1939 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 5. 41 Ibid., 4-5. 12

the nineteenth century were patriarchal, and such firms characterized the publishing field until the mid-twentieth century. 42

The absence of women from the nineteenth-century publishing industry is reinforced by their absence—and indeed the absence of gender analysis more broadly—from histories of the publishing industry and the book trade. Works such as Robert Darnton’s “What is the History of Books?,” Feather’s A History of British Publishing and James Raven’s The Business of Books, for example, portray the book trade as inherently masculine: in each work, men publishers, printers and distributors are the primary historical actors, and masculinized language is used to refer to the professions more broadly.43 Histories of individual publishing firms largely follow the same pattern. Not only do men actors dominate these histories, but also few scholars acknowledge either the presence or absence of women.44 Some oral histories, such as the WiP’s Oral History Project and Sue Bradley’s compilation of interviews with British publishers, more directly address the gender disparity at work within the field. WiP: An Oral History includes a thematic section called “A Gentleman’s Profession,” which examines the “old boy networks” which controlled the industry.45 Bradley’s The British Book Trade: An Oral History contains additional testimonies that verify the existence of these ruling masculine networks. Cambridge graduate and former Longman employee Tim Rix describes his path to entry in the “gentlemanly school of publishing,” which was facilitated by the contacts he acquired through his elite education.46 Recalling that his interview included questions about where he had gone to school and his role in the Navy rather than “silly questions like, did I like books,” Rix referred to the “paternalistic” nature of Longman as an “upside.” This interview and others expose the gender hierarchies that controlled the industry. They create a portrait of a hyper-masculinized space where gender and class identity could either inhibit access or guarantee success.

42 Feather, British Publishing, 205-210. 43 See Robert Darnton, “What is the History of Books?” in The Case for Books: Past, Present and Future (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), 175-206; Feather, British Publishing; James Raven, The Business of Books: Booksellers and the English Book Trade (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007). See also Ch. 2, pp. 105-108 for a more detailed discussion on the gendering of Darnton’s circuit. 44 See Ch. 1, pp. 32-36. 45 “A Gentleman’s Profession,” Women in Publishing: An Oral History Project, accessed November 7, 2018, http://www.womeninpublishinghistory.org.uk/content/category/themes/a-gentlemans-profession. 46 Sue Bradly, ed., The British Book Trade: An Oral History (London: The British Library, 2008), 18-20. 13

On the surface, Bentley and Son looked just as “gentlemanly” and “paternalistic.” Originally called Colburn and Bentley, the firm began as a partnership between Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley Sr. in 1829. However, the partnership was not a productive one. According to Royal A. Gettmann, whose study of the Bentley archive remains the most comprehensive history of the publishing house, Colburn was impulsive, unscrupulous, and indecisive, meaning most of the business of publishing fell on Richard Sr.’s shoulders. Within months of the beginning of the partnership, the two were communicating exclusively through their chief clerk, E.S. Morgan.47 In 1832, Richard Sr. bought his partner out, and renamed the firm Richard Bentley and Son. From this point on, the firm was family owned and passed from father to son. Richard Sr.’s eldest son George began working for his father in a full-time capacity in the 1850s, and by the 1860s, he had taken over most of the firm’s day-to-day business.48 Not long after Richard Sr.’s death in 1871, George’s own son Richard Jr. joined the firm. Gettmann notes that he was an “active partner” by 1884. Although George retained control of the firm until his death in 1895, letters from the Bentley archive attest that father and son worked together harmoniously.49 Richard Jr.’s tenure as head of the firm was short-lived; he sold Bentley and

Son’s lists to the firm of Macmillan and Co. in 1898 for £8,000.50 The firm’s premises at 8 New Burlington Street in London was largely populated by men staff members, from the office manager Robert Keith Johnston to department heads and clerks.51 As previously noted, however, the firm’s professional environment and print materials were feminized throughout the second half of the century. The Bentleys increasingly relied on the labour of women employees to publish materials that would appeal to a growing female audience. Increasingly, the publisher’s lists featured fiction, women’s history, travel and educational titles that were not only marketed toward the woman reader, but also presented a distinct challenge to Victorian gender ideology.

47 Royal A. Gettmann, A Victorian Publisher: A Study of the Bentley Papers (Cambridge University Press, 1960), 17-20. 48 Gettmann notes that George joined the business in 1845, but ill-health kept from him from fully participating for several years. Ibid., 26. Materials in the archive corroborate this claim; letters in which George addresses business concerns on behalf of the firm are dated from the 1850s onwards. 49 See Ch. 2, pp. 75-76. 50 Gettmann, A Victorian Publisher, 27. 51 A salary list contained in Bentley archive lists only one salaried woman employee: Gertrude Mayer. See Ch. 3, p. 130 for a more detailed discussion. Document 17, General Management, Richard Bentley Records, 1806-1915, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). 14

These developments within the firm reflect a swiftly changing socio-cultural and political landscape. The nineteenth century was a watershed moment in women’s literary history. Showalter’s landmark work, A Literature of Their Own, traces the emergence of women’s writing as a collective literary category. She identifies three distinct cultural periods in the development of women’s literature beginning in the nineteenth century: feminine (1840-1880), feminist (1880-1920), and female (1920 to present).52 Showalter argues that the authors who were part of the feminine period were the first generation of professional women writers, and therefore innovators.53 Linda H. Peterson has similarly dated the rise of the professional woman of letters to the nineteenth century. Although there were women writers prior to this period who wrote for profit and approached their work in a business-like manner, she says, it was the “vastly expanded commercial press” that “made possible the modern man and woman of letters.”54 The “flowering of literary professionalism,” she explains,

lay in the nineteenth century with the bourgeoning of print culture and the opening of new genres for women writers: the essay, the literary review, the periodical column, the biographical portrait and historical sketch, the travelogue, and the serialized tale. Women writers were no longer confined to fiction and drama, the authors (and subjects) of ‘nobody’s story’ … With these new periodical genres emerged the modern woman of letters and her new self-constructions.55

The expanded market for print in the nineteenth century, then, afforded women unprecedented opportunities to write for pay. For example, Margaret Beetham’s A Magazine of Her Own? shows how the growing popularity of the woman’s magazine in the nineteenth century increased

52 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 14. 53 Ibid., 19-20. Showalter’s work, which was originally published in 1977, has attracted criticism for describing nineteenth-women writers as the first professionals. Janet Todd, for example, argues that this claim obscures the histories of professional women novelists of the eighteenth century. However, in an article revisiting A Literature of Their Own, Showalter notes that she was pointing to the “professionalism, marketing, and group awareness” that had awakened in women writers as of the 1840s. Kate Flint has supported this assertion, noting that it was a matter of “scale.” In other words, from the early nineteenth century onwards, there were enough professional women writers to consider them as a cohort. See Kate Flint, “Revisiting A Literature of Their Own,” Journal of Victorian Culture 10, no. 2 (January 2005): 292; Elaine Showalter, “Twenty Years On: ‘A Literature of Their Own’ Revisited,” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 31, no. 3 (1998): 406; Janet Todd, Feminist Literary History (New York: Routledge, 1988), 27. 54 Linda H. Peterson, Becoming a Woman of Letters: Myths of Authorship and Facts of the Victorian Market (Princeton University Press, 2009), 1-3. 55 Ibid., 4. 15

positions for women writers.56 This allowed women writers to construct and communicate professional identities in a public space, and to be identified and understood as a group. Their increased visibility is reflected by the widespread perception—occasionally coupled with anxiety—that they were taking over the literary field. As W.R. Greg writes in “The False Morality of Lady Novelists,” “the supply of the fiction market has mainly fallen into [the] hands of young-lady novelists,” whose number “passes calculation, and was unparalleled at any other former epoch.”57 While these young women’s works are “interesting and clever,” he adds, they are also “imperfect and superficial,” with their views of the world that are “thoroughly unsound.” This assessment of women’s writing underscores Showalter’s assertion that Victorian women writers were assumed to be less capable than their men colleagues of providing a realistic portrayal of the human condition.58

An equally significant nineteenth-century phenomenon is the substantial growth of the female audience for print. The woman reader has a long history; Belinda Jack and Alberto Manguel have written about communities of women readers from antiquity onwards, exploring cultures from around the globe.59 However, the nineteenth century marked a turning point in the history of women’s readership. Leah Price and Kate Flint have observed that women were the fastest-growing audience for print during this period. Price explains that “for most of British history, men’s literacy rate outstripped women’s; in the nineteenth century, however, the latter began to climb more steeply than the former, until around 1900 literacy was actually more diffused among women.”60 She identifies this “feminization of literacy” as a departure from “historical precedent.” Indeed, teaching girls to read was once seen as a distraction from their labour. However, she adds, “reading is now the province of those who time lacks market value,” i.e. women, children, and the elderly. Reading was considered a way for middle-class women, who were largely confined to the domestic sphere throughout the nineteenth century, to fill their

56 Margaret Beetham, A Magazine of Her Own? Domesticity and Desire in the Woman’s Magazine, 1800-1914 (London: Routledge, 1996), 129. 57 W.R. Greg, “The False Morality of Lady Novelists,” National Review, January 1859, 148. 58 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 90. 59 See Belinda Jack, The Woman Reader (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012); Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996). 60 Leah Price, How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain (Princeton University Press, 2012), 56-57. 16

leisure hours. For this reason, women had to be considered as an important consumer group. This did not ensure that women had absolute control over print materials, however. Flint demonstrates how men gatekeepers patrolled women’s reading under the guise of maintaining feminine purity, noting that books were “received, classified, and interpreted by both publishers and critics within a context of what women should and should not be reading.”61 Vulgarity, obscenity and immorality were acceptable reasons to not publish a title, and it was believed that fiction corrupted a woman’s mind.62 Simultaneously, publishers could not ignore the preferences of women consumers if they hoped to make a profit. Awareness of the woman reader, “and the hypotheses about her special characteristics, as well as her presumed needs and interests, affected the composition, distribution, and marketing of literature,” says Flint.63 From debates on how to safeguard her virtue to attempts to predict what she would read, the woman reader was one of the most visible figures within the nineteenth-century literary landscape.

The well-documented rise in both the number and cultural significance of women writers and readers throughout the nineteenth century makes them far more visible in the historical narrative than the women involved in other areas of literary production, distribution and circulation. Few though they were, however, it is still possible to locate women working as illustrators, editors, and printers, for example. Moreover, their engagement with this type of work reflected their unique environment. Beetham’s A Magazine of Her Own? and Kathryn Hughes’s The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton show how the growing popularity of women’s magazines opened the door for women’s editorial work. Most women’s magazines were edited by men, and often men who used feminized pseudonyms, Beetham reports. Simultaneously, she notes, there were some women who were able to rise to the position of magazine editors during this period.64 Beth Palmer demonstrates how women authors leveraged their notoriety or success

61 Kate Flint, The Woman Reader, 1837-1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 13. 62 Alfred Austen, “Our Novels: The Sensational School,” Temple Bar, June 1870, 424. 63 Flint, The Woman Reader, 13. 64 Beetham, Magazine of Her Own, 129. 17

as writers to gain editorships, even though editorial work was still gendered as masculine throughout the century.65

Women printers also became a defined group of labourers during this period. The Victoria Press (established by Emily Faithfull in 1860) and the Women’s Printing Society (established by Faithfull and Emma Paterson in 1874), posed a challenge to men’s traditional dominance over the printing trade. Women printers were excluded from the printers’ unions established and run by men, and men printers attempted to excise women from the trade, citing women workers’ lacking ability and the threat they posed to men’s wages as justification.66 Faithfull and other members of the Society for Women’s Employment, however, saw the Victoria Press and the Women’s Printing Society as an opportunity to counter such arguments, and provide women with an additional avenue for employment.67 Explorations of women printers are valuable not only because they highlight another facet of women’s literary labour, but also because they call attention to issues of social class. Like bookbinding, which was a feminized trade in the nineteenth century, printing was one of the few pursuits within literary production that was accessible to lower-class or low-income women.68 It is described by Faithfull as an alternative to other feminized trades.

Women’s increased participation in literary labour is intertwined with the emergence of new genres of print, both fiction and non-fiction, that acted as a critique of traditional gender roles. Chief among them was sensation fiction. Named for its dramatic plotlines, which frequently featured false identities, bigamy, theft and other criminal acts, sexual promiscuity and madness, sensation fiction was has been dismissed as low-brow, popular writing, by both nineteenth-century literary critics and twentieth-century scholars alike. According to nineteenth- century critic Alfred Austen, sensation fiction is aligned with “depreciatory tittle-tattle” and

65 Beth Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship in Victorian Culture: Sensational Strategies (Oxford University Press, 2011), 5-6. 66 Emily Faithfull, “Women Compositors,” English Woman’s Journal, September 1, 1861, 37. 67 Ibid., 38-40. 68 See Felicity Hunt, “Opportunities Lost and Gained: Mechanization and Women’s Work in the London Bookbinding and Printing Trades,” in Unequal Opportunities: Women’s Employment in England, 1800-1918, ed. Angela V. John (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 71-93. 18

“scandalous gossip.” This type of fiction—which is the “worst form of mental food” and has “a deteriorating effect on the mind”—would be better “forgotten,” he concludes.69 This assessment of the genre supports Palmer’s assertion that, because sensation fiction was seen to “stimulate readers’ nerves, not their moral faculties,” it was “situated at the center of … anxieties about a rapidly technologizing print culture and its perceived effects on readerships.”70 For most of the twentieth century, the genre went largely unnoticed by literary scholars due to its popular nature, says Elizabeth Andrews.71 It wasn’t until the 1980s and 1990s that literary critics “established sensation fiction as a subject worthy of serious academic study, both in its own right and as a means to explore Victorian social change, identity formation, gender and commercialism,” she explains. Indeed, the sheer excess and theatricality of the genre allowed writers to expose and critique the limitations placed on women, and to develop women characters who fought back against the conventions that bound them.72 Laurence Talairach-Vielmas notes that sensation fiction used gothic conventions to explore “women’s nightmarish domestic lives” and the prison that was marriage.73 Palmer argues that the depictions of female sexuality which were common in sensation fiction served as a rejection of patriarchal standards that demanded women should embody purity.74 The visibility of sensation fiction within the Victorian literary marketplace— and indeed Bentley and Son’s publisher’s lists—shows the high level of public engagement with issues surrounding gender roles and characteristics in the mid- to late nineteenth century.

New woman fiction, which emerged towards the end of the century, has a more obvious connection to the Victorian women’s movement. Although Showalter initially dismissed the genre as insignificant, noting that its influence had petered out by the turn of the century, she has

69 Austen, “Our Novels,” 424. 70 Beth Palmer, “Are the Victorians Still with Us? Victorian Sensation Fiction and its Legacies in the Twenty-First Century,” Victorian Studies 52, no. 1 (Autumn 2009), 87. 71 Elizabeth Andrews, “Sensation Fiction as Social Activism: Charles Reade’s It is Never Too Late to Mend and Felicia Skene’s Hidden Depths,” in Victorian Fiction Beyond the Canon, eds. Daragh Downes and Trish Ferguson (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 87. 72 See Ibid., 89; Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 61-71, 146-147; Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 160-161. 73 Laurence Talairach-Vielmas, “Sensation Fiction and the Gothic,” in The Cambridge Companion to Sensation Fiction, ed. Andrew Mangham (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 22. 74 Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 71. 19

since reconsidered this position. Later scholarship had unearthed a greater number of works than she had been aware of when she wrote A Literature of Their Own, she concedes, and convinced her of their impact.75 Patricia Marks describes the figure of the new woman as the “granddaughter” of the Victorian “womanly woman” who defined femininity throughout most of the century. Breaking from those who came before her, the new woman had demands, including education, a career, suffrage, and rational dress. 76 New woman fiction was the embodiment and construction of the figure, and her ideals, in print. According to Ann Heilmann, the genre fictionalized the main concerns of the Victorian women’s movement: “New Woman fiction constitutes a direct, immediate, and unequivocal appeal: for empathy with women, for gender solidarity, for political activism—for feminism.”77 Though more clearly socially critical than sensation fiction, new woman fiction was nonetheless intertwined with its predecessor. Palmer notes that the two genres represent an upwards trajectory of feminist writing. “Sensation fiction provided inspiration, ideas, and fictive models with which ‘new woman’ writers worked,” she argues. “The ‘new woman’ novel followed on from the sensation novel in focusing on aberrant women and on the gender inequalities of the social system (particularly of marriage), and in depicting women frustrated or maddened as a result of male abuse of these inequalities.”78 Characterized by the work of authors such as Sarah Grand, Mona Caird and Olive Schreiner, new woman fiction was consciously used as a vehicle for the dissemination of feminist ideals. As Lisa Surridge demonstrates in her analysis of The Daughters of Danaus, for example, Caird used fiction to “denaturalise the late-Victorian marriage and gender system.”79

In addition to these genres of fiction, there was a proliferation of non-fiction works throughout the century that supported the ideals of the women’s movement, including women’s education, employment and professionalization, and social, legal, and political independence.

75 Showalter, “Twenty Years On,” 408. 76 Patricia Marks, Bicycles, Bangs and Bloomers: The New Woman and the Periodical Press (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1990), 1-2. 77 Ann Heilmann, New Woman Fiction: Women Writing First-Wave Feminism (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 9. 78 Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 158-159. 79 Lisa Surridge, “Narrative Time, History, and Feminism in Mona Caird’s The Daughters of Danaus,” Women’s Writing 12, no. 1 (2005): 128. 20

The increase in biographies of notable women (e.g. historical figures and authors), social histories which focused on the domestic realm and women’s culture, and travel narratives written for women audiences shows that women were becoming more visible in the public realm. The periodical press, too, offered a space for non-fiction work that served as a dialogue on the role and status of women in Victorian society. These offerings were not always overtly politicized. Beetham compares women’s magazines to feminized domestic spaces and shows that they often perpetuated and constructed traditional notions of femininity, gender and sexuality.80 Simultaneously, however, she recognizes that women’s magazines had “radical potential,” in that they could be used by a community of women to challenge oppressive models of femininity.81 Indeed, both Beetham and Palmer point to magazines such as the Victoria Magazine, the English Woman’s Journal, and the Englishwoman’s Review as examples of publications that were aligned with the women’s movement. According to Susan Hamilton, such publications “provided the opportunities for uncompromised political debate and undiluted advocacy on behalf of women which [Victorian feminists] knew was necessary for the success of their cause.” The establishment of a separate feminist press—alongside the establishment of groups such as the Society for the Promotion of the Employment of Women and the Female Emigration Society— points to the organization and development of Victorian feminism, she adds.82 Some of the most notable position papers and tracts to arise out of the women’s movement were first published in these forums, including Frances Power Cobbe’s “Criminals, Idiots, Women, & Minors,” Millicent Garrett Fawcett’s “The Emancipation of Women,” and Caird’s “Marriage.”

These developments characterize the feminizing literary landscape to which Bentley and Son—and indeed, the publishers of this period more broadly—found themselves obliged to adapt. Publishers struggled to conflate the gentlemanly world of letters they believed they occupied with a new mass market for print whose gender identity was in flux. Of course, it was not only in print that traditional conceptions of gender were being re-evaluated. The evolution of the role of women in the literary sphere is contextualized by the ongoing debate surrounding the

80 See Beetham, A Magazine of Her Own? 81 Ibid., 3. 82 Susan Hamilton, “Introduction,” in ‘Criminals, Idiots, Women, & Minors’: Victorian Writing by Women on Women 2nd ed., ed. Susan Hamilton (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2004), xi-xii. 21

nature, duties, and role of women, which was also referred to as the Victorian “woman question.”83 Indeed, an article in the Westminster Review published in 1852 notes that “the appearance of Woman in the field of literature is a significant fact,” which was “the correlate of her position in society.”84 The further suggestion that those wishing to bar women from intellectual life may as well shut them up in a “harem” indicates that supporting the incorporation of women into public and intellectual spaces was a progressive stance, whereas conservatives and traditionalists promoted the continued gendering of and separation between the public and private spheres. The Victorian women’s movement is most commonly associated with the emergence of the campaign for women’s suffrage. However, there was more to the movement than its most well-known campaign, explains Susan Kingsley Kent:

Feminists did, indeed, demand recognition from and participation in the political process, but to stop here is to describe, not to understand, the feminist movement. In fighting for enfranchisement, suffragists sought no less than the total transformation of the lives of women. They set out to redefine and recreate, by political means, the sexual culture of Britain.85

Indeed, the demand for suffrage was one of several issues taken up by the women’s movement of the nineteenth century, including property rights, access to higher education, employment and the professions, custody and divorce rights, sexual and moral double standards, and prostitution.86

Using the firm of Bentley and Son as a site of inquiry, this dissertation excavates the origins of the feminization of the mainstream publishing industry. More than a recovery of individual women’s histories, it serves to recontextualize the history of the nineteenth-century publishing profession within a gendered framework. The first chapter acts as a foundation to this work in that it investigates representations of gender, and women in literary production, within cultural materials (i.e. periodicals and fiction, from the nineteenth century to present day) and historical and literary scholarship. Such analysis not only helps to account for women’s absences

83 Barbara Caine, English Feminism 1780-1980 (Oxford University Press, 1996), 93. 84 “The Lady Novelists,” Westminster Review, July 1859, 129. 85 Susan Kingsley Kent, Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1860-1914 (Princeton University Press, 1990), 3. 86 Ibid., 19. 22

from the history of literary production, but also how women have been inserted into the historical narrative. By tracing the history of the woman publishing worker, and how she is constructed and represented throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, I demonstrate how shifts in gender ideology, theory, and historical practice are evident in cultural materials and scholarship. In other words, the materials themselves have a history, which is shaped by their social, cultural, political, legal and economic contexts. Representations of historical figures such as Faithfull and Mary Elizabeth Braddon in nineteenth century and contemporary cultural materials show how depictions of the woman literary worker are mediated by gender ideology. An in-depth case study of popular and scholarly works focused on Jewsbury—Bentley and Son’s most famous woman publisher’s reader—demonstrates how gender theory and scholarship has evolved from the nineteenth century to present day.

In addition to situating this dissertation within a broader scholarly framework, this historiographical analysis allows me to articulate my theoretical and methodological approach. Taking inspiration from gender historians such as Joan Wallach Scott and Sonya O. Rose, I aim to investigate how gender ideology shapes literary production, from the organization of labour in the publishing workplace to the print materials that were ultimately published and disseminated. As discussed in detail in chapter one, Scott and Rose argue that gender history, as a theoretical and methodological framework, seeks to dismantle patriarchal systems, structures and historical narratives with the goal of building new, gender-inclusive frameworks. It is gender—and how gender is enacted within social, cultural, economic, political, and legal spaces—that is the primary lens.87 The Bentley archive, a compendium of archives held at the British Library (BL), the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC), has previously been explored in studies such as Gettmann’s A Victorian Publisher, and Gordon N. Ray’s “The Bentley Papers.”88 While these works provide a comprehensive commercial overview of the firm, these studies focus on the activities of the firm’s men figureheads, often through first-hand accounts. This dissertation draws on a variety of

87 See Ch. 1, pp. 71-73. 88 See Gettmann, A Victorian Publisher; Gordan N. Ray, “The Bentley Papers,” The Library 7, no. 3 (1952): 178- 200. 23

material from all three major archives, including letters, readers’ reports, publisher’s lists, and departmental and organizational documentation to provide a gendered analysis of the firm’s operations, professional environment, and material output. From the lens of gender history and theory, it is possible to locate women’s labour throughout the firm and understand how gender ideology shaped the firm’s publishing processes and lists.

The use of gender as lens for historical analysis represents a new stage in research into women’s histories. Early women’s history undertook the essential work of uncovering women actors and establishing their place in the historical narrative. Showalter’s initial work is an example of this type of second wave-era research. Looking back on the process of writing A Literature of Their Own, she describes her research in previously untouched archives, uncovering Victorian women authors who had been long forgotten.89 Enabled by this type of labour, gender history examines how gender—the social organization or construction of men and women, as opposed to the biological distinctions between sexes—has been defined and transformed across historical, social, and cultural contexts. 90 The central questions of the field concern how gender ideology is created (i.e. ideology that assigns particular roles, characteristics, and qualities to each sex), how relationships between men and women, or among same-sex groups, are constructed, and how this shifts temporally and geographically.91 Such scholarship reveals not only how gender ideology influences social, cultural, political, and economic systems, but also how gender is used as a tool of power and marginalization. This approach shapes the larger arc of the dissertation—including the topics that each chapter address and the themes woven throughout—as well as the finer details. For example, the focus on gender rather than biological sex is inscribed in linguistic choices. While women are often described as gendered bodies in texts (e.g. women authors, women readers), men are more frequently defined biologically (e.g. male authors, male readers). My decision to take an equalizing approach, in which both women and men are presented as gendered, has resulted in what appears to be

89 Showalter, “Twenty Years On,” 400-401. 90 Sonya O. Rose, What is Gender History? (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2010), 2; Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 29-33. 91 Ibid. 24

awkward language. However, the unfamiliarity—and perceived wrongness—of phrases such as men authors, men readers or men publishers, is useful. Their appearance not only conveys my approach but calls attention to the fact that men have been exempt from the gendering to which women have been consistently subjected.

These gender-historical theoretical and methodological approaches can be usefully applied to investigations of the impact of gender on the processes of literary production. As previously noted, book historians have called attention to the lack of gender analysis in the field. This is underscored by the masculinized nature of Darnton’s communications circuit. While the circuit addresses the process of print production and dissemination in a particular historical context—Enlightenment France—the subsequent adoption of this model as a foundational theoretical tool in the field means that its masculinized language (e.g. the use of terms such as warehousemen and pressmen in the model, and the references to historians as he and humankind as mankind throughout the article), and the obscuring of women’s labour, has widespread implications for the practice of book history. 92 Within chapter two, Darnton’s model is reconsidered through the perspective of the labour, organization, and publishing process at work within the firm of Bentley and Son. Throughout the mid- to late nineteenth century, the firm went through a process of restructuring, spearheaded by George. The transformation of the firm into an industrialized corporate entity—largely marked by the development of distinct departments that had prescribed roles within the publishing process and defined relationships to one another—was not only intended to optimize labour, but also to adjust the firm’s productive and business practices to suit the nature of the expanding commercial market for print. My analysis of Bentley and Son’s publishing process is framed by a hitherto unpublished archival document which contains a model that I call the Bentley circuit. The model, which is a visual depiction of the firm’s departments, including the employees and functions contained within, and order of operations, showcases how Bentley and Son functioned as an industrialized firm. Moreover, the Bentley circuit acts as a useful foil to Darnton’s. While the Bentley circuit foregrounds social actors and relationships, it simultaneously considers how the book-object functions within the social realm. In addition, the Bentley circuit is more inclusive. Its focus on

92 Darnton, “History of Books.” 25

departments rather than primary actors makes visible labour below the managerial level— including women’s labour. Indeed, the formal organization of the firm, reflected in the Bentley circuit, enabled women’s entrance into, and professionalization within, the publishing environment at Bentley and Son.

The formalization of the manuscripts department arguably had the biggest impact on women’s professionalization at the firm. Throughout the century, the Bentleys increasingly gendered the labour associated with that department—including reading and assessing manuscripts and editing—as feminine. The belief that women were better-suited to this work encouraged the Bentleys to hire women to fill these roles. As the labour within the manuscripts department was organized hierarchically, and the function of the department and its employees was articulated and enshrined as policy, the women publisher’s readers had an increasingly defined place within professional structure of the firm. Chapter three examines the gendering of literary labour, and the professionalization of women workers, from two perspectives: first, how women publisher’s readers and other professional women who interacted with the firm, such as authors, were perceived by the Bentleys; second, how women constructed their own professional identities within this space. While the Bentleys did perceive and treat their women employees as professionals, as demonstrated by the publishers’ interactions with them and the fact that they were paid for their labour, it is also clear that the categories of woman professional and professional were distinct. Women’s assumed abilities, and, as a result, the roles that they occupied within the firm, were mediated by gender ideology. Women were constrained by their gender in terms of the labour they were able to undertake—for example, women publisher’s readers were largely excluded from reading and editing works that supposedly belonged to masculine categories of literature, such as science and history—and the behaviour they were expected to exhibit in the workplace. The Bentleys invoked gender roles to hold power over women employees and authors and expected them to merge their professional and gendered identities. Those who neglected to adequately perform their femininity, by failing to defer to the knowledge of the men publishers or demanding financial compensation beyond what was offered, did not remain in favour with the publishers. On the other hand, their involvement with the firm offered Bentley and Son’s women employees unprecedented professional opportunities. As previously noted, the women publisher’s readers—particularly Jewsbury and Mayer—

became integral to the firm and leveraged their positions as publisher’s readers to engage in a range of labour, including editorial and marketing work. Despite being othered, then, women could nonetheless professionally advance and achieve real influence within the firm.

This level of involvement not only impacted the professional environment at Bentley and Son, but also its publishing culture. A close reading of readers’ reports and letters contained within the Bentley archive demonstrates that the women publisher’s readers utilized their position as gatekeepers to encourage the publication of materials that challenged not only traditional conceptions of gender, but also the definition of what constituted feminine print material, i.e. reading material that was appropriate for women to either write or read. In chapter four, these archival materials are considered alongside print materials and scholarship documenting the Victorian women’s movement to trace how Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers worked to support and perpetuate values and ideologies that underpinned the fight for women’s rights in the nineteenth century. In relation to fiction, the women publisher’s readers frequently rejected titles that reinforced traditional notions of femininity—represented by characters who embodied the ideal Victorian woman—in favour of works that featured worldly, intelligent and educated women. Furthermore, they were partial towards novels that either criticized traditional modes of marriage or sought to demonstrate the virtutes of a marriage based on equality and love. Beyond using their fiction offerings to portray a more progressive notion of womanhood and femininity, the women publisher’s readers wielded non-fiction works as tools of education and empowerment. The publication of educational, historical, and biographical titles was viewed as an opportunity to present women readers with materials that would support their mental and social advancement. Not all the principles upheld by Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers have been interpreted as progressive. For example, Jewsbury’s condemnation of freely expressed female sexuality has meant that she has been positioned in historical scholarship as a conservative figure. However, when framed by the Victorian women’s movement, it is possible to reconsider these seemingly orthodox positions anew. While the women publisher’s readers’ approach to gender ideology cannot be understood as holistically feminist in a contemporary sense, I argue that it was indeed feminist in their own historical context. Throughout the century, the work of the women publisher’s readers influenced Bentley

and Son’s relationship to their employees and authors, as well as the print culture and marketplace of the period.

The publishing histories of individual titles, and examples of relationships between the Bentleys and specific authors, provide a microperspective on the firm’s shifting approach to gender ideology, women authors and readers. Macrotrends can be tracked through the publisher’s lists, catalogues and series. Drawing on archival materials including advertising and series lists, sales catalogues, and an internally produced catalogue of what the publishers deem their “prominent titles,” three main trends are identified in chapter five: an increase in women- oriented fiction; the development of women-oriented non-fiction categories; and an increase in women’s and cross-gendered authorship (i.e. men and women authors writing for audiences of the opposite, or both, genders). Reading these archival materials through a gendered lens reveals an era of change for women writers, publishers, and readers, highlighting the ways in which boundaries that constrained women in the literary realm were upheld, bent, and broken over the course of the century. It’s clear that women were still in the minority regarding authorship, and that women authors and readers alike were undeniably limited by genre. Indeed, women’s literature published by Bentley and Son is most commonly categorized as fiction and women’s history. Yet, as women increasingly became an important audience for print, the titles produced for their consumption rose in value at the firm. This not only resulted in an increase in the publication of women-authored and women-oriented works, but also a new understanding of the marketplace for print altogether. Such titles were now afforded a place of prominence, rather than occupying the bottom of the literary rung. In this way, the firm’s lists, catalogues, and series speak to the process of feminization that altered the firm’s corporate and cultural identity.

In tracing the history of Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers, this dissertation begins to explicate the gender politics that shape the twenty-first-century publishing industry. Studies of women’s authorship and readership have established the nineteenth century as a watershed moment in the history of women’s print culture, illuminating the ways in which conventions of gender and genre were shaken by the professionalization of women’s authorship, new genres of writing and forms of print, and the rise of women readers as an influential consumer group. Although largely obscured by the throngs of men publishers that controlled the industry, women in publishing were a critical part of this historical moment. Bentley and Son’s 28

women publisher’s readers’ entrance into and labour within the firm reflects shifts in the gendering of the publishing profession, publishing practice, and print materials which originated in the nineteenth century and continue to shape the industry. By placing the women publisher’s readers at the center of this history of the firm and asking how they transformed the process of literary production within Bentley and Son, this dissertation takes a step toward reconstructing the historiography of the publishing industry and profession through a gendered lens.

Chapter 1 Constructing the Woman Publishing Worker: A Historiographical Analysis

The Victorian woman has become a figure of the cultural imagination. Represented by architypes such as the angel in the house, the madwoman in the attic, and the new woman, she reflects the gender ideologies that engendered her, and the cultural products—including print and images—that enshrined and perpetuated her existence. As Mary Poovey explains, the angel in the house was a “cultural image” which, rather than reflecting real Victorian women, was an idealization of what they should become.93 Her foil, the fallen woman, demonstrated “what men feared women could be,” she adds, and represented society’s corruption and depravity. These figures commonly featured in Victorian literature—specifically genres such as sensation fiction and new woman fiction—and in other forms of print media.94 In relation to literary creation and consumption, the woman writer and reader have been similarly culturally constructed. Literary scholars such as Showalter and Flint have traced how notions of women’s authorship and readership have been shaped by social, cultural, political, economic, and historical contexts. Drawing on literature and newspaper articles, Showalter’s A Literature of Their Own demonstrates how the woman writer was socially defined, and how this definition is intertwined with gender ideology. Referring specifically to the Victorian woman writer, she summarizes: “women writers were acknowledged to possess sentiment, refinement, tact, observation, domestic expertise, high moral tone, and knowledge of female character; and though to lack originality, intellectual training, abstract intelligence, humor, self-control, and knowledge of male character.”95 These characteristics, she adds, were broadly defined as feminine during this period. Flint’s The Woman Reader similarly presents a composite portrait of the woman reader as presented by nineteenth-century cultural materials, including her class, appearance, and characteristics. These materials constitute a “paternalistic surveillance” of the woman reader, she explains, and are widely concerned with the woman reader’s vulnerability to the influence of

93 Mary Poovey, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer: Ideology as Style in the Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, and Jane Austen (University of Chicago Press, 1984), 4-6. 94 See Showalter, A Literature of Their Own; Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination, 2nd Ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984). 95 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 90-91. 30

text.96 The effort to control women’s reading can be understood as an attempt to control subjectivity, and to “define women’s mental capacities and tendencies,” she adds.

Taking inspiration from these works, this chapter investigates how the Victorian woman publishing worker has been constructed within cultural materials. However, it will address how women in publishing have been represented in historical scholarship in addition to primary source material, such as nineteenth-century articles, essays and illustrations. This historiographical approach acknowledges that historical frameworks are shaped by their own theoretical and political contexts. According to Scott, this is one of the fundamental tenets of gender history theory and practice. Gender history seeks to uncover how hierarchies of power— including gender and class—are constructed, legitimated, and maintained not only within social, economic, political and cultural spaces, but also historical practice as well, she explains.97 Noting that the male perspective has long shaped historical practice, from the way research is conducted to the terms being used, Scott argues that it is ineffective to recover and restore women’s histories to a historical framework that is inherently gender-biased:

By uncovering new information about women, historians assumed they would right the balance of long years of neglect. But what amounted to an almost naïve endorsement of positivism soon led to a critique of it. New facts might document the existence of women in the past, but they did not necessarily change the importance (or lack of it) attributed to women’s activities. Indeed, the separate treatment of women could serve to confirm their marginal and particularized relationship to those (male) subjects already established as dominant and universal. … Women’s history written from this position, and the politics that follow from it, end up endorsing the ideas of unalterable sexual difference that are used to justify discrimination. 98

Scott councils an alternative approach to historical practice, in which scholars analyze how structures and institutions are constructed so that we can understand what they mean and how they work. Patriarchal historical structures themselves must be deconstructed, and replaced with gender inclusive narratives, she believes.99 In other words, we must critically analyze not only the institutions that effect marginalization, but also the histories that these institutions produce.

96 Flint, The Woman Reader, 4-11. 97 Scott, Politics of History, 29-33. 98 Ibid., 3-4. 99 Ibid., 4. 31

Several gaps in available materials present challenges to this analysis of how the woman publishing worker has been represented. Most obviously, as has been the case with women’s histories overall, the role of women in mainstream publishing history has been obscured by the privileging of men publishers’ histories. This is partly a function of the scarcity of women’s publishing labour. As previously discussed, publishing was masculinized well into the twentieth century, with women’s participation in the literary field largely limited to authorship and readership. Even so, the women who did engage in literary production—working within editorial, marketing, new product development and other roles—receive little attention in the seminal works of book historical scholarship. In the introduction, I call attention to the absence of women from histories of publishing and the book trade, and the failure of scholars to account for when, why, and how women began to enter the publishing industry. 100 The exclusion and marginalization of women from and within book-historical scholarship is as much a reflection of historical practice as the history of book production itself.

Women workers are frequently absent from publishing house histories as well.101 As a historical genre, the house history is noticeably dominated by men actors, a fact that reflects the masculinization of the publishing profession both quantitatively and qualitatively throughout history. A study of ten house histories, ranging in publication dates from 1923 to 2008, shows that women are rarely mentioned as publishing professionals, and their absence typically goes unremarked upon, if not unnoticed.102 Only three of the histories surveyed make more than a passing mention of women working in publishing, or approach the issue of gender within the

100 See the introduction, pp. 3-5. 101 House histories present the historiography of specific publishing houses, and typically include topics such as the major figures who shaped the publishing house (e.g. managers, employees and authors), the culture, financial history and business practices of the firm, and the study of the firm’s publishing lists. 102 The survey includes: Asa Briggs, A History of Longmans and Their Books 1724-1900: Longevity in Publishing (London and New Castle: The British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2008); David Finkelstein ed., Print Culture and the Blackwood Tradition, 1805-1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006); Royal A. Gettmann, A Victorian Publisher: A Study of the Bentley Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960); Leslie Howsam, Kegan Paul: A Victorian Imprint (London and Toronto: Kegan Paul International and University of Toronto Press, 1996); Leonard Huxley, The House of Smith, Elder (London: privately printed, 1923); Elizabeth James, Macmillan: A Publishing Tradition (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2002); Charles Morgan, The House of Macmillan, 1843-1943 (London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., 1943); F.A. Mumby, The House of Routledge, 1834-1934 (London: Routledge, 1934); Peter Sutcliffe, The Oxford University Press: An Informal History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); William Emrys Williams, The Penguin Story (London: Penguin, 1956). 32

industry. Unsurprisingly, they are more current works. An article by Robert L. Patten and David Finkelstein on Blackwood’s editors discusses the role of women editors at the firm, and how they were viewed in comparison to their men colleagues.103 In his history of the house of Longman, Asa Briggs notes the importance of drawing attention to women at “every stage” of the firm’s history, including “women as authors as well as readers and in the latest stages of the story as managers.”104 He also integrates Mary Longman—wife of Thomas Longman and the only woman partner in the history of the firm—into the firm’s historical narrative. Howsam’s history of Kegan Paul highlights women’s formal exclusion from the imprint while simultaneously demonstrating the influence of their unpaid labour: “all of the people who managed the firm’s editorial and commercial policy were men, and an analysis of its character in terms of gender roles would reveal an identity that superficially, at least was wholly masculine. … More important, no woman secured a position anywhere near the centres of power in the firm.” However, Howsam argues that women’s labour is evident just below the surface. “A closer examination of significant moments in its history suggests that the wives of publishers had a disproportionate influence on the firm’s fortunes,” she notes, pointing to the way in which publishers’ wives contributed to the economic, social and cultural capital of the imprint.105 Two titles, a history of Oxford University Press and one of Penguin, make no mention of women employees whatsoever, despite the fact that both engage with their respective firm’s histories into the middle of the twentieth century, when women had stronger presence in the industry.106

Women more commonly find their way into publishing house histories in the role of family members or authors. As Briggs and Howsam demonstrate, women family members— particularly mothers and wives—were frequently more involved in the business of a firm than

103 Robert L. Patten and David Finkelstein, “Editing Blackwoods; or, What Do Editors Do?,” in The Blackwood Tradition. 104 Briggs, A History of Longmans, 18. 105 Howsam, Kegan Paul, 183-184. 106 One other title about Penguin, an edited collection of correspondence between Penguin editors and publisher Allen Lane, does include women editors Eunice Frost and Eleanor Graham. However, the work is not a house history, and does not engage directly with the notion of gender. See Steve Hare, ed., Penguin Portrait: Allen Lane and the Penguin Editors 1935-1970 (London: Penguin, 1995). A search for other histories of the Oxford University Press (OUP) led to colonial histories of the press, histories of international branches of OUP (including the United States, Canada and Australia), and histories of OUP that predate the period in question. 33

was publicly acknowledged. Beyond making financial contributions, they were also known to work as readers, translators, and editors, and foster important business contacts by building and maintaining social relationships. However, in most of these histories, women relatives rarely merit more than a footnote in the biographies of men publishers. The inclusion of women literary professionals is typically limited to women authors. In Leonard Huxley’s history of the firm Smith, Elder, for example, the publishers’ relationships with notable women writers, including Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Ritchie (nee Thackeray), Mary Augusta Ward, and George Eliot, are examined in detail. Huxley is cognisant of their significance to the firm, and they appear as frequently within the book as men authors. However, the role of these women writers is nonetheless diminished. While the relationship between the publishers and authors of both genders are characterized as “personal friendships” in addition to business relationships, the relationships are nonetheless described in gendered ways. 107 While Huxley views men authors as assets who enrich the publishers’ business and literary experience, women authors are portrayed as dependents who rely on their publishers’ care. For example, author John Ruskin is called “a valuable and stimulating influence” who enabled George Smith to make important literary connections.108 In contrast, Huxley notes that Charlotte Brontë received the “paternal consideration” of the firm’s employees, and the author in turn expressed “grateful appreciation” for the attention.109 Additionally, no women are mentioned in the chapter on Smith, Elder employees.

In other cases, women professionals are contextualized by their relationships to the men they worked with and for. Illustrator Kate Greenaway (K.G.) receives some attention in a chapter on gift books and yellowbacks in a history of Routledge. Yet, everything from Greenaway’s attitude towards her work, to experience of the industry, is conveyed through the perspective of her colleague, engraver Edmund Evans. Author F.A. Mumby uses Evans’s memories to detail Greenaway’s concerns with her first book, and to describe her “affectionate friendship” with Ruskin, including details of their letter exchanges and personal visits.110 Mumby also relies on

107 Huxley, House of Smith, Elder, 47. 108 Ibid., 48-50. 109 Ibid., 56-58. 110 Mumby, House of Routledge, 131-132. 34

Evans’s perspective to speculate on how the illustrator reacted to having her work frequently plagiarized. Although Mumby admits that Evans “does not mention whether K.G. gave vent to her feelings in any way,” and directs the reader to “imagine [Greenaway’s] feelings,” he takes Evans’s assurance that Greenaway “grievously… suffered from plagiarists who not only blocked the market but lowered her reputation” at face value.111 In making no attempt to account for Greenaway’s own response to the issue of plagiarism, Evans, and by extension Mumby, dismiss it altogether. Indeed, Greenaway’s “feelings” are rendered superfluous by Evans and Mumby’s assumption that their interpretation of her experience is sufficiently authoritative.

To some extent, the absence of women from these histories reflects the paucity of women employees during the time periods that these histories focus on. Howsam’s previously quoted acknowledgement that women were, for the most part, excluded from firm operations in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, speaks to this point. Yet, it is worth noting that even histories of firms that undeniably employed women are still largely silent on the issue of gender, and gloss over women’s contributions. Even though Bentley and Son employed women publisher’s readers for forty out of sixty-nine years of the firm’s operation (1858-1898), Gettmann’s study of the publishing house refers to them only once. Beyond noting that the “House of Bentley employed several women as readers of fiction” in its later years, and mentioning six readers by name, only Jewsbury’s work receives further treatment.112 Jackson, who authored a significant number of readers’ reports held by the BL as part of the Bentley archive, is never mentioned. Given Gettmann’s extensive research in the archives, with a specific focus on the BL, this is a notable oversight.

An even more masculinized portrait of the firm and Bentley’s employees can be found in a history of Macmillan & Co. Bentley and Son’s history intertwined with that of Macmillan’s when Macmillan bought Bentley and Son’s lists and stock in 1898. Charles Morgan, who published a history of Macmillan in 1943, describes Richard Jr. and his employees as the embodiment of gentleman publishers. According to Morgan, Richard Jr. “retired from business

111 Ibid., 134. 112 Gettmann, A Victorian Publisher, 193. The six readers that Gettmann mentions are Maria Fetherstonhaugh, G.W. Godfrey, Henrietta Dorchester, Gertrude Mayer, Adeline Sergeant and Geraldine Jewsbury. 35

for the rarest and best of all reasons—that he wished to retire,” which implies that he was reverting to the noble life of a gentleman. 113 Having escaped from the “weary” world of business, he was presumably free to have continued involvement in the literary world as a man of letters. Morgan’s examples of the works of value that Macmillan acquired from Bentley and Son are limited to men-authored titles such as Mommsens’ Rome and Richard Harris Barham’s Ingoldsby Legends. Alongside these works, he writes, “came members of Bentley’s staff whom the Macmillans learned to value. They arrived in the top-hats and formal dress which were the custom of Bentley’s employees.” While many of Bentley and Son’s former employees eventually “discarded the uniform,” Morgan says, he describes the continued perseverance of one man: “he was, as chance would have it, a packer, and he packed decorously to the last. When all others of his calling were lost to grace, his top-hat remained the memorial and the crown of the Bentley Purchase.”114 In this quotation, Morgan uses Bentley and Son’s employees to glorify the old guard of the publishing industry. Notably, those who adapted to the new publishing environment, as marked by a change in their dress, were supposedly “lost to grace.” Furthermore, Morgan’s account of the Bentley purchase disregards the existence of Mayer, a Bentley and Son employee who was hired by Macmillan after the purchase.115 Although Morgan makes one mention of Mayer as the editor of Temple Bar, the literary magazine that Macmillan acquired from Bentley and Son, he does not explain her connection to Bentley and Son, account for her continued work at Macmillan, or include her in his discussion of Macmillan’s readers and editors, including John Morley, Leslie Stephens and Mowbray Morris, who would have been Mayer’s peers. 116

A second challenge, also shared by scholarship that focuses on women writers and readers, is accounting for women from varied class, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. As Gerda Lerner has argued, women cannot be effectively conceptualized as a group, because they are

113 Morgan, House of Macmillan,183. 114 Ibid., 184-185. 115 Mayer’s career at the firm of Richard Bentley and Son, and her continued work at Macmillan, will be addressed in Ch.3. 116 Morgan, House of Macmillan, 185. 36

spread throughout the population.117 They have been among the highest and lowest classes, have exploited and been exploited, and have been involved in conservative and radical movements alike. Sue Morgan has similarly observed that the term women’s history is misleading, because it falsely assumes the “universality of the female subject.”118 Indeed, the previously mentioned figures of the woman writer and reader are not all-encompassing. More accurately, they reflect how the white, middle and upper class of Victorian society characterized white, middle- and upper-class women writers and readers. Although she does not examine this issue in detail, Showalter does problematize the “subculture” of women’s writing that scholars—herself included—typically focus on, noting that it represents a “narrow grouping,” meaning the “daughters of the middle and upper classes.”119 Similarly, the few women publishing workers who are represented in Victorian cultural materials, and subsequent scholarship, are almost invariably white, and from the middle or upper class. This shows that the nineteenth-century publishing industry did not only have a gender identity, but also a class identity as well.

Officially, there was no barrier to enter the field. Unlike many professions throughout the nineteenth century, which developed formalized qualification processes as a method of regulating entry, publishing adopted no accreditation process.120 This theoretical openness, however, was not a social or economic reality. Even though publishing was technically a trade, observe Tuchman and Fortin, Victorian publishers portrayed themselves as gentlemen, whose “contribution to the cultural heritage” was the hallmark of their profession. 121 This reflects

117 Gerda Lerner, “New Approaches to the Study of Women in American History,” in Liberating Women’s History: Theoretical and Critical Essays, ed. Berenice A. Carroll (Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1976), 351. 118 Sue Morgan, “Introduction,” in The Feminist History Reader, ed. Sue Morgan (London: Routledge, 2006), 15. 119 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 38. 120 See Corfield, Power and the Professions for more in-depth information about professionalization in the nineteenth century. Similarly, Helen Smith notes that while the Stationer’s Company (the guild which had a monopoly over the control of book production prior to the passage of the Copyright Act of 1709) women were never officially excluded from freedom of the Company, it was not until 1660 that women were actually admitted. She further argues that despite there being no official barriers to entry, women were increasingly excluded from the seventeenth century onward, and were only admitted by to the livery of the Company (and therefore entitled to hold office) in 1936 as the result of an administrative error. In other words, women’s exclusion was largely social. See Helen Smith, “Grossly Material Things”: Women and Book Production in Early Modern England (Oxford University Press, 2012), 95. 121 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 23-26. 37

Jennifer Ruth’s assertion that although intellectual labour was being repositioned as productive labour throughout the nineteenth century, those who engaged in such work took care to distinguish their activities from that of the physical labourer, who belonged to a lower class.122 To accomplish this, publishers positioned themselves as well-read, educated men, who belonged to a privileged set.123 George Bentley’s publication After Business: Papers Written in the Intervals of Work exemplifies how publishers were positioned within the cultural space. The title itself—After Business—signals that the scholarly papers within the publication reflect George’s private intellectual life, which is removed from the unrefined commercial world. In the essay “What the Firelight Fell On,” in which George sits in his friend Lawrence’s library and ruminates on the contents, he distances himself from popular fiction, instead aligning himself with the “men of genius” whose works rest on the shelves.124 Calling the “grand writers” contained within the library his companions, he explains that he is

on terms of equality with them, and there is a republican sort of citizenship between you. Montaigne prattles with his wise prattle, Molière with the inexhaustible runnings of his wit, old Pepys takes you to the Duke of York’s playhouse to see the Ungrateful Lovers, Evelyn steers you decently through the gay court of Charles; or if your mood be more serious, the terrible earnestness of Carlyle reveals the meanings of the French Revolution to you.

In this essay, and throughout the publication, George communicates that although his business serves the commercial marketplace, he personally belongs to the intellectual and literary elite.125 The publication places George, and his peers, in a higher class of men than the general reading

122 Jennifer Ruth, “Between Labor and Capital: Charlotte Bronte’s Professional Professor,” Victorian Studies 45, no. 2 (2003): 286-288. 123 Universal education was not instituted until 1870 and did not become compulsory until a decade later. See Ch. 2, pp. 86-87 for a more detailed discussion on education and mass literacy in Victorian Britain. 124 George Bentley, “What the Firelight Fell On,” in After Business: Papers Written in the Intervals of Work (London: privately printed, 1883), 41-42. See Ch. 2 for a more detailed discussion on George’s description of his own intellectual interests. 125 It is possible that this essay was inspired by a letter written by Niccolò Machiavelli, which would therefore represent George’s attempt to further align himself with men of genius. In a letter to Francesco Vettori, Machiavelli writes that at the end of the day, he enters into his study, “tak[ing] off the days’ clothing, covered with mud and dust” in favour of “garments regal and courtly.” Once appropriately dressed, he communes with “ancient men,” and his interaction with them is described as “food which only is mine and which I was born for.” Machiavelli to Francesco Vettori, December 10, 1513, in The Letters of Machiavelli: A Selection of his Letters, ed. and trans. Allan Gilbert (New York: Capricorn Books, 1961), 142. I would like to thank Alan Galey for this reference. 38

public they serve and establishes a liberal education as a prerequisite for his line of work. The expectation that publishers were part of the intellectual elite created a social barrier to entry. More practically, the lower classes were financially precluded from becoming publishers. The necessity of meeting large upfront costs before seeing any income from a publishing venture required large start-up capital.126 As a result, founders of publishing firms typically came from the middle and upper classes.127 With such social and economic obstacles on the path to a career in publishing, it is unsurprising that the few women who did break into the profession hailed from the middle and upper classes. For this reason, representations of women in Victorian publishing—including this dissertation—are similarly narrow in relation to class, and women’s entrance into the Victorian publishing industry can be understood as a class-specific phenomenon.

Additional realms of scholarship where women publishers fall through the cracks are gender labour history and histories of professionalization. Gender labour history has sought to redress the gender gap in scholarship of industrialized labour, such as Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital, which have focused on men’s experiences. However, labour is still defined as manual work in gender labour history, and typically performed by the lower classes. For this reason, women’s union activity, and their work in factories, the service industry or specific occupations, such as dressmaking and retail, serve as the primary sites of investigation for histories of women’s labour. This can be seen in works such Elizabeth Roberts’s Women’s Work, 1840-1940, Alice Kessler-Harris’s Gendering Labour History, and the collection Unequal Opportunities edited by Angela V. John. Within this body of work, the example of women compositors and bookbinders is the closest connection to women in publishing. In Unequal Opportunities, Felicity Hunt explores the increase in women compositors and bookbinders throughout the nineteenth century, noting that organizations such as the Victoria Press and the

126 According to Tuchman and Fortin, publishers became capital owners in the nineteenth century. Increasingly, contracts in which publishers and authors split costs of production as well as profits became uncommon, and publishers were solely responsible for the capital outlay for the production of a book, which allowed them to treat authors as labourers. Feather similarly observes that publishers were “owners” who employed “labour on a substantial scale,” and were responsible for millions of pounds in capital investment. See Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 77-78, 159; Feather, British Publishing, 96. 127 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 80. 39

Women’s Printing Society offered unprecedented opportunity for women to enter these trades and engendered women-only unions and societies.128 Hunt’s chapter, however, exclusively contextualizes women compositors and bookbinders within the economy of nineteenth-century manual labour rather than the publishing industry or print production.

The absence of women publishers from gender labour history is partially due to the nature of nineteenth-century publishing. While printing and publishing were once intertwined and typically done in home-based workshops, they functioned as separate commercial industries from the nineteenth century onward.129 During this time, the publishing industry distanced itself from the manual labour of the printing industry, and as previously discussed, publishers portrayed their work as a profession rather than a trade. Yet, as Tuchman and Fortin point out, publishing could not escape its connection to the trades entirely. Occupying a precarious position between trade and profession, publishing is not commonly included in histories of the professions or professionalization. Such works account for the process of formalizing professions such as medicine, law, and engineering through education, training and licencing procedures, monopolies over knowledge, service guidelines, and the building of closed communities.130 Even histories of women’s professionalization, which by necessity adopt a broader definition of what is considered a profession, are largely silent on the subject of women in publishing.131 For example, Corfield’s Power and the Professions in Britain 1700-1850, which charts the history of the professions more generally, does not include publishing in her overview of professions that were open to women.132 Additionally, while other works that can be categorized as histories of women’s professionalization have explored women’s relationships to the development of particular professions—such as Dee Garrison’s Apostles of Culture, which considers women’s

128 Hunt, “Opportunities Lost and Gained,” 71-93. 129 See Ch. 2 for a more detailed discussion on the industrialization and commercialization of printing and publishing. 130 Michael F. Winter, The Culture and Control of Expertise: Towards a Sociological Understanding of Librarianship (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988), 13. 131 Many of the professions which were acknowledged as feminized in the nineteenth century do not meet the criteria of a profession in that, at the time, there was no official training and accreditation. Barriers to entry were largely socially or economically enforced, and in this way, confined to the middle and upper classes. 132 The list of professions that Corfield identifies as open to women includes teaching, nursing, librarianship, social work, and authorship. See Corfield, Power and the Professions. 40

place within the history of librarianship, and The Gender of History by Bonnie G. Smith, which analyzes the influence of gender on professional historical practice—no such focused study on women in Victorian publishing exists.

The few scholarly sources that do address women undertaking publishing or printing labour highlight the extent of this gap in scholarship. McDowell’s The Women of Grub Street, discussed in the introduction, stands out as the most comprehensive account of women printers and booksellers in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. As this chapter demonstrates, McDowell’s focus on women in the book trade (as opposed to women authors and readers) is rare. While she includes women’s authorship as an example of women’s participation in the literary landscape, she primarily investigates women’s involvement in print production and circulation, meaning women who were working as “printers, publishers, hawkers, and ballad- singers,” and importantly, “doing so for pay.”133 It was the domestic and familial nature of the publishing and printing industries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that enabled women’s participation, she explains. Home workshops made it easy for women to move between domestic and commercial spaces, and “most women printers, booksellers, and binders in this period were in fact related to men or sometimes women members of the Stationer’s Company,” though “any woman could theoretically be admitted to the freedom of the Company by her own right by apprenticeship, patrimony, or redemption (purchase).”134

Beyond McDowell’s unique work, most material surrounding women in publishing concerns the emergence of the niche feminist publishing industry throughout the 1960s and 1970s, exemplified by Virago and The Women’s Press in the UK, and The Feminist Press and Women’s Press in North America. Published in 1981, Eileen Cadman, Gail Chester and Agnes Pivot’s Rolling Their Own functions as an exploration of and manifesto supporting feminist publishing, which means that it can be analyzed as both a primary and secondary source. In their criticism of the mainstream publishing industry, Cadman, Chester and Pivot note that “women are heaped at not only at the bottom of the job hierarchy but also in the middle. This makes them

133 McDowell, The Women of Grub Street, 5-6. 134 Ibid., 34-35. 41

appear comparatively powerful but nevertheless, the number of women with real power at the top is negligible.”135 The authors argue that women began to enter the publishing profession after the second world war, and they have since been concentrated in editorial and publicity departments (the “caring” aspect of the publishing profession) rather than performing managerial and financial roles, which limited their significance and pay.136 Feminist presses, which they date from the 1970s, are positioned as the answer to such marginalization within the mainstream. They define women’s presses as organizations which stand against patriarchal control of publishing, both in terms of women’s professional development—through ensuring that women function in decision-making roles—and content—by publishing “books in new areas, in new forms, which avoid sexist stereotyping and the use of derogatory language about women which help us to form a new image of ourselves and our society.”137 A more recent publication, Simone Murray’s Mixed Media, looks to the feminist publishing industry to address the silences within book history concerning gender. She accuses book history of “disciplinary indifference to the history of women’s interaction with the book trade.”138 Like Cadman, Chester and Pivot, however, Murray focuses on the feminist publishing movement of the twentieth century. Though she addresses the “disciplinary indifference” she identifies, her work represents a specific subset of women in the book trade.

Notably, these accounts bookend the nineteenth century. Furthermore, they each attribute women’s participation in the publishing realm to circumstances that did not apply to the Victorian publishing industry. The home-based workshops that McDowell describes in the seventeenth and eighteenth century became obsolete throughout the nineteenth as printing and publishing industrialized and moved into the public, professional sphere. The feminist presses that Rolling Their Own and Mixed Media investigate had not yet emerged on a wide scale. This points to the fact that there were fewer opportunities for women to participate in the publishing and printing professions in the nineteenth century than in the centuries that proceeded and

135 Cadman, Chester and Pivot, Rolling Our Own, 5. 136 Ibid., 5-19. 137 Ibid., 27. 138 Simone Murray, Mixed Media: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics (London: Pluto Press, 2004), 13. See Ch. 2, p. 106 for a synopsis of Murray’s assessment of Darnton’s communications circuit. 42

followed. When women’s roles in Victorian literary production are discussed, it is most frequently framed by their work as authors. Peterson’s Becoming a Woman of Letters, also discussed in the introduction, exemplifies this point. In this work, she traces how the expansion of the periodical press and popular print culture enabled women to professionalize as writers. 139 Tuchman and Fortin similarly examine the gendering of Victorian publishing through authorship. Their argument that women were edged out of high-culture publishing is based on the gender of the novelists that the house of Macmillan published throughout the nineteenth century. The publisher’s archive, they explain, shows that women were increasingly relegated to low-culture literary production. Though the number of manuscript submissions by women novelists remained steady throughout the century, the percentage of published novels by women decreased by the end of the century, as the novel was redefined as a high-culture—and therefore masculine— literary genre, they argue.140

This focus on authorship (and, as earlier cited sources indicate, readership) reflects the place of prominence the woman author and reader occupied in the Victorian cultural imagination, particularly in comparison to the obscurity of the woman publisher. However, it is possible to explore representations of women in Victorian publishing through the figure of the woman editor. As Palmer observes, several well-known Victorian women novelists and journalists would simultaneously take on editorships—a more profitable and prestigious role.141 She points to authors Braddon, Wood, and Marryat, as well as activists Bessie Raynor Parkes, Jessie Boucherette and Emily Faithfull, as women who were acting editors of magazines throughout the century. Additional examples of women editors are identified in Patten and Finkelstein’s article on editorship and Blackwood’s magazines, including the Countess of Blessington, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Mary Howitt, Anna Maria Hall, Rachel Beer, and Isabella Beeton.142 The professional lives of some of these women have been the subject of scholarship. Hughes’s biography of Beeton, for example, provides an in-depth look at the lives of one of the period’s most well-known women editors. She shows how Beeton was not only instrumental in

139 Peterson, Becoming a Woman of Letters, 4. 140 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 55-59. 141 Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 5. 142 Patten and Finkelstein, “Editing Blackwoods,” 156-158. 43

shaping the content of the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine, but also its business practices. According to Hughes, it was Beeton who introduced the advertorial into the pages of the magazine and the Book of Household Management, beginning with a four-page spread on the Leamington Kitchener (a closed-top range) which included the address of the proprietors and text taken from their catalogue.143

Despite the growing number of women editors during this period, however, editorial work, and editorship, was defined as masculine. In part, this is because men occupied most editorial posts. According to Beetham, while the expansion of the periodical press offered “new ways of writing and reading gendered identity in the 1880s and 1890s … economic and editorial power was still retained almost entirely by metropolitan, middle-class men”; in fact, many magazines that purported to be edited by women were edited by men who had taken on a feminized pseudonym.144 In this way, the opening of feminine spaces within the press ultimately benefitted more men than women. By taking on a feminine identity, men editors were not only able to enrich themselves financially, but also maintain hegemony over the press in terms of labour and the ability to define gender and sexuality. In addition, editorial work itself was understood as masculine. As Palmer explains, “articles in the press of the mid- to late Victorian period see the ideal editor as performing a mixture of manly and gentlemanly virtues such as candour, foresight, firmness, ‘clubbability’, integrity, taste, and, if successful, wealth and prestige.”145 Examples from the nineteenth century press on the topic of editors illustrate this point. In an article on editorial responsibility in the London Review, the unnamed author argues that editorship requires a display of “gentlemanly and candid feelings … towards every one, and on every subject and occasion.”146 A similar article in Chambers’s Journal on the responsibilities of editors claims that it is a position of “power and influence.” Furthermore, the article notes that the office of the editor is “a most attractive one for young men in search of a career, especially if they be fairly educated, and believe they are imbued with the fire of

143 Kathryn Hughes, The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton (London: Fourth Estate, 2005), 150-151. 144 Beetham, A Magazine of Their Own, 129-130. 145 Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 5. 146 Charles Mackay, “Town and Table Talk,” London Review, July 7, 1860, quoted in Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 6. 44

genius.”147 The qualities that the article cites as being essential to becoming a successful editor—including experience of the world, good judgement, and political astuteness—were considered masculine traits. These articles demonstrate not only the assumption that all editors were men, but also that women were not capable of undertaking the same role. Most obviously, the articles contain gendered language which consistently identifies editors as gentlemen or men. Beyond this, the portrayal of editors as culturally influential and educated leaders—aligned with the ranks of kings and priests—who had the ability to shape public perception, ostensibly excludes women from their ranks. It is unsurprising that women’s editorial work would have been obscured in such a masculinized environment, and that as a result, discussions or depictions of Victorian women editors are rare.

One of the few examples of women editors represented within Victorian cultural material is the offstage character Mrs. Boston Wright from George Gissing’s satire of the late Victorian literary environment, New Grub Street.148 The short passage on Wright, who is introduced as a woman’s magazine editor, is telling. As a woman in a man’s profession, she is described by the main character Jasper Milvain as an adventurer and an outcast from the domestic space:

She… was born in Mauritius—no, Ceylon—I forget; some such place. Married a sailor at fifteen. Was shipwrecked somewhere, and only restored to life after terrific efforts;—her story leaves it all rather vague. Then she turns up as a newspaper correspondent at the Cape. Gave up that, and took to some kind of farming, I forget where. Married again (first husband lost in aforementioned shipwreck), this time a Baptist minister, and begun to devote herself to soup-kitchens in Liverpool. Husband burned to death, somewhere. She’s next discovered in the thick of literary society in London. A wonderful woman, I assure you. Must be nearly fifty, but she looks twenty-five.149

Although Jasper refers to Wright as a wonderful woman in this passage, it is unlikely she would be understood as such by Victorian society. Not quite a fallen woman, but far from an angel, she is devoid of almost all the qualities that were supposed to define ideal femininity. In both her

147 “Newspaper Editors and Their Work,” Chambers’s Journal, September 16, 1882, 585-587. 148 Like all other editors and publishers in the novel, Mrs. Wright never makes an appearance. Editors and publishers are spoken about, but never speak for themselves or are depicted engaging with the main characters, who are low- level authors and writers. I suggest this signifies that editors and publishers belong to a higher class of literary professional, who belong to a space that the writers in the novel aspire to and are controlled by, but ultimately cannot access. 149 George Gissing, New Grub Street, ed. John Goode (Oxford University Press, 1993), 164. 45

professional and private life—particularly regarding her husbands, who died under tragic and vague circumstances—Wright is unstable, unrefined, and unwomanly. This is presumably the price she has paid to become an independent, working woman.

It is possible that Wright is a caricature of a real person in the literary scene. In Katherine Mullin’s introduction to the novel, she notes that it is populated with a “cast of offstage characters” based on prominent people.150 For example, she argues that the characters Miss Wilkes, a sensation writer, and her husband and publisher Jedwood, who profits from his wife’s success, are a barely concealed “skit” of Braddon and John Maxwell. More likely, however, Wright is a composite of stereotypes surrounding the Victorian woman editor. Of the prominent women editors of the Victorian period, none were known first and foremost for their editorial work; instead, they were publicly portrayed and analyzed as authors. A feature article on Braddon published at the end of the nineteenth century, called “Miss Braddon at Home,” refers to her as “an object of [public] devotion … the author of fifty six books” who had never allowed her “special work as a novelist crowd out of her life her everyday work as a woman.”151 At no point in the article—which in addition to her writing career, explores Braddon’s home and her interests in reading, languages, history, and travel—is Braddon’s editorial work mentioned. Few papers in the Bentley archive explicitly connect Ellen Wood with the Argosy, the literary magazine she owned, edited and published through the firm.152 Even her son Charles’s twenty- page memorial to his mother, published shortly after her death in her own magazine, omits this aspect of her professional life.153 Instead, he chooses to focus on Wood’s writing process and her identity as a wife and mother. It is difficult to know whether this was the result of a concerted effort by the women themselves to create more sympathetic professional identities, or an omittance perpetrated by their peers and the public. Regardless, this aspect of their literary

150 Katherine Mullin, introduction to New Grub Street, by Gissing, xvii. 151 Mary Angela Dickens, “Miss Braddon at Home,” Windsor Magazine, June 1897, 415-418. 152 In a page that lists Temple Bar magazine contributors, there is a note naming Ellen Wood, and her son Charles, as the editors of the Argosy. See Document 197, Bentley Papers, MS46682, BL. The extensive body of letters between George and Richard Jr., and Ellen and Charles Wood, however, concern her work as an author. Presumably, the publishers and the Woods exchanged writes concerning the magazine. It is possible that this correspondence was deemed insignificant in archival appraisal processes. 153 Charles W. Wood, “Mrs. Henry Wood: In Memorium,” Argosy, May 1887, 334-353. 46

careers was arguably downplayed to preserve their feminine identities. As previously mentioned, editorship was understood as a masculine role. To associate with this aspect of the publishing business, then, could have further eroded these women’s claim to ideal femininity, already shaken by their visibility in the public sphere. Indeed, it is no coincidence that the cited articles on Braddon and Wood deal equally with their writing careers and their feminine identities. This reflects the need to demonstrate that despite being labouring beings, they were simultaneously domestic, motherly, and delicate.

Faithfull, who was the editor of the Victoria Magazine, was unusual in that her writing career did not eclipse her work in the publishing field. This is likely due to the nature of her writing. Her work, which mainly concerns women’s education and employment, reinforces her connection to the publishing world.154 An article that appeared in the English Woman’s Journal in 1861, titled “Women Compositors,” is typical of Faithfull’s writing. In the text, she acknowledges the “considerable controversy” over the establishment of the Victoria Press and its policy of hiring women compositors.155 Acknowledging the key points of opposition the press faced—namely, that women’s minds were not “mechanical” enough, and their bodies not strong enough, to engage in printing—Faithfull points to the success of the press to refute these points specifically, and argues for the importance of training women for employment more broadly: “either the female mind is mechanical, or printing does not require a mechanical mind—for that women can print there is no doubt; and I think everyone will accept as sufficient proof of this, the fact that the Transactions of this Association at Glasgow is among the volumes printed by the women compositors at the Victoria Press.”156 Furthermore, she points out that the successful

154 Started by Faithfull in 1860, the Victoria Press was intended to support women’s employment, and boasted an all-women compositor workforce. The Press also had a publishing arm and published the Victoria Magazine. As Maria Frawley observes, Faithfull’s directorship of the press and editorship of the magazine was used to support and promote women’s education and employment, often making use of the Victoria Press as an example. Her publishing work gave her the necessary symbolic capital to be seen as an authority on the subject. See Maria Frawley, “The Editor as Advocate: Emily Faithfull and the Victoria Magazine,” Victorian Periodicals Review 31, no. 1 (1998): 87- 104. 155 Faithfull, “Women Compositors,” 37. 156 Ibid., 38-40. 47

employment of women showcased by the Press, and the growing need for women’s employment, demonstrated that fathers should be training their daughters for labour as they do their sons.

That this article exemplifies her body of work is reinforced by her obituaries. Following Faithfull’s death in 1895, a local paper in Norfolk acknowledged her eighteen-year editorship of the Victoria Magazine, in which she “strenuously set forth the claims of women to remunerative employment,” and noted that “articles from her pen” were “all devoted to the advancement and elevation of women.”157 A women’s newspaper published in the United States similarly stated that as an editor, Faithfull had “earnestly and eloquently pleaded the claims of women to remunerative employment.”158 As the preceding articles demonstrate, Faithfull was seen as both an advocate for women’s employment as well as a literary professional. For this reason, the body of cultural materials and scholarship on Faithfull’s life and work can be used to examine how the woman editor was, and is, portrayed.

It is worth noting that public perception of Faithfull was not shaped by her professional work alone. In 1864, she was embroiled in an infamous divorce case involving her long-time friend, Helen Codrington.159 Her association with the scandalous case, and Codrington herself, who was described by an article in the Saturday Review as “an adulteress,” “frivolous, fond of admiration, exigeante, a spoiled child, and familiarized with Italian manners,” called her own character into question.160 In this article on the divorce proceedings, the author noted that Faithfull’s judgement was proven to be poor by her choice in “retaining such very close intimacies with so exceptional a character as Mrs Codrington.” Furthermore, the author insinuates that Faithfull’s connection to the case harmed public perception of the Press, and indeed the female gender at large: “we may reasonably expect that the Victoria Press, and the many useful works which it will doubtless produce, will do something to restore that confidence

157 “Death of Miss Emily Faithfull,” Eastern Weekly Leader, June 8, 1895, 4. 158 “Emily Faithfull,” Woman’s Tribune, July 13, 1895, 107. 159 Faithfull was called as a witness in the case. She and her lawyer had entered into evidence a statement in which she claimed that Harry Codrington had attempted to rape her one night while staying at the Codrington home. However, she recanted this statement on the stand, explaining that she did not recall the incident herself, and it had been relayed to her by Helen Codrington. Faithfull’s friendship with the Codringtons, and her involvement in the case, is the subject of Emma Donoghue’s 2008 novel, The Sealed Letter. 160 “The Codrington Case,” Saturday Review, November 26, 1864, 467-468. [Capitalization in original removed.] 48

in the judgement and discretion of the sex … which at present can hardly be said to have been greatly enhanced by Miss Faithfull’s connexion … with the Codrington case.”

Emma Donoghue’s novel, The Sealed Letter, picks up on this thread. In the book, which is based on Faithfull’s involvement with the case, Faithfull’s friendships and working relationships with notable figures of the women’s movement falter due to her connection with the Codringtons. This is particularly true of the relationship between Faithfull and the reformer Emily Davies, a pioneer of the campaign for women’s access to higher education. At the beginning of the novel, Faithfull asks Davies to serve as the sole editor of the Victoria Magazine, while she performs the role of publisher. Although Davies accepts, she resigns this position by the end of the novel, after editing only one edition. In her final letter to Faithfull, Davies writes: “certain extraneous factors have, of course, played their part in my decision. We need not discuss them. … I mean no personal offence—will always have the highest respect for your work—and regret the necessities of the times.”161 In the aftermath of the trial, Faithfull describes herself as being cast “into the dark” by the women of the Langham Place Group.162 Revolutionary though they may have been, Davies and the other women reformers (as portrayed by Donoghue) could not have their cause associated with such scandal. This is hinted at by Davies’ letter which cites the “necessities of the times” as the reason she must relinquish the editor role.

Though the Codrington case associated Faithfull with scandal, however, it did not kill her career. As the previously quoted obituaries attest, she became a well-known—and seemingly well-respected—editor and women’s rights activist, as well as a fiction writer and lecturer. Yet Faithfull’s public image differed from that of her women peers. A notice in an American newspaper, announcing her lecture tour across the United States, hints at the fact that Faithfull’s reputation was not entirely angelic. Dio Lewis, Faithfull’s American agent, is quoted describing Faithfull as a “recognized leader… in certain industrial and social changes now in progress,”

161 Emma Donoghue, The Sealed Letter (London: Picador, 2012), 448-449. 162 Ibid., 451. According to the Author’s Notes, Donoghue is basing the reaction of the Langham Place Group on a note by Emily Davies in the 1864 Family Chronicle, in which she summarizes the Codrington crisis “as discreetly as possible: Miss Faithfull was obliged, owing to some references to her in reports of a Divorce case, to withdraw for a time, from society, & I, & others, ceased to be associated with her.” Faithfull’s excommunication lasted only a few years, however. In 1869, the organization resumed inviting her to speak at their annual conferences. Ibid., 469-470. 49

who has “won her way from the bitter persecutions and ridicule of the newspapers and drawing- room to the confidence and admiration of all classes and the personal intimacy of the Queen.”163 Although the article does not specifically address the “bitter persecutions and ridicule” that Faithfull has been subjected to, the defense of her which follows offers clues. Noting that she is a “busy woman” who accomplishes a great deal of social, editorial, and publishing work, the unnamed journalist clarifies that “she always looks happy, never tired or bored, but argues gently from her platform, with a voice that is clear and decisive, but most soft and womanly.” This description of Faithfull indicates that her professional activities called her femininity into question. The insistence that she looks “happy” rather than “tired or bored” can be read as push- back against the belief that women were not physically or mentally strong enough to undertake work.164 Furthermore, the journalist insists that Faithfull remains “soft and womanly” despite flouting traditional gender roles by engaging in professional activities within the public sphere. The fact that she “argues… from her platform,” which encompasses both the platform of her magazine and the physical platform of her lectures, is justified by noting that while she does so as clearly and decisively as a man, she retains the gentleness inherent to her gender.

This article acts as an advertisement for Faithfull’s American lecture series, which characterizes the tour as an appropriate attraction for their women readers. As a result, it is unsurprising that the author, and those quoted, would portray her in a positive light. By contrast, a profile called “Miss Emily Faithfull and her Cigar” which appeared in Answers magazine, exemplifies the type of “ridicule” that the previous article sought to discredit. It conjures the image of a “startling” figure of “substantial physique, with a round, jovial face, smoking a large and fragrant cigar.”165 Though the cigar is excused as a remedy for Faithfull’s asthma, it simultaneously becomes her defining feature, which serves to reinforce her masculine nature. When considering this piece alongside the earlier quoted “Miss Braddon at Home,” Faithfull and Braddon emerge as foils despite their shared professional experience. Where Braddon is portrayed as a beacon of femininity whose professional and personal lives are encapsulated in the

163 “Miss Emily Faithfull,” Woman’s Journal, September 14, 1872, 290. 164 See p. 57 for more detail on biological justifications against women’s labour. 165 “Miss Emily Faithfull and her Cigar,” Answers, May 10, 1890, 377. 50

domestic space, Faithfull is described as tramping through the public sphere in a “pea-jacket” and a “somewhat masculine form of headgear.” Her busy career as the founder of the Victoria Press and an “energetic worker for women”—which supposedly earned her the nickname “the other Grand Old Man” and invests her with the characteristics of a “jolly sea captain”—can be contrasted with Braddon’s “quiet” and “uneventful” life as an author, wife, china collector and amateur gardener.166 Indeed, greater parallels can be drawn between Faithfull and the women editor who lived in Gissing’s imagination; like Mrs. Boston Wright, Faithfull is masculinized as a result of her work, independence, and lack of a traditional home life. That both women are associated with the sea—Wright through marriage to a sailor and a shipwreck, and Faithfull being compared to a “jolly sea captain”—is an indication that they were seen as boyish adventurers.167 The Answers article demonstrates that Faithfull’s gender identity is shaped by her career. While she is portrayed as a masculine throughout her professional life, she is described as feminine in her retirement. Once she settled into a home in Manchester and was not “seen in society” as frequently, the only masculine thing remaining about Faithfull was her cigar, the author writes.168

The few contemporary popular and scholarly sources on Faithfull’s life and work similarly locate her outside the boundaries of her own gender. In the opening of Donoghue’s novel, Faithfull is seen trudging through London alone in a simple brown dress.169 There is an immediate comparison to be made between her and Helen Codrington, who is described as a womanly figure with “sharp cheekbones,” a “chignon,” an “acid lemon dress,” “white lace gloves” and a parasol.170 Whereas Codrington is shopping with a man escort, Faithfull is on a business errand, and she is defined by her professional identity; Codrington’s companion immediately recognizes Faithfull as “The Miss Faithfull … Printer and Publisher to the

166 Ibid.; Dickens, “Miss Braddon at Home,” 415. 167 Naval stories, and particularly pirates, were associated with boyhood and adventure in the Victorian period, and characters who inhabited this world were seen as being outside of the laws of morality, Christianity, and “Englishness.” See Bradley Deane, “Imperial Boyhood: Piracy and the Play Ethic,” Victorian Studies 53, no. 4 (2011): 689-714. 168 “Miss Emily Faithful,” 377. 169 Donoghue, Sealed Letter, 6. 170 Ibid., 5-8. 51

Queen.”171 Furthermore, when Codrington herself attempts to define her former friend according to feminine norms by calling her a “philanthropist,” which was an acceptable pursuit for Victorian women, Faithfull corrects her. Resisting the desire to “take her by the lemon-lace- edged shoulders and shake her like a doll,” she tells her friend that she prefers the title “woman of business.”172 This encounter sets the tone for the rest of the novel. Faithfull is eminently practical and motivated by her work, while Codrington is painted as a silly, overemotional character, whose primary interest is her social status and lifestyle.

This is the Faithfull who is profiled in James S. Stone’s Emily Faithfull and Maria Frawley’s article, “The Editor as Advocate.” Reflecting the aim of women’s history to restore women to the historical narrative, Stone’s biography makes a small attempt to account for Faithfull’s personal life, but ultimately concludes that she is better defined by the “ideas, commitments, and experiences underlying her public achievements.”173 Frawley similarly sets aside Faithfull’s private life to focus on the “remarkable career woman,” arguing that this approach is guided by Faithfull’s own disinterest in “ideological conflicts posed by a domestic ideal,” instead believing that any conflict between the sexes could be sorted out in the workplace.174 Notably, these twentieth-century representations of Faithfull as a woman of business who eschewed the private sphere for a career in the public eye matches nineteenth- century accounts. The difference between these two groups of sources, then, is not how Faithfull is portrayed, but how her identity is positioned. While nineteenth-century sources represent her non-adherence to traditional roles as silly at best and problematic at worst, twentieth-century works describe her as a noteworthy professional, and a hero in the fight for women’s rights. Ultimately, whether she is seen as an aberration or admirable, Faithfull is categorized as other—a designation that serves to reinforce the notion that a woman editor in the Victorian period was a rare creature indeed.

171 Ibid., 6. 172 Ibid., 8. 173 James S. Stone, Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights (Toronto: P.D. Meany, 1994), 202. According to Scott, a common approach to women’s history is to gather information about women and write their stories, thus giving value to “an experience that has been ignored.” This amounts to an attempt to fit a new historical subject (i.e. women) into recognized historical categories. Scott, Politics of History, 18-19. 174 Frawley, “Editor as Advocate,” 87. 52

The obscurity of Victorian women editors is mirrored in the lack of representation of women publishing workers during the same period. Of the seven women publisher’s readers employed at Bentley and Son throughout the nineteenth century, only Jewsbury is the subject of a comprehensive body of cultural material and scholarship. An analysis of these sources serves as an important case study of how the woman publishing worker has been portrayed. Although Jewsbury was a prolific writer, critic and publishers’ reader in her own time, as well as a fixture of Victorian London’s literary social scene, she is nonetheless an unlikely historical figure. In fact, beyond the short passage dedicated to Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers in Gettmann’s house history, none of her women peers have been the subject of articles, essays, or major historical studies. A letter written by her colleague Adeline Sergeant to their shared employer George nine years after Jewsbury’s death shows that Jewsbury was similarly headed for obscurity. Responding to George’s suggestion of publishing a book called Miss Jewsbury’s Life, Sergeant pronounces the project ill-advised, explaining: “few persons, I am sorry to say, remember her work and know anything of the place which she filled in the literary world … Although this is perhaps just the reason why some memorial of her should be set up, it will also be an obstacle to the success of the book.”175 While Jewsbury’s “friends must desire some record of her,” Sergeant admits, she did not believe that “a recording of [Jewsbury’s] life will possess sufficient general interest to secure a circle of readers.”

To Sergeant’s point, Jewsbury’s presence in the nineteenth-century press is scarce, and largely limited to reviews of her books. An obituary published in 1880 remembers Jewsbury as a one-time literary celebrity, whose relevance was past by the time of her death.176 In the midcentury, when her “books were in every circulating library, Geraldine Jewsbury had a place in the foremost rank of writers of prose fiction,” the article reads. “But so many years have passed since her books were novelties, and she spent so long a period in seclusion… that the recent announcements of her death arrested the attention of comparatively few readers.” That this was published in the Athenaeum is significant; Jewsbury was one of the magazine’s most prolific

175 Adeline Sergeant to George Bentley, January 26, 1889, Correspondence, UIUC. 176 “Geraldine Jewsbury,” Athenaeum, October 2, 1880, 434. 53

reviewers, contributing approximately 2,300 reviews from 1849 to 1880.177 By categorizing Jewsbury as irrelevant and inactive despite their familiarity with her work, then, the magazine denies her labour. Indeed, the obituary goes so far as to claim that Jewsbury’s dreams of becoming a journalist were never realized due to her “delicate and highly nervous constitution.” One of the only public indications that Jewsbury’s literary labour went beyond authorial is the preface of Sydney Morgan’s autobiography. Gesturing towards Jewsbury’s editorial assistance, Morgan recognizes the “services” she “derived from the younger energies and clairvoyance of Miss Geraldine Jewsbury, already known to the public by her own charming works.”178

The obstacle that Sergeant identifies to the preservation of Jewsbury’s history—lack of public interest and perceived value, as opposed to a lack of contribution—has frequently been cited as the cause of women’s absence from the historical narrative. Patriarchal ideologies and structures have relegated women to the domestic space, while simultaneously rendering this space politically and historically insignificant.179 Furthermore, the women who did operate within the public sphere—as was the case with Jewsbury—were often ignored or cast aside as an aberration of their gender.180 Ultimately, George chose to heed Sergeant’s warning about the biography’s lack of marketability, and decided against publication. Four years later, there was a second failed attempt by the firm to memorialize Jewsbury’s work. In their correspondence, Richard Jr. and Mayer discussed including Jewsbury in the third volume of Women of Letters.181 Although Richard Jr. and Mayer were both in favour of the idea, a third volume was never developed or published.182

It was Jewsbury’s connection with a different literary family that earned her a place in literary history. As a young writer, Jewsbury reached out to historian Thomas Carlyle for career

177 Monica Correa Fryckstedt, “Geraldine Jewsbury’s Athenaeum Reviews: A Mirror of Mid-Victorian Attitudes to Fiction,” Victorian Periodicals Review 23, no. 1 (1990): 13. 178 Sydney Morgan, Passages from my Autobiography (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1859), 8. 179 See Morgan, “Introduction.” 180 See Dolores Barracano Schmidt and Earl Robert Schmidt, “The Invisible Woman: The Historian as Professional Magician,” in Liberating Women’s History, 42-54. 181 Gertrude Mayer to Richard Bentley Jr., November 4, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 182 See Ch. 3 for a more in-depth discussion on the development and publication of Women of Letters. 54

advice, who in turn invited Jewsbury to his London home. From that point onwards, Jewsbury developed a close friendship with Thomas’ wife Jane, which lasted until Jane’s death in 1866. The two were in frequent communication, sending hundreds of letters over the course of their twenty-six-year friendship. It is likely that a growing interest in the literary couple’s personal life towards the end of the nineteenth century—as evidenced by the publication of several biographies and collections of their correspondence—influenced the publication of Selections from the Letters of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle in 1892, edited by Annie Elizabeth Nicholson Ireland. Jewsbury was the star of this exchange by necessity; Carlyle had asked Jewsbury to destroy her letters, which Jewsbury obligingly did after Carlyle’s death.183 Carlyle, however, had kept Jewsbury’s correspondence intact. As a stepping stone into her friend’s life, Jewsbury’s correspondence, and therefore Jewsbury herself, became relevant. Indeed, this relationship is the focus of several other works that will be discussed in this chapter.

It would be another 40 years from the publication of Selected Letters until Jewsbury was once again the subject of a written work. Publications were still sparse in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1932, Virginia Woolf included an essay entitled “Geraldine and Jane” in the second volume of The Common Reader, which chronicled the women’s friendship. Suzanne Howe published a biography of Jewsbury, called Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors two years later, which remains the only published biography of Jewsbury. A 1956 article examined the connection between Jewsbury and yet another well-known literary figure, feminist author George Sand. In the 1970s and 1980s, scholarly interest in Jewsbury’s life and work began to increase. This coincided with the advancement of women’s history and feminist literary criticism as academic fields. The seven journal articles and one PhD dissertation that can be traced to this period were part of the imperative to restore women to the historical narrative. Within literary criticism, this predominately manifested as an interest in recovering the histories of women writers, which is exemplified by titles such as Showalter’s A Literature of Their Own. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, three articles and one book were added to this body of work.

183 According to Ireland, Jewsbury burnt Carlyle’s letters to her after hearing of her friend’s death in 1866. There are a small number of letters from Carlyle to Jewsbury that remain, and they can be found in several collections of Carlyle’s letters, including Kenneth J. Fielding and David R. Sorensen, Jane Carlyle: Newly Selected Letters (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004). 55

Showcasing the theoretical shift from women’s history to gender history, these pieces of scholarship contextualize Jewsbury’s work, labour, and politics within Victorian gender ideologies and hierarchies of power. A historiographical analysis of these materials reveals as much about trends in gender ideology and feminist thought, historical practice, and literary and book-historical scholarship as it does about Jewsbury herself. The collection can be subdivided into three distinct groups: pre-1970s: Jewsbury as radical feminist; 1970s – 1980s: Jewsbury as unfeminist or anti-feminist; and 1990s – 2000s: Jewsbury as Victorian feminist and professional. In addition to being defined temporally, the works within each group characterize Jewsbury in similar ways, which is a reflection of their social, cultural, economic, political and historical contexts.

Although they span seven decades, the four works accounted for in the first category are drawn together by their representation of Jewsbury as a radical figure, whose subversion of gender norms signalled her disregard of social hierarchy, traditional values, and the literary establishment. Whether this was to be criticized or admired, however, depended on the author’s perspective. In the introduction to Selections, Ireland represents Jewsbury as professionally inferior by virtue of her gender, and her literary work as a threat to her femininity. “Intellectually she was a man, but the heart within her was as womanly as ever a daughter of Eve could boast,” writes Ireland, who notes that Jewsbury’s dearest ambition was to “move in the world of letters as a man, a good comrade, ‘one of the craft.’”184 According to Ireland, however, Jewsbury’s pursuit of this goal is ultimately destructive: “her slender frame, vibrating with every breeze that blew, was absolutely incapable of the drudgery demanded of a professional literary woman the moment she pretends to enter the lists on an equal footing with man,” Ireland writes. Here, Jewsbury is portrayed as being caught between two genders. Although her pursuance of a literary career means that she is intellectually masculine, her “womanly” heart ultimately prevents her from fully engaging in the “world of letters as a man.” Furthermore, Jewsbury has evidently failed on both gendered fronts. Ireland’s use of the word “pretends” indicates that Jewsbury was never fully on equal footing to her men colleagues, and her womanly body was reduced to frailty

184 Annie Elizabeth Nicholson Ireland, introduction to Selections from the Letters from Geraldine Endor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1892), vii-xii. 56

by the effort. This did not just apply to Jewsbury, Ireland notes, but to all women undertaking intellectual work. Writing on the differences between the genders more broadly, Ireland asserts that “a woman” is “an inferior animal” compared to the “superior being” of man, and that a woman “in mental labour of a higher order” is “liable to collapses, eclipses, failures of power, sad to behold, unfitting her for the steady strain of ever-recurring work, which to the average man is the very ‘breath of his nostrils’ and which holds him up.”185

Throughout the Victorian period, biological theories that supposedly proved women’s inferiority were common. Ireland’s assertion reflects one such belief—that women were incapable of physically enduring intellectual work. Edward Clarke, a Harvard-based medical doctor and famous proponent of the theory, argued that the female body cannot operate both the brain and the reproductive system simultaneously.186 When the “stream of vital and constructive force” is “turned steadily to the brain, and away from the ovaries and their accessories,” Clarke warned, a woman is liable to “divest herself of all her sex,” losing “her feminine attractions, and probably also her chief feminine functions,” specifically the ability to reproduce. In other words, women persisting in intellectual work were liable to lose the essential function that made them female. Smith observes that such scientific “proof” that intellectual work caused infertility painted “women’s mental work” as essentially “homicidal.” As a result, women who took up intellectual professions were often criticized as bad wives and mothers, and even “child murderers.”187

That Ireland’s portrait of Jewsbury as a frail creature did not outlast the century further suggests that it was engendered by a specifically Victorian gender ideology. Although she continued to be characterized an aberration of her gender, by the 1930s Jewsbury was described as firey, vibrant, and animalistic. Calling her a “small but authentic lion of the circulating library,” biographer Howe criticizes Jewsbury for publishing controversial novels which she

185 Ibid., xii-xiii. 186 Qtd. in Rosalind Rosenberg, Beyond Separate Spheres: Intellectual Roots of Modern Feminism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 10-11. 187 Bonnie G. Smith, The Gender of History: Men, Women and Historical Practice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 164. 57

described as a large “disturbance in the quiet lives of the reading public.”188 This blunder, as Howe understands it, demonstrates Jewsbury’s unnaturalness; it is not only proof of her “masculine spirit,” but causes Howe to suspect that Jewsbury is either a “pantheist” or an unscrupulous being who does “mischief wantonly.”189 One aspect of this mischief was Jewsbury’s interest in women’s rights, specifically in regards to marriage. Howe notes that Jewsbury would “fly into a royal rage” when her friend, Thomas Carlyle, expressed his belief in the naturalness of marriage for a woman.190 However, Howe speculates that Jewsbury’s distaste for marriage was less the result of her political beliefs, and more a function of the fact that Jewsbury had been unable to find a husband herself.

That Howe’s biography portrays Jewsbury as an erratic personality whose work makes her an aberration of womanhood is reinforced by a review of the work that appeared in the London Mercury. The title of the review, “A Tigress in Chelsea,” is indicative of the author’s characterization of Jewsbury as a wild animal. H.E. Bates writes that “Geraldine Jewsbury prowled across the literary territory of her time, stalking the intellectual prey of the best Victorian drawing-rooms … writing impossible novels, dashing off impetuous and highly charged feminist articles, and feeding voraciously for no less than 30 years on a diet of contemporary novels.”191 Here, Bates describes Jewsbury as a threatening figure. Her presence within literary society is not earned or welcomed, but an act of trespass, characterized by her stalking her intellectual betters. Furthermore, it is Jewsbury’s choice of writing subject and reading material that makes her wild; the production of “feminist” articles and “impossible

188 Susanne Howe, Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1935), 71-78. The main example Howe refers to here is Jewsbury’s first novel Zoe, in which the main character attempts to escape her oppressive marriage by having an affair with a reverend. 189 Ibid., 78-79. According to Herbert Schlossberg, the doctrine of Pantheism in Victorian Britain was associated with a belief in the divinity of nature. Associated with scientist John Tyndall and philosopher James Ward, as well as Victorian Romanticism and Mysticism more broadly, the doctrine was largely rejected by the church, and seen as a rejection of the traditional view of God. In fact, Schlossberg categorizes it as an alternative to Christianity. In describing Jewsbury as a Pantheist, then, Howe is signalling that Jewsbury was outside of the Christian tradition and values, which were essential to the construction of ideal femininity. See Herbert Schlossberg, Conflict and Crisis in the Religious Life of Late Victorian England (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2009), 269-270. 190 Ibid., 105. 191 H.E. Bates, “A Tigress in Chelsea,” London Mercury, August 1935, 400-401. 58

novels,” and reading of “contemporary novels,” is enough to prove that Jewsbury is transgressive and unrefined. She no more belongs in literary society than a tiger in a drawing room.

While “feminist” is among the accusations lobbied at Jewsbury by Howe, and by extension, Bates, the charge is more central in Victor E.A. Bowley’s short article on Jewsbury’s association with Sand, and Virginia Woolf’s essay on the relationship between Jewsbury and Jane Carlyle. By connecting Jewsbury to Sand, who was known as a radical feminist, Bowley places Jewsbury in the same category.192 According to Bowley, Jewsbury—who he describes as a talented woman with a “difficult temperament”—idealized Sand, who shared her views on “love, marriage and religion.” 193 In fact, Bowley notes, Jewsbury regarded herself as a proponent of “George Sandism” when it came to marriage. Although Bowley does not elaborate on the details of these shared views, the implication is that Jewsbury, like Sand, subverted gender roles in both belief and behaviour. Indeed, there is ample evidence to suggest that Jewsbury did admire Sand and share her social and political views. A letter that Bowley publishes in his article, from Jewsbury to Sand, shows that Jewsbury was “anxious” to know what Sand thought of her novel Zoe. Additionally, letters between Jewsbury and Carlyle contain admiring references to Sand. The two women employ the term “George Sandism” to describe an ideology of women’s independence and progressive thought.194 Whereas Bowley understands Jewsbury’s feminist identity as a negative, however—as indicated by his characterization of Jewsbury as a difficult and dangerous woman who had overly passionate relationships with her women friends—Woolf praises Jewsbury’s unconventionality.195 According to Woolf, the effervescent and “daring” Jewsbury was a “mass of emotion and sensibility … a clever, witty woman who

192 As Margaret Morlier summarizes, George Sand was a French author, whose “early novels challenged the convention of marriage by showing women who sought passion.” She was also known for leaving her own marriage, having a succession of lovers, wearing men’s clothing (e.g. trousers and a top-hat), and smoking a cigar in public. Margaret Morlier, “The Hero and the Sage: Elizabeth Barrett’s Sonnets ‘To George Sand’ in Victorian Context,” Victorian Poetry 41, no. 3 (2003): 332. 193 Victor E.A. Bowley, “George Sand and Geraldine Jewsbury: An Unpublished Letter,” Revue de Littérature Comparée 30 (1956): 397. 194 Ibid., 397-398; See Fielding and Sorensen, Newly Selected Letters. The concept of “George Sandism” was not a singular one. For example, Thomas Carlyle used the same term in a derogatory manner, to describe women who he thought to be overly bold and unwomanly. See Linda M. Lewis, Germaine de Staël, George Sand, and the Victorian Woman Artist (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003), 17-18. 195 Bowley writes that Jewsbury and Jane Carlyle’s friendship exhibited “an unusually strong affection … a ˓˓ grande passion˒˒.” Ibid., 396. 59

thought for herself and hated what she called ‘respectability.’”196 In her writing, Woolf continues, Jewsbury courageously states her views on “love, morality, religion, and the relation of the sexes,” which included the futility of religion, and the importance of love over socially accepted perspectives of marriage, and the betterment of her “sex.”197

Certainly, how Jewsbury is portrayed in each of these works is partly a reflection of each author’s perspective. It is unsurprising, for example, that Woolf—known as a feminist writer in her own time—would portray Jewsbury’s progressive stance on marriage and women’s education and professionalization positively. Yet, these works are shaped by more than authorial bias. There are several commonalities among this grouping of pre-1970s sources that speak to their social and political contexts. Although I have drawn out reflections on Jewsbury’s identity as a professional where possible, this is not the focus of these works. Instead, her private life— including her friendships, her single status, and her lack of a permanent home—take center stage. Jewsbury’s work as an author (or “authoress,” as she is called in these sources) is explored primarily through her personal relationships with other notable literary figures. The obfuscation of her extensive publishing labour, specifically her reviewing, editorial, and reading work, ensures that her professional profile is limited. Additionally, Jewsbury’s political positions are contextualized by her personal experiences. Most frequently, her interest in women’s marital rights is read as a by-product of her failed romantic life. Indeed, the consistent use of the title “Miss” in reference to Jewsbury serves as a reminder of her single status and subjugates her professional identity to her private one.198

Sources that speak to the history of the feminist movement in the twentieth century provide some context for these representations of Jewsbury. First, it is worth noting that

196 Virginia Woolf, “Geraldine and Jane,” in The Second Common Reader (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960), 170. 197 Ibid., 176-177. 198 According to M.P. O’Driscoll, T. Nagel, and N.T. Feather, the preference for, and continued use of the traditional titles Miss and Mrs. are likely to reflect a belief in the maintenance of traditional gender roles for men and women, and that a woman’s marital status is important to understanding her present social role, as well as how to interact with her. In this way, the use of the title Miss can be seen as reductive. See M.P. O’Driscoll, T. Nagel and N.T. Feather, “Conservatism, Sex-Typing, and the Use of Titles: Miss, Mrs, or Ms?” European Journal of Social Psychology 9, no. 4 (1979): 420. 60

Jewsbury scholarship drops off in the periods of the World Wars. Ruth Adam observes that, politically and intellectually, the feminist project was put on a backburner during these times in deference to patriotic duty.199 A more direct connection can be drawn between the “feminisms” of the periods in which this scholarship appeared, and the nature of the work.200 According to Kent and Barbara Caine, the periods after the World Wars saw the emergence of a type of feminism which, like its Victorian antecedent, attempted to reconcile women’s social rights with their domestic duties. Kent argues that this stems from the imperative to return women to the home after the necessities of wartime had turned them into labourers.201 During the wars, women experienced new economic positions and freedom, she explains. However, this was perceived as a threat come peacetime, when there was suddenly anxiety about women stealing employment from the soldiers returning home. To encourage women to take up their traditional role once again, the feminism of the 1920s and 1930s stressed the needs of women as wives and mothers and glorified their domesticity. Similarly, Caine observes that the desire for stability after the Second World War caused women to revert to a more traditional model of femininity. 1950s feminism, she explains, perpetuated the notion that there were underlying differences between the sexes, and reinforced the importance of marriage, motherhood, and the pursuit of family life.202 Jewsbury scholarship from these periods arguably reflects the post-war feminisms that Kent and Caine describe. Defined by her social relationships rather than her professional accomplishments, Jewsbury is characterized as both defiant and pitiable because she does not fulfill the traditional feminine role. Woolf’s piece, which conversely celebrates Jewsbury’s participation in the literary sphere, is not only a rarity in this grouping, but also in its own time. As Caine notes, Woolf’s interest in women’s exclusion from, and participation in, “professional bodies, language and dress codes, and cultural institutions,” which celebrated and protected

199 Ruth Adam, A Woman’s Place: 1910-1975 (London: Persephone Books, 2000), 41-42. 200 Caine uses the term “feminisms” to denote the diversity in approaches towards and definitions of feminism. She argues that the idea of one unified “feminism” was eventually deemed “prescriptive and exclusionary.” The emergence of “plural ‘feminisms’” in the 1980s “reflected the increasing numbers of different groups of women who demanded a say in defining feminism and in articulating their own sense of oppression and their own needs.” Caine, English Feminism, 269. 201 Kent, Sex and Suffrage, 222-225. 202 Caine, English Feminism, 224-226. 61

“masculine values,” distinguished her from her predecessors and peers, who were more concerned with the oppression of women perpetrated by political and legal systems.203

Woolf’s admiration for Jewsbury as a revolutionary figure in a conservative literary environment not only makes her unique among her contemporaries, but also women’s history and literary scholars of the 1970s and 1980s. Throughout these two decades, Jewsbury was transformed within scholarship from a rebel into a conservative. On one hand, Jewsbury’s professional activities came into focus, and scholars were keen to analyze how she gained power in a masculinized field. J.M. Hartley’s 1979 article, for example, recognizes Jewsbury’s “struggle” in being simultaneously a woman and a writer.204 In working at all, he notes, she was forced to walk a thin line between the masculine public sphere and feminine private sphere, facing a unique set of “difficulties, conflicts and paradoxes entailed in being a woman novelist in the mid-nineteenth century” along the way. However, Hartley ultimately falls in line with other scholars of the period by categorizing Jewsbury as “unfeminist.” Although he admits that she was “outspoken and progressive within the framework of her early fiction,” and that her various roles within the publishing industry required that she overstep “conventional bounds further than a woman who only wrote novels,” he ultimately concludes that she was “adverse to women’s movements gaining momentum during her lifetime.”205 Jeanne Rosenmayer Fahnestock similarly posits that while Jewsbury was a progressive novelist, who used her writing to criticize Victorian gender roles and class structure, she was socially and politically conservative in her work as a publisher’s reader. According to Fahnestock, Jewsbury “had in general a conservative’s resistance to the changes that were taking place in fiction, associated with the sensation novel,” such as depictions of women’s sexuality and childbirth.206 This distinguished Jewsbury from the general female readership, which was increasingly open to new perspectives on gender and sexuality. She argues that Jewsbury’s judgement left Bentley and Son “in the rear

203 Ibid., 210. 204 J.M. Hartley, “Geraldine Jewsbury and the Problems of the Woman Novelist,” Women’s Studies International Quarterly 2, no. 2 (1979): 137-138. 205 Ibid., 140-141. 206 Jeanne Rosenmayer Fahnestock, “Geraldine Jewsbury: The Power of the Publisher’s Reader,” Nineteenth Century Fiction 28 (1973): 254-258. 62

of the changes taking place in fiction,” and shares her personal assumption that Jewsbury the publisher’s reader, reviewer, and critic would have rejected the progressive novels Jewsbury the author published in her youth. The article ends with Fahnestock accusing the older Jewsbury of hindering women authors and readers of later generations, even though she had benefited from her own brand of “George Sandism” in her early career. 207

The growing interest in Jewsbury as a historical figure, which this body of sources represents, is arguably a function of the emergence of women’s history as an academic discipline throughout the 1960s and 1970s. As Rose explains, women’s history was a product of second- wave feminism.208 Although historians of this period were not the first to write histories of women, they challenged the notion that history was about “the exercise and transmission of power in the realms of politics and economics, arenas in which the actors were men.” They worked to broaden the historical scope to “include arenas of life outside governments and political parties, particularly in people’s ‘private lives.’” This manifested in a large-scale recovery project, in which scholars sought to uncover “women’s lives in the past and bring them into the historical record.” While this certainly included the domestic lives of women, Rose notes, historians had a particular interest in bringing the lives and experiences of women acting in the public sphere (e.g. politics and the professions) to light, and extoling those who were able to overcome the control of men.209 In this context, Jewsbury’s influence in a masculinized professional sphere made her ripe for recovery. Indeed, the most unifying feature of Jewsbury scholarship from this period is that each work describes Jewsbury as woman who had pushed the boundaries of her gender and explores her power and prominence in the literary field.

This scholarship simultaneously exhibits the pitfalls of women’s history and feminist theory as identified by gender historians. First, Jewsbury is overwhelmingly considered as an exceptional, singular actor. Considered most frequently in isolation, or as a member of a marginalized group within the literary field, Jewsbury remains separate from the history of literary production more broadly. In this way, these sources exemplify what Sue Morgan calls

207 Ibid., 271. 208 Rose, What is Gender History?, 4-5. 209 Ibid., 10-11. 63

the “separatist approach to women’s history,” in which women’s stories are told within an already-established historical narrative. Ultimately, she argues, this approach reinforces the existence of a separate women’s sphere.210 Second, the rejection of Jewsbury as a feminist showcases the narrow definition of feminism espoused by second-wave theory. Caine observes that by rooting itself in the left-wing political movements of the 1960s, second-wave feminism largely disassociated itself from feminist ideology of the past: “Seeking to emphasize the novelty and the politically and sexually radical character of the Women’s Liberation movement, its spokeswomen have emphasized the discontinuities between it and prior feminist agitation, barely deigning to recognize the campaigns for legal reform, for equal pay, and for an end to discrimination in the workforce which had continued for decades.”211 Feminists of this period rejected past iterations of the movement due to incongruencies with their own, she adds.212 Victorian feminism in particular was seen as invalid because its aims did not fit precisely with those of the twentieth-century women’s liberation movement. As an example, she cites second- wave feminism’s dismissal of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women as an early feminist text, because Wollstonecraft pleads for women’s rights rather than calling upon women to claim it for themselves.

There were several reasons that second-wave era scholars resisted identifying Jewsbury as a feminist. Hartley claims, for example, that Jewsbury was “averse” to the “women’s movements” that gained momentum in her lifetime, specifically the fight for women’s suffrage. Indeed, Jewsbury was no suffragist; although she believed in equality between the sexes, she did not think that appealing to parliament for the vote was the right path. Instead, she suggested that women could earn their own equality by “solidary” amongst themselves and an increased presence in the workforce.213 However, suffrage was not the only, or even the most prominent, women’s rights cause during Jewsbury’s lifetime. Although second-wave feminism understood

210 Morgan, “Introduction,” 10. 211 Caine, English Feminism, 222. 212 Ibid., 256-262. 213 Susan Brown, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, eds., “Geraldine Jewsbury,” Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present (Cambridge University Press Online, 2006), http://orlando.cambridge.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/, December 22, 2018. 64

suffrage as the central women’s movement during the Victorian period, women’s education and employment, marital rights, and the repeal of the contagious diseases act were all important campaigns spearheaded by notable Victorian reformers. Jewsbury was particularly passionate about women’s education and ensuring that women had legally enshrined marital rights.214 Jewsbury’s letters and reader’s reports consistently reinforce her position on these causes. For example, she worked to convince the Bentleys to publish several works for women to advance their education and provide a more egalitarian view of marriage. Writing to George on a manuscript called Made in Heaven, she praised the book’s criticism of marriage as an economic arrangement, mothers who forced their daughters into marriages, and the social pressure for women to silently accept the poor behaviour of husbands, such as excessive drinking, gambling or cheating.215 Jewsbury’s political position on these issues shows that she not only agreed with, but actively supported, some of the major feminist causes of the period. Even Jewsbury’s position on labour as the path to equality was not uncommon within this circle. In an ongoing correspondence between Barbara Bodichon, a women’s rights activist and founding member of the Langham Place Circle, and Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States, the two women discussed the importance of women “work[ing] into freedom,” in other words, gaining employment to circumvent “the domination of sex—male opinion &c.”216

Fahnestock’s charge that Jewsbury was a traditionalist who hindered other women writers can similarly be connected to second-wave ideology. The claim largely rests on Jewsbury’s supposedly conservative attitude towards female sexuality. She uses Jewsbury’s dislike of sensation novelist Rhoda Broughton as an example, positioning the feud as one between a publisher’s reader past her prime, and a young author attempting to gain new ground for women writers. Indeed, Fahnestock attributes Jewsbury’s rejection of Broughton’s first novel, Not Wisely but Too Well, to Jewsbury’s objection to the “intensity” of the love affair

214 Ibid. Brown, Clements and Grundy note that Jewsbury was one of the signatories on a petition that went to parliament in 1856 which demanded the reform of laws pertaining to married women’s property. 215 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, July 27, 1873, MS 46655, Bentley Papers, British Library (BL). 216 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell to Barbara Bodichon, August 30, 1880s, Autograph Letter Collection: General Women’s Movement, The Women’s Library, London School of Economics (LSE). 65

contained within.217 An analysis of the initial reader’s report, however, suggests that Jewsbury did not object to the love affair, but the violence that characterizes it. In the report, she wrote: “it is nothing but a series of love scenes if love it can be called […] a ‘Titan’ ‘crushes and Kisses’ and ‘devours’ and ‘holds in iron grasp’ and with the little girl herself it is a case of animal magnetism.”218 The words that Jewsbury picks out of the novel—e.g. “crushes” and “devours”— demonstrate the aggressiveness of the relationship between the two main characters, which Jewsbury believes cannot denote love. More than disapproving of the blatant sexual energy in the novel, Jewsbury arguably objected to publishing yet another a novel which presented women with a diminutive and victimized portrait of themselves. Fahnestock’s possible misinterpretation of Jewsbury’s opposition to Broughton’s work represents a common disconnect between Victorian and second-wave feminisms. As Lucy Bland explains, sexual freedom was not defined in the same way in both periods; while the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s prioritized women’s control over their own sexual expression, which included access to birth control and abortion, feminists of the Victorian period attempted to eliminate the sexual double standard between men and women by applying the same moral standards to each sex.219 Rather than encouraging women to embrace their sexuality, Victorian feminists believed that men should exhibit self-control, which would allow women to move through the public space without threat from men predators.220 Although Jewsbury’s approach towards female sexuality does put her outside of second-wave ideology, her distaste for the passionate, violent behaviour exhibited in Broughton’s novel speaks to the desire to neutralize men as a sexual threat expressed by the Victorian women’s movement.

Such analysis is not intended to criticize the limits of women’s history and second-wave feminism, but to explore how these ideologies shaped scholarship. Indeed, Jewsbury scholarship shifted once again alongside the emergence and growth of gender history, which gained popularity as an alternative theoretical approach to women’s history throughout the late 1980s

217 Fahnestock, “Geraldine Jewsbury,” 271. 218 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, May 2, 1866, MS 46657, BL. 219 Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast: Feminism, Sex and Morality (London and New York: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2001), xiii, 189-197. 220 Ibid., 119-121. 66

and 1990s. Caine’s claim that feminists began to acknowledge a multitude of “feminisms” during this time is exemplified by Monica Correa Fryckstedt’s articles on Jewsbury that appeared throughout the 1980s.221 Although Fryckstedt’s work still shares fundamental tenants with scholarship from the decade before—including assessing Jewsbury through the lens of the second-wave movement—she demonstrates a growing awareness of the limitations of feminist theory espoused during this period, which ultimately leaves her conflicted. 222 On one hand, she praises Jewsbury’s support of women’s education, noting that Jewsbury’s belief that women should be encouraged to earn their living was in line with “our century’s women’s liberation movement.” However, she also she derides Jewsbury’s lack of support for the suffrage movement. Additionally, she interprets Jewsbury’s insistence that women would win freedom by educating themselves and “showing themselves capable of obtaining and holding it” to mean that Jewsbury blamed women for their own oppression.223 Though unable to proclaim Jewsbury a feminist by second-wave standards, Fryckstedt nonetheless acknowledges that Jewsbury was “outspoken and progressive” for a Victorian woman, and tentatively posits that as a “product of her age,” Jewsbury’s less progressive views were “a concession to pressures from a male- dominated society.”224 By the 1990s, the theoretical development from women’s history to gender history that Fryckstedt’s work gestures towards was more fully realized. As a distinct framework from women’s history, gender history is concerned with how gender—specifically, the social organization or construction of gender—has been defined and transformed across historical, social, and cultural contexts. This includes investigations into how gender ideology is created (i.e. ideology that assigns particular roles, characteristics, and qualities to each sex), how relationships between gendered beings are constructed, and how this shifts temporally and geographically.225 This reveals not only how gender ideology influences social, cultural, political and economic systems, but how gender is used as a tool of power and marginalization. Jewsbury scholarship of the 1990s and 2000s embodies this theoretical perspective by considering

221 See fn. 200 for an explanation of Caine’s use of the term “feminisms.” 222 Monica Correa Fryckstedt, “New Sources on Geraldine Jewsbury and the Woman Question,” Research Studies 51, no. 2 (1983): 59. 223 Ibid., 54-56. 224 Ibid., 52-59. 225 Rose, What is Gender History?, 2; Scott, Politics of History, 29-33. 67

Jewsbury as part of a literary and social landscape that was influenced by Victorian gender politics.

When taking her historical context into consideration, Jewsbury appears to be a liberal thinker. Increasingly, her novels have been acknowledged for their positive portrayal of women’s work—in the arts and otherwise—and for expressing a progressive stance on gender equality within marriage. This is understood as indicative of Jewsbury’s personal views. Indeed, the title of Karen M. Carney’s 1996 article, “The Publisher’s Reader as Feminist: The Career of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury,” signals a shift in how Jewsbury was being understood and portrayed. Unlike the articles written throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Carney’s article does not ask whether Jewsbury was a feminist; rather, it examines how she was a feminist within her own social and political context. According to Carney, Jewsbury was uniquely progressive in creating able women characters who benefitted from education and employment, as well as freedom from the bonds of matrimony.226 Delving into her work as a publisher’s reader, Carney defends Jewsbury against accusations that she was a “‘hack’ reader” who reinforced the patriarchal ideology espoused by men publishers, claiming instead that Jewsbury, who was a “strong believer in the power of fiction to shape and even change the world,” took care to select works that would be “beneficial to women readers like herself.”227 This meant that through literature, Jewsbury advocated for “better educational opportunities for women … women’s right to work and fair pay … [and] the reform of married women’s property laws.” Despite her lack of political engagement, Carney concludes, Jewsbury was both “forthright” and “feminist in principle.” Lewis C. Roberts’ defense of Jewsbury against second wave-era critics was even more explicit. Noting that Jewsbury had “commonly been dismissed as a guardian of ‘moral conventions’ and

226 Karen M. Carney, “The Publisher’s Reader as Feminist: The Career of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury,” Victorian Periodicals Review 29, no. 2 (1996): 147. In her first endnote, Carney acknowledges that the term “feminist” would have been out of place in Jewsbury’s own time. She explains, however, that she applies the term according to the following criteria: “(1) they recognize the validity of women's own interpretations of their lived experience and needs and acknowledge the values women claim publicly as their own (as distinct from an aesthetic ideal of womanhood invented by men) in assessing their status in society relative to men; (2) they exhibit consciousness of, discomfort as, or even anger over institutionalized injustice (or inequity) toward women as a group by men as a group in a given society; and (3) they advocate the elimination of that injustice by challenging through efforts to alter prevailing ideas and/or social institutions and practices, the coercive power, force, or authority that upholds male prerogatives in that particular culture." 227 Ibid., 146-148. 68

‘the hearth,’ concerned solely with upholding the Victorian’s ‘prudish standards of morality’,” he argues that a more in-depth exploration of her work, including her reader’s reports and other source material, reveals that “Jewsbury was not so much concerned with propriety as with the frivolous portrayal of women’s capabilities.”228

In allowing for the existence of multiple “feminisms,” and considering Jewsbury’s work and political position alongside her contemporaries, Carney and Roberts convincingly reposition Jewsbury as a feminist figure who took to the page to advocate for women and perpetuate Victorian feminist values. Beyond claiming the feminist title for Jewsbury, this period of scholarship also describes Jewsbury as a professional, labouring being. As previously noted, scholarship produced in the two preceding categories primarily focus on Jewsbury’s personal relationships and beliefs. When her work is discussed, she is described as a novelist, to the exclusion of her work as a critic and publisher’s reader. Norma Clarke’s Ambitious Heights: Writing, Friendship, Love—The Jewsbury Sisters, Felicia Hemans and Jane Welsh Carlyle acknowledges that Jewsbury’s friendships were simultaneously acts of social networking, which aided in her career overall.229 For example, Clarke demonstrates how Jewsbury’s sister, Maria Jane, introduced Jewsbury to key figures in the literary world, and how her famous friendship with Carlyle was also a working relationship, wherein Carlyle provided editorial support and used her connections to get Jewsbury’s novels published. Carney and Roberts’s work is further removed from Jewsbury’s personal world. Again, the titles themselves are indicative of the views within. In addition to naming Jewsbury a “feminist,” Carney identifies her primarily as a publisher’s reader, and indicates that the article will detail Jewsbury’s career. Throughout the article, Carney focuses almost exclusively on Jewsbury’s literary work, and when other figures are mentioned, Jewsbury is placed in the company of other Victorian literary professionals and feminists, including Cobbe.230 The title of Roberts’s article not only identifies Jewsbury as a professional, but calls attention to the productive labour that she engaged in, undertaken by her

228 Lewis C. Roberts, “‘The Production of a Female Hand”: Professional Writing and the Career of Geraldine Jewsbury,” Women’s Writing 12, no. 3 (2005): 409-410. 229 Norma Clarke, Ambitious Heights: Friendship, Writing, Love—The Jewsbury Sisters, Felicia Hemans and Jane Welsh Carlyle (London: Routledge, 1990), 12-13. 230 Carney, “Publisher’s Reader as Feminist,” 150. 69

“female hand.” He further describes Jewsbury as a literary “worker” who build her career on the production of “textual commodities.”231 Beyond reading Jewsbury’s approach to literature as feminist, Roberts argues that engaging in this type of professional work in the first place was a feminist act in the Victorian period. Without the social influence or income to “further her views on professional women,” she instead “found herself living out the realities of the professional woman writer,” he writes.232

This exploration of how Jewsbury has been represented as a gendered and labouring being illustrates Scott’s previously quoted argument that historical scholarship itself has a history, subject to its own social, cultural, political and historical influences. This analysis of Jewsbury scholarship, for example, speaks to the evolution from women’s history to gender history, the history of feminist thought, and how representations of women publishing workers within cultural sources and scholarship have shifted across time. Yet, the value of historiographical analysis goes beyond illuminating historical practice as it was. The process of deconstructing histories, in terms of both their content and production, presents an opportunity to rethink historical practice and develop new approaches. Indeed, gender historians often position gender history as a response to, or progeny of, women’s history. According to Rose, it was the recognition and examination of the pitfalls of women’s history, such as its tendency to universalize women’s experiences and to further isolate women from mainstream history through the creation of a separate but parallel historical narrative, that encouraged feminist scholars to rethink their approach.233 Gender was adopted as a category of historical analysis, she adds, to enable scholars to more effectively examine the social relationship between the sexes (i.e. how men and women, masculinity and femininity, exist in relation to one another), how gender ideology has influenced social, cultural, economic and political systems, and how gender has been used to justify and enact systemic marginalization.

Similarly, analyzing how the woman publishing worker has been constructed and represented in cultural materials and scholarship raises the question of how I will approach the

231 Roberts, “Production of a Female Hand,” 399. 232 Ibid., 408. 233 Rose, What is Gender History?, 11-14. 70

same task—and, by extension, whether this question is the right one to ask. Written through the lens of the woman publishing worker, this history could fall prey to the pitfalls of women’s history detailed above. Namely, that the history of Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers would be told in isolation, existing in parallel to a historical narrative of a publishing house, and a broader industry, dominated by men actors. This is not as simple to circumvent as the straightforward definitions of gender history, provided by scholars such as Scott and Rose, imply. For example, the works of gender history included in the survey of Jewsbury scholarship, such as Carney and Roberts’s respective articles, are arguably positioned from within what Rose refers to as a distinct “woman’s culture” or private woman’s sphere.234 Although they successfully contextualize Jewsbury within an environment shaped by Victorian gender ideology, and convincingly demonstrate that Jewsbury’s views should be considered feminist within her own time, they also do not compare or contrast Jewsbury’s experience or beliefs to those of her men peers. Ultimately, this fails to create the gender-inclusive framework that Scott envisions as the work of gender history.

In this dissertation, I take an alternative approach by using the publishing house itself, rather than the women publisher’s readers individually, as a site of inquiry. This allows for the investigation of how gender ideology impacted the publishing ecosystem of Bentley and Son, including its process of literary production, publishing policy and practice, labour, print culture, and print objects. This is not intended to decentralize the women publisher’s readers. Certainly, it is essential to investigate what roles women employees filled within the publishing house, how they approached their work, and how they conceived of themselves as literary professionals. However, my intention is to contextualize this analysis within the publishing environment of the firm, while broadening my scope to areas such as: the gendering (i.e. masculinization and feminization) of print materials and print production; the impact of shifts in the demographics of authors and readers (i.e. the power of the growing female market for print, and the increase in women authors) on the gendering of the firm; and the influence of gender ideology on the organization of the firm (i.e. the formation of departments), the division of labour, and professional communications. Furthermore, a systemic approach allows me to effectively

234 Ibid., 7. 71

position Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers and their work within the firm as a microcosm of the feminization of the industry. This contributes to the development of gender- inclusive publishing history which accounts for the major shift in the gendering of the industry.235 Thinking systemically necessitates the refinement of the methodological question posed previously—that is, how the woman publishing worker should be constructed and represented. Instead, the question becomes how to construct and represent and the publishing ecosystem in which the woman publishing worker functioned, how to make her labour within this system visible, and how she shaped, and was shaped by it.

An essential point that is not expressly conveyed by this question, or indeed by the definition of gender history itself, is that the system under investigation is not a fixed one. The goal of examining how gender ideology impacts a given system implies that that stable conclusions can be reached. However, it is important to note that the systems under investigation here, as well as the ideologies that affect them, are perpetually in flux. The gender history of Bentley and Son is itself constantly evolving. While gender ideology consistently shaped the environment at Bentley and Son, it is arguably the challenges and alterations to notions of gender, posed by both outside sources as well as the women publisher’s readers, that had the most impact. Chapters four and five, for example, will demonstrate how women publishing workers evolved the firm’s definition of women’s literature and approach towards women readers. The rise in gender-progressive and educational titles aimed at women audiences, as well as publications that promoted the work of women authors or celebrated women’s history, reflect the women publisher’s readers’ efforts to confront gender norms that were shaping the firm’s publishing practice. In addition, their engagement in professional activities itself posed a challenge to gender ideology, particularly the notion that women had no place in the commercial space. Indeed, chapter three demonstrates that their presence at the firm influenced the Bentleys’ conception of women professionals. Throughout the late nineteenth century, the women publisher’s readers were afforded new roles, for example in new product development and

235 See the introduction for a more detailed discussion of this gap in publishing history. 72

advertising, and increasingly entrusted with positions of power.236 Tracing how gender ideology constructed the publishing ecosystem at Bentley and Son, then, does not reveal a permanent structure, but instead a system that is defined by its instability. Analyzing these shifts in the firm’s publishing policies and practices is essential to understanding how gender ideology was enacted, and how the firm’s women employees worked as agents of change.

Although gender functions as the primary critical lens throughout this dissertation, gender history is intertwined with other theoretical frameworks. This is not a radical notion within the practice of gender history. Scott, for example, councils that the field of gender history can both strengthen, and be strengthened by, interconnection with a variety of theoretical perspectives, including labour history, social history, and post-structuralism.237 Considering this dissertation takes book-objects and texts, print culture, and the social, economic, cultural, political circumstances of literary production, as a focal point, the book-historical perspective is foundational. 238 Crucially, book history offers methods to explore how print—in content and container—both shapes, and is shaped by, the environment in which it is produced. This dissertation draws on Darnton’s theory of the communications circuit, which is intended to demonstrate how “books come into being and spread throughout society.”239 The model looks at the cycle of literary production from a social historical perspective, tracing how the interactions between agents within the circuit (e.g. authors, publishers, printers, distributors and readers) converge with social, economic, political and intellectual conditions to shape the lifecycle of the book. As a method of conceptualizing and analyzing how the book-object and print function within “circuits of communication that operate in consistent patterns,” this circuit has been frequently used within book history scholarship to explore how print interacts with, and circulates within, the social environment.240 Here, Darnton’s circuit will serve as a framework

236 Of note was Jewsbury’s expanded roles in editing and marketing titles, and Mayer’s appointment to a permanent position within the manuscript department. See Ch. 3, pp. 119-132. 237 Scott, Politics of History, 3-5. 238 The term “book-object” is taken from Leah Price, who uses this term to distinguish physical containers from its intellectual content. Like many book historians, she has a broad definition of the word book, which can be applied to a variety of manuscript, print, and digital objects. See Price, Things with Books, 32. 239 Darnton, “History of Books,” 176. 240 Ibid., 206. 73

from which to analyze the process of literary production, distribution and circulation in the Victorian literary environment. Chapter two will make use of Darnton’s circuit to explore the publishing ecosystem of Bentley and Son, as well as the firm’s relationship to the larger industry.

Simultaneously, the use of Darnton’s circuit in conjunction with gender history will allow for alterations to the original model, which does not currently account for gender ideology and women’s labour. This process of revising Darnton’s circuit is as engrained in book history scholarship as the model itself. Since its publication, the model has been analyzed, criticized, queried, revised and remade by various scholars to convey alternative perspectives on the communications circuit. Padmini Ray Murray and Claire Squires, for example, rework Darnton’s original model to account for print and digital publishing circuits in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.241 Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker revise the model to make the book-object itself the central actor of the circuit.242 Such revisions do not render the original model a failure. Rather, they demonstrate the intention of the model, which was to serve as a beginning point for book historians from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds.243 The purpose of building these models, then, is not to arrive at one static and all-purpose version, but to give book historians a common language and platform from which they can discuss, debate, and expand upon the history of the book. The chapter that follows analyzes how Darnton’s original circuit fails to account for gender and offers a detailed discussion of how the circuit can be reimagined to make visible women’s labour and hierarchies of power, including gender and class.

241 Claire Squires and Padmini Ray Murray, “The Digital Publishing Communications Circuit,” Book 2.0 3, no. 1 (2013): 5-6. 242 Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker, “A New Model for the Study of the Book,” in A Potencie of Life: Books in Society, ed. Nicholas Barker (London: The British Library, 1993), 7-15. 243 In his own revisiting of the circuit, Darnton notes that the circuit was intended as a tool for book historians and should be adapted to their own purposes. See Robert Darnton, “‘What is the History of Books?’ Revisited,” Modern Intellectual History 4, no. 3 (November 2007): 495, 504-506. 74

Chapter 2 A Publisher’s Communications Circuit: Building an Industrialized Publishing Firm

Despite the growing contingent of women working within Bentley and Son throughout the nineteenth century, the firm appeared to exemplify a patriarchal dynasty. Publishing and printing had evidently been the pursuit of Bentley men since the eighteenth century. According to the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), Richard Sr. “grew up from the cradle among printers, publishers, and authors.”244 His father and maternal uncle co-owned and published the newspaper General Evening Post. He learned printing from his uncle and began a printing business with his brother Samuel in 1819. Richard Sr. transitioned into publishing in 1829, when he established his firm with Colburn. Three years later, he bought Colburn out and became the sole owner of the firm, which was afterwards called Richard Bentley and Son. Although George joined his father in the family business in the 1850s, Richard Sr. remained firmly at the helm until his death in 1871. In fact, despite Richard Sr.’s official retirement in 1867 following a railway accident, George still reported directly to his father. Members of the literary world were under the impression that Richard Sr. remained in control. A letter from George to his father in 1870 demonstrates George’s frustration on this point. He reported to his father that an author had refused to negotiate with him. Believing that Richard Sr. was “alone in the business,” the author in question assumed that any deal struck with the son would not be valid, George complained. He then demanded that his father contact the author directly to correct the supposition. A few decades later, the transition in leadership between George and his son, Richard Jr., was far less fraught. Richard Jr. started working at the firm in the 1870s, and by the 1880s, George was entrusting Richard Jr. with significant aspects of the firm’s business. This included: organizing the manuscripts department and the publisher’s readers; reading manuscripts and making publishing decisions; liaising with the firm’s employees and various trades; and building relationships and negotiating deals with authors.245 By the time George died in 1895, Richard Jr.

241 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Bentley, Richard (1794–1871),” accessed July 17, 2017, http://www.oxforddnb.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/view/article/2171. 245 See Ch. 3 for a more detailed discussion. 75 was comfortably installed as an authority figure within the firm, and he enacted a smooth transmission of leadership.

This male-centered origin story, however, does not reflect the true nature of the publishing house, particularly regarding labour. Although Bentley men served as the figureheads of the firm, archival evidence suggests that it was not only the family patriarchs who contributed towards the publishing process. Additionally, the change in leadership between Richard Sr. and George engendered not only a shift in publishing practice, but also in labour organization. Influenced by his desire to succeed in an increasingly commercial literary environment, George embraced a more formal, economically minded approach towards the publishing business. This is reflected in changes in the firm’s lists, which were formulated to meet the needs of the emerging mass market, the importance placed on marketing and sales, and the optimization of the workforce, which involved organizing labourers into well-defined departments and formalizing their positions and responsibilities. The development of these departments, and the roles of the employees within them, will be traced within this chapter. George’s industrialized approach towards the publishing business is enshrined within a hitherto unpublished document held within the UIUC archives, which is a graphical sketch of the publication process as envisioned by George himself.246 Added to the previously mentioned collection of models of the publishing circuit produced by scholars, the Bentley circuit uniquely provides insight into the process of print production as experienced by the nineteenth-century publisher. His division of the publishing process into stages of production and the departments that enabled them— including literary, construction, sales and financial, all circling around the firm’s cashier—is a valuable window into the functioning of the firm. Such an analysis of the organization of the firm not only provides insight into labour within the publishing house more broadly, but, when viewed through the lens of gender history, can be used to uncover women’s labour. This includes examples of unpaid and informal work, typically performed by women members of the Bentley family, and women professionals, whose entrenchment at the firm can be connected to the industrialization of the publishing process.

246 See Fig. 2.3. 76

Like many family businesses of the Victorian period, Bentley and Son did benefit from inconspicuous women’s labour. Leonore Davidoff explains that even though conceptually, separate spheres ideology regulated women to the home and men to the world of work, the family remained an economic unit.247 Studies of nineteenth-century business practices reveal that the key relationship was between father and son, she adds, but mothers and daughters were commonly working behind the scenes, supporting the lives and careers of their men relatives and contributing in various ways to the success of the family business. The wives and daughters of Richard Sr., George and Richard Jr. regularly fulfilled the more traditional role of hostess. Articles in the DNB and various primary sources reference invitations to events or more long- term stays at the family homes in London and Slough, issued or facilitated by the women of the Bentley family to authors, other publishers and business contacts, and employees.248 For example, in a letter from Jewsbury to George’s wife, Anne, Jewsbury thanks Anne for her kind invitation to dinner.249 Although Jewsbury had to decline the offer, noting she had firm business to attend to, she tells Anne that she “hopes some day before long to have the pleasure of seeing and knowing you,” and compliments Anne’s son Richard Jr. by saying that he “looks promising to be a worthy member of the House of Bentley and Son.” The role of arranging gatherings and facilitating personal and professional relationships was—and remains—undeniably significant. In a period where social and economic position and power were outwardly intertwined, the women of the Bentley family served the firm’s economic interests when they furthered their family’s social and cultural standing.

Further traces of the involvement of the women of the Bentley family exist throughout the publisher’s archive. Letters to Richard Sr. from his daughters Charlotte and Annie indicate that they were both interested in literary or intellectual pursuits of some kind. The only document authored by Charlotte and held in the archives contains copied passages from a poet’s published diaries which referenced the firm.250 Why these passages were copied, and why they were copied

247 Leonore Davidoff, Thicker Than Water: Siblings and Their Relations, 1780-1920 (Oxford University Press, 2012), 5-63. 248 See ODNB, “Bentley, Richard”; Bentley, After Business; Richard Bentley, “Diary V.1: 1859-1870,” MS 00007, UIUC. 249 Geraldine Jewsbury to Anne Bentley, June 10, 1873, MS 46655, BL. 250 Charlotte Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., undated, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 77

by Charlotte, is uncertain, as there is no further conversation to give this letter context. An entry in Richard Sr.’s diary does shed light on his daughter’s interest in scholarship. He bemoans that his “dear Charlotte still persists in her desire to go as a governess” and use her “faculties”—a goal that he describes as injurious to his “honourable pride.”251 This entry demonstrates that Charlotte shared an interest in the world of letters with her men relatives, even if she was not able to be employed within the publishing business. Annie’s sole letter, which concerns the editing of a small poem that was set to appear in Temple Bar, the firm’s literary magazine, is more self-explanatory.252 The language of the letter indicates that the poem is Annie’s own, which would mean that she was engaged in the common practice of an author revising their own work, rather than the editorial work of a literary labourer.

There are, however, pieces of evidence to suggest that Bentley women were involved in the workings of the firm. In 1888, feminist author Sarah Grand approached Richard Jr. about publishing her work.253 She was “naturally anxious” about finding a good publisher in London, she told him, and asked him to give his opinion on whether the title she proposed “really has the merit which the Athenaeum and Saturday Review claim for it.” In the same letter, Grand submitted a manuscript of a story intended for Temple Bar. This connection was fostered not by Richard Jr. himself, but by his mother. In the letter, Grand notes that it was Anne who encouraged her to think about publishing with Bentley and Son. In addition to networking, Anne did informal reading work. Writing to Richard Jr. on a manuscript, George indicated that he and his wife were reviewing manuscripts together. “Your mother and I have finished ‘The Silence.’ It has very strong interest which even outweighs the gross absurdity,” George reported. The introduction to the report, and the lack of singular pronouns throughout, make it likely that George was conveying his and his wife’s joint opinion on the title in question.254 Another

251 Richard Bentley Sr., February 1, 1859, “Diary V.1: 1859-1870,” MS 00007, UIUC. Richard’s reaction to Charlotte’s professional ambitions reflects stereotypes surrounding the figure of the governess during this period, who, writes Hughes, lived “on the edges of middle-class society.” While the governess represented the wealth of the family she served, in seeking work outside of the home, she simultaneously represented her own father’s inability to provide for the family. It is possible that Richard was not only concerned for his daughter, but also his own reputation. In taking a post as a governess, Charlotte would be signalling to society more broadly that the family lacked financial security. See Kathryn Hughes, The Victorian Governess (London: The Hambledon Press, 1993), 28. 252 Anne Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., November 9 (no year), Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 253 Sarah Grand to Richard Bentley Jr., October 16, 1888, Correspondence, UIUC. 254 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., January 15, 1887, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 78

intriguing piece of correspondence is a reader’s report on a German cookbook from well-known translator Natalia Macfarren addressed to a Miss Bentley.255 Since the report does not include Miss Bentley’s first name, or a year, it is difficult to speculate on which Miss Bentley Macfarren addressed. Indeed, as the previous discussion on the literary work of Richard Sr.’s daughters Charlotte and Annie suggests, there are several possibilities. Regardless, the nature of the document—which assesses the quality of translations from German and the potential interest in the recipes included—makes it clear that the Miss Bentley in question represented the firm. Presumably, it was Miss Bentley who engaged Macfarren for this labour, and was either responsible for, or had some influence over, the firm’s ultimate publication decision. It is possible this incident represents an exceptional circumstance. Miss Bentley’s involvement with the publication of a cookbook—a decidedly domestic genre—does not necessarily mean that she was involved in the firm more generally. However, this report speaks to the possibility that at least one woman member of the Bentley family was involved in the production of the firm’s cookery books, which represented a small, but consistent portion of the firm’s publications. It is important to note that there is no indication throughout the archives that a woman of the Bentley family was paid for labour or was employed as an editor or reader. Therefore, if any of the women family members did perform work for the firm, it was likely informal and unpaid.

While all family members influenced the social and economic unit, Davidoff explains, it was the “male figurehead” who had the power to make decisions for the whole.256 This was true of Bentley and Son. Regardless of the various personalities that contributed to the activities of the firm, its nature and identity was largely shaped by the patriarch in charge during any given period. Richard Sr., whose diaries reveal him to be a proud and highly strung man, was focused on establishing his firm as a cultural authority within the literary realm. Keen to associate himself and his business with the notable minds of the period, Richard Sr. entrenched himself in a social circle that included scholar Theodore Hook, cleric and novelist Barham, American

255 Natalia Macfarren to Miss Bentley, November 19 (no date), MS 46661, BL. According to Pierre Degott, Macfarren was largely known as a translator of German opera and was instrumental in making German opera accessible to the English public. See Pierre Degott, “Natalia Macfarren (1827-1916): a nineteenth-century translator/mediator for the operatic cause,” in Translators, Interpreters, Mediators: Women Writers 1700-1900, ed. Gillian Dow (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), 225-236. 256 Davidoff, Thicker Than Water, 16. 79

author James Fenimore Cooper, theologist Frederick Denison Maurice, and scores of other high- profile figures of the church, politics, scholarship and the literary realm.257 The firm undeniably gained cultural capital due to this strategy. According to the DNB, Bentley and Son became known for their quality, well-produced books throughout the 1830s and 1840s, and Richard Sr.’s parties were known for being events where the literary elite gathered.258 Furthermore, the firm was known for publishing Victorian classics such as Barham’s Ingoldsby Legends (1837) and Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), and working alongside literary celebrities, including Charles Dickens, who served as the editor of the firm’s literary magazine for a number of years.

Yet, the high literary reputation of the firm that Richard Sr. established did not guarantee financial success. Documents from the 1850s reveal that the firm was troubled. One letter from George to his father acknowledged that the firm was £30,000 in debt, and that they were low in stock.259 In another piece of correspondence, George asked Richard Sr. to reconsider a plan to take on a business partner to alleviate their financial troubles. Though it was a “great time of crisis for [their] business,” George wrote, he had decided on “mature reflection” that “a new partner should be avoided if possible, as it is impossible but that he would come in on conditions wrung from us and most favourable to him.”260 Although there were “worse things than a new partner,” George continued, he was ultimately concerned about maintaining control over the family business. On this matter, Richard Sr. appears to have taken George’s advice, as the firm remained under the sole ownership of the Bentley family. However, the father and son disagreed on many fronts, particularly concerning the firm’s publishing lists. On several occasions, George accused his father of focusing on literary classics rather than new works, which he felt would be harmful to their business: “I hope you will consider before you go into the reprints of non copyright novels,” he wrote to his father, expressing his belief that Richard Sr.’s judgement could throw the firm back into troubled times.261 “I should never again have the strength to go through the anxiety of labour of 1861 to 1866, six years that leave their trace. Moreover my

257 George Bentley, “On the Literary Associates of Richard Bentley,” Bentley, George PR, UIUC. 258 ODNB, “Bentley, Richard.” 259 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., September 13, 1855, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 260 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., August 14, 1855, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 261 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., February 11, 1870, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 80

reputation would be ruined as well as yours, if we ever went wrong again. … I believe our safety lies in the steady pursuance of the class of trade which is ours—new books.” This view is also expressed in an earlier letter, in which George counselled his father that “to be En rapport with the rising talent is not only good in itself for a man arrived at middle life, but is good for the business, perhaps, and congenial to one’s own love of literature.”262 These letters demonstrate George’s concern that if the firm did not keep up with the marketplace for fiction, they would become irrelevant.

The frustration that George exhibited regarding Richard Sr.’s priorities for the firm did not necessarily reflect his personal preferences. In the manuscript of an article he intended for Temple Bar, he wistfully refers to the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries as a period of “genuine literary character,” when only authors “who loved literature and art for their own sake” entered the field and “the middle class had not yet invaded the reading world.”263 Additionally, George’s own interests veered towards the more traditional genres of history and politics. The ideas for books and articles that George described in more personal letters, as well as manuscripts of articles he prepared for Temple Bar, showcase this partiality. Among the ideas he proposed were a biographical sketch of the journalist William Maginn, a book on Napoleon, and a work he titled The Architects of England’s Moral and Material Greatness.264 The UIUC archive contains several of George’s manuscripts for Temple Bar, which include a variety of poems on historical topics, biographies on notable political and literary figures, and more abstract subjects such as the use of the English language, and the practice of readership.265 However, these personal interests did not shape George’s publishing decisions on a large scale. Having weathered the financial difficulties his father’s leadership brought upon the firm, he pragmatically distinguished between his private interests and the business of the publishing house. Marketing and sales, he believed, was essential to the firm’s success. He warned his father that continuing to ignore this reality was to the firm’s peril: “you must not undervalue this department, for if anything happens to me, you will feel the pinch,” he wrote. “It is precisely

262 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., December 27, 1869, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 263 George Bentley, “William Godwin,” Bentley, George PR, UIUC. 264 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., April 17, 1858, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC; George Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., January 5, 1860, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 265 See Bentley, George MS, UIUC. 81

because you have never passed through all that detail that you are naturally prone to underestimate its importance. Properly done, it contains work for a man for every hour of the day.”266 This letter pinpoints the difference between Richard Sr. and George’s approach to publishing. To some extent, Bentley and Son was Richard Sr.’s vanity project, which existed to cement his own reputation. George, on the other hand, understood the production of literature as a business.

Consequently, George’s tenure as head of the firm, which truly began after the death of his father, represented a new era in terms of both editorial direction and operation. As the letters quoted above indicate, George was largely focused on publishing new, marketable content. This was characterized by the decline in more traditional literary genres, such as religious, scientific and classic literary titles, and a sharp increase in new fiction. A notice published in Temple Bar titled “Material Wanted for Publication” further underscores this change in direction. In the notice, George asked authors to cease submitting items that did not fit within the firm’s lists.267 As an example, he cited “theological papers,” which he believed “belonged elsewhere.” He also warned authors that Bentley and Son would reject Romantic-style “articles on folk love” and “sporting papers” detailing hunting expeditions, because the British people were no longer interested in such subjects. The firm did not reject all genres that once made up most of their list. Notably, George made no mention of historical, travel, political, or biographical subjects here, and in a document dated 1892 lists these genres as areas of publishing at Bentley and Son.268 However, another archival document detailing print runs shows how few of each of these titles was printed in comparison to the firm’s fiction offerings. A monthly report from the outlay department from 1877 notes that 5,000 copies was the standard print run for novels by best- selling authors and titles.269 The print run for novels by lesser-known authors is listed as 750, and historical or other non-fiction works as 100-500 copies. Furthermore, the report includes a “reductions list,” which names titles whose print runs were lessened. This list is mainly populated by historical and non-fiction titles, including a history of Scotland, a book about the

266 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., (no month or day) 1869, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 267 George Bentley, “Material Wanted for Publication,” Box 3, Richard Bentley and Son Papers, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). 268 “The standard novels,” 1892, Box 3, UCLA. 269 “Outlay Department Monthly Report,” April 3, 1877, Box 4, UCLA. 82

homes of British poets, and a history of the French Revolution. These sources provide a broad perspective of the firm’s publishing strategy and content under George. This shift, and its gendered implications, will be analyzed in greater depth in chapters four and five.

In addition to what the firm published, George also altered how Bentley and Son engaged in the practice of publishing. Alongside his son Richard Jr., George overhauled the organization of the firm, creating a formally structured company which reflected the industrial principles that guided the nineteenth-century economy.270 According to a list of account books from 1885, the firm was financially divided into five distinct departments: 271 • control o general management (agreements and permissions, letterbooks, telephone records, minute books) • financial o audit department (annual summary of accounts) o accountant’s department o cashier’s department (general cash book, banker’s book) • literary o manuscripts department • manufacturing o outlay department o advertising department o stock department • sales o town department o country department o foreign and colonial department o magazine sales department o advertising department (incoming)

The list contains few clues as to the development and history of these departments. A single passage provides an explanation for the expansion of the sales department in the 1860s, with specific reference to country sales. The establishment of the country sales department in 1863

270 Richard Jr. has often been left out of accounts of Bentley and Son’s history, and mainly discussed as the Bentley who readied the firm for sale in 1898, only three years after he inherited the house from his father. However, documents throughout the archives show that Richard Jr. and his father had a close personal and working relationship. The reorganization of the firm was a joint project between the two men. Indeed, Richard Jr. was essential in the management of the firm on a day to day basis, while his father worked from the family home in Slough. 271 “List of Account and Other Books in Present Use by R.B. and S. 1885,” General Management, UIUC. 83

was tied directly to technological developments that drove Britain’s industrialization. According to the document, the previous system of dealing with country sales, which relied on agents based in larger towns, “worked well in the coach and packet days,” but had to be reformed in light of new methods of communication and transportation.272 The sales department was adapted in order to “meet the requirements of an age accustomed to the daily communication of railways and telegraphs.” This passage gestures towards the fact that Bentley and Son embraced the commercial ethos of the nineteenth century, which prized the industrialization of technology as well as labour organization. This was not a unique feature of the firm. According to Raven, the nineteenth century marked a transition to a capitalist and corporate model of publishing and bookselling. The publishing houses that survived, he explains, embraced “a freer, more competitive, and expanding market, together with more efficient technologies and distributive systems,” as well as a “corporate model of division of labour.”273

Indeed, the publishing environment that Bentley and Son operated within was markedly different from that of the previous century. New technologies, changes in laws and taxation, and developments in infrastructures, transformed the commercial print trade, leading to increased production rates, cheaper manufacturing and retail costs, and greater distribution capabilities. Eighteenth-century print production was moderated by technological constraints, such as the manually operated press, and difficulties surrounding cost and financing, notes Raven. Paper remained an expensive capital outlay, and “the risks of high capital expenditure and storage cautioned against large editions.”274 However, new conditions in the nineteenth century allowed for the emergence of a modern literary industry. Until the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century, little had changed regarding technological processes. This state of equilibrium was shaken with the introduction of steam printing, which made long, high-speed print runs economically viable. This technology was used commercially for the first time in 1814, when the London newspaper the Times installed a steam-powered press. The adoption of steam printing was gradual. By midcentury, many books were still being printed by manual presses. But by the end of Victoria’s reign in 1901, most printed matter was produced by increasingly sophisticated

272 Ibid. 273 Raven, The Business of Books, 324-329. 274 Ibid., 304-308. 84

steam presses.275 Paper production simultaneously underwent radical technological change during this period. Early paper was made of a pulp of linen rags and laid by hand. In 1803, John Gamble successfully developed the first paper-making machine, and mechanized paper production was made commercially viable by 1807.276 Additionally, changes were made to the material composition of paper. In the second half of the century, linen was replaced by esparto grass and wood pulp, which was cheaper and more abundant. Inexpensively produced paper of printing quality was reliably available in Britain for the first time; in-country production rose from 2,500 tons in 1715 to 75,000 tons in 1851, and the cost of paper dropped throughout the century “almost as dramatically as digital storage has cheapened in our lifetime,” explains Price.277 Along with other notable technological developments, such as mechanized book binding, and the widespread use of stereotyping (producing a mould of a page of type for repeated use), these advancements in print and paper-making “transformed the technological base and productive capacity of publishing,” Raven remarks, dramatically increasing production rates and tempering costs.278 This also impacted labour organization within the industry, as publishing, bookselling and printing became more distinct commercial operations.279

Alongside these technological developments, changes in law and taxation were equally critical in engendering cheap, mass produced print. Book historians point to the verdict in the 1774 Donaldson vs. Becket case as significant in this regard, when publisher and bookseller Alexander Donaldson—who had made a career out of discounted book sales—defeated an injunction against his cheap reprint of James Tomson’s The Seasons, effectively destroying the bookseller association’s use of common law in order to sanction perpetual copyright. 280 This decision was further reinforced when the English Stock’s almanac monopoly was also declared illegal in 1775, argues Feather. Together, these cases marked the final destruction of the perpetual copyright system, which the print trade had depended on for more than a century. Once purchased from the author, titles were seen as the eternal property of the publisher, who could

275 Feather, British Publishing, 89-90. 276 Raven, Business of Books, 310. 277 Price, How to do Things with Books, 141. 278 Raven, Business of Books, 224. 279 Ibid., 328. 280 Ibid., 230-231. 85

rely on the profitability of their backlists. Though there had been a bustling trade in cheap reprints prior to these cases, the respective decisions enshrined in law, as well as perception, the modern idea of limited-term copyright. As Feather explains, this spurred an abundance of both cheap reprint series and new titles, and “in real terms, the price of books probably fell under the stimulus of competition.”281 Another court-based decision that changed the literary landscape was the dissolution of the so-called taxes on knowledge. Until the 1850s and 1860s, the Print Tax (charged per pound of paper) and the Stamp Tax (charged per copy of every publication) kept the prices of printed materials artificially high. In 1815, paper was taxed at 3d. per pound, and the Stamp Tax was set at 4d.; a 1d. newspaper, for example, would therefore be taxed at 400 percent.282 These taxes were considered a barrier to “the extensive circulation” of low-priced books, magazines and newspapers, claimed John Chapman in the Westminster Review, and had the biggest impact on the “poorer classes, who have not pounds nor even shillings, but only pence wherewithal to procure mental food.”283 Eventually, protests against these taxes, focusing on their negative effect on working class education, caused their repeal. The Paper Tax was dropped to 1.5d. in 1836 and abolished altogether in 1861; the Stamp Tax was reduced to 1d. in 1835 and lifted in 1855. Predictably, a printing boom followed. Indeed, Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge note that in the days immediately succeeding the abolition of the Paper Tax, printers were so productive that they ran out of type.284

From the middle of the century and into the early twentieth, the volume of publication quadrupled while the average price of printed material was cut in half. Publishers produced cheaper books in greater quantity than ever before. A plethora of cultural materials from the nineteenth century not only describe this rise in productive capacity, but also its impact on the literary environment. Gissing’s New Grub Street, a satire of literary production in the late 1800s, exemplifies the anxiety surrounding the mass production of cheap printed materials. New books are described within the novel as being “swamped in the flood of literature that pours forth week

281 Feather, British Publishing, 73. 282 Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge, “Introduction: Victorian Print Media and the Reading Public,” in The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Prose, 1832-1901, ed. Mary Elizabeth Leighton and Lisa Surridge (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012), 12-13. 283 John Chapman, “The Commerce of Literature,” Westminster Review, April 1852, 514-516. 284 Leighton and Surridge, “Victorian Print Media,” 13. 86

after week, and won’t have attention fixed long enough upon it to establish its repute. The struggle for existence among books is nowadays as severe as among men.”285 In particular, the novel examines literary production from the perspective of labourers. At work in the British Museum, writer Marian Yule, who describes her work as manufacturing and herself as a machine, is demonstrably alarmed by the nature of literary production: “and all these people about her, what aim had they save to make new books out of those already existing, that yet newer books might in turn be made out of theirs? This huge library, growing into unwieldiness, threatening to become a trackless desert of print—how intolerably it weighed upon the spirit.”286 Longing for release from her “ignoble” work, she dreams of the creation of a “literary machine” which could take “a given number of old books, and have them reduced, blended, modernized into a single one for to-day’s consumption.” Throughout the novel, Marian and her peers are under constant pressure to produce. This is not only to ensure their own survival, but to serve the needs of a seemingly insatiable market. Almost a character in its own right, the market looms over Gissing’s literary labourers, demanding an unending supply of “printed stuff” which controls their fate.287

The market for literature that Gissing describes gestures towards the exponential growth of the reading public throughout the nineteenth century. Indeed, the boost in productive capacity and affordability served, and was served by, an expanding market for print. Certainly, the increase in literary rates throughout the century was related to improvements in education. However, nationalized education alone cannot wholly explain the rise in literacy, reading audiences, and the demand for print. Universal education was not instituted until 1870 and did not become compulsory until 1880. Prior efforts to support the development of mass literacy included that of the protestant church, which preached that the ability to read the bible and other religious tracts was necessary for a personal relationship with God, and social reformers, who saw education within working-class communities as a solution to poverty and crime. Reading also became a popularized leisure activity for people of all classes throughout the century and

285 Gissing, New Grub Street, 456. 286 Ibid., 106-107. 287 Ibid. 87

was increasingly considered a basic skill that determined employability. In essence, the importance of print meant that being illiterate was not only a “social stigma,” but a “fundamental economic disadvantage,” says Feather, who observes that literacy and print production were intertwined: “the deeper penetration of print into society created a greater demand for literacy and for the education which precedes it; but a literate population creates further demand for printed matter.”288 New methods of mass distribution ensured that audiences had access to print. Changes to transportation infrastructure, including improved road conditions and expanded railway networks, provided publishers with the ability to access markets across the United Kingdom quickly and cheaply. The aforementioned alterations in Bentley and Son’s sales team and methods of distribution exemplify how publishers adapted to these new conditions. Additionally, the roads and railways became a new space for reading, says Price. While in transit, travellers looked to printed materials for entertainment. This led to the development of railway circulating libraries and networks of railway-based retailers, most famously W.H. Smith, which sold cheaply published material that could be read on-the-go. Beyond newspapers and magazines, this also included novels and other books which were built for portability rather than longevity.289 This not only solidified the market for cheap print, but also signalled print’s integration within the social environment. Increasingly visible in the public sphere, print now belonged anywhere its readers chose to take it.

Together, these developments engendered a true modern industry. In fact, the literary industry was not just one of the many that rose to prominence during this period but was seen as the model industry. This reflects the assumption that print represented perfect replicability, says Frances Robertson, which was considered the ultimate “industrial virtue.”290 However, these technological, legal, and political developments are only part of the history of publishing’s industrialization. Like other industries, publishers adopted new methods of organizing their workforce to make optimal use of these heightened production and distribution capabilities.

288 Feather, British Publishing, 86, 108-109. 289 Leah Price, “How to Lose Your Place in a Book” (lecture, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, October 23, 2014). 290 Frances Robertson, Print Culture: From Steam Press to Ebook (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 10-11. Book historians have widely contested the standardization and fixity of print; for a more in-depth discussion, see Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (University of Chicago Press, 1998). 88

According to Braverman, division of labour, which is defined as the “breakdown of the processes involved in the making of the product into manifold operations performed by different workers,” is one of the primary aspects of industrial organization. By “systematically subdivid[ing] the work of each productive specialty into limited operations,” every step in the labour process was simplified. This was done to increase productivity, he explains, which is the priority of industry.291 Although Braverman focuses on manual labour in his analysis, his insights are also applicable to industries built on mental labour and output. According to Ruth, it was in the nineteenth century that mental labour began to gain visibility as productive labour, and such work was “modeled upon routinized physical labour and, thus, subordinated to capital.”292 Indeed, publishing came to reflect the same principles of industrial organization that governed industries based on manufacturing. On a macroscale, large firms—such as Bentley and Son, Macmillan, and Longman—orchestrated the process of literary production, with writers, printers, binders, and other workers functioning as employees, whose job was to supply print product. Within the firms themselves, the publishing process was broken down into several distinct stages.

291 Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1974), 70-82. 292 Ruth, “Between Labor and Capital,” 299. 89

Darnton’s communications circuit, seen in figure 2.1, provides a framework for analyzing the cycle of literary production. As discussed in the previous chapter, this circuit is a valuable tool for investigating how Bentley and Son functioned within the publishing environment. Despite differences in the actors that function within the circuit—e.g. the existence of independent binders who worked directly with readers, and the types of shippers involved in circulation—the model provides a map for uncovering and analyzing the labour both within the firm and contracted from the outside that Bentley and Son relied upon to move through the processes of literary production, distribution, and circulation. Furthermore, by highlighting the ways in which publishing is subject to outside influences, it encourages the investigation of the house within its historical context. Significant to this dissertation, for example, is the way in which Victorian gender ideology, the rise of women’s readership, and the birth of the mass market caused Bentley and Son to grow their fiction lists.

Certainly, there are also gaps in his model that hinder its ability to provide a complete analysis of the firm. This is unsurprising given the model’s specific historical lens. Rather than dismissing the model altogether, however, these drawbacks provide an opportunity to rethink

Fig. 2.1. The Communications Circuit. Robert Darnton, “What is the History of Books,” in The Case for Books: Past, Present and Future (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), 182.

Fig. 2.2. The Whole Socio-Economic Conjecture. Thomas R. Adams and Nicolas Barker, “A New Model for the Study of the Book,” in A Potencie of Life: Books in Society (London: The British Library, 1993).

Darnton’s circuit, as demonstrated by the revised circuits mentioned in the previous chapter.293 Possibly the most well-known revision is by Adams and Barker, seen in figure 2.2. Although Adams and Barker agree with the need to account for the ways in which society and the book shape one another, they also have serious criticisms, in particular Darnton’s focus on social history rather than the materiality of the book. 294 Their version introduces several changes, including placing the cycle of book production within the social and economic environment, making the book itself the central actor of the circuit, and adding the category of the “survival” of the book as an object.295 These models constitute an ongoing visual conversation within book history as to the nature of print production, with each accounting for a different perspective of

293 See Ch. 1, p 74. 294 Adams and Barker, “A New Model,” 7-15. 295 Ibid., 15-33. 91

the circuit. There is a case to be made, supported by Darnton himself, that it is the act of modelling, and not the final product, that is significant. 296 Indeed, in his own critique of the original model, Darton explains that he never intended the model to “arrive at a bottom line,” which he recognizes as an impossibility in history, and embraces the ongoing discussion of the ways in which the model can be altered and improved, particularly in light of advances in book- historical scholarship.

The aforementioned Bentley circuit is a valuable addition to this collection. In communicating not only the various tasks that labourers undertook within Bentley and Son, but also how each stage of the publishing process functioned within, and related to, the whole, this circuit provides a view of industrialized publishing from the perspective of the publisher himself. As seen in figure 2.3, George identified four main stages, circulating counterclockwise around the firm’s cashier: literary, construction, sales and financial. Overall, this model communicates several key aspects of the publishing process, both within the firm and more broadly: first, it showcases how economic motivations drove the nineteenth-century publishing industry; second, it accounts for, and signifies the importance of, the preservation of publishing histories—not only of individual titles, but of publishing processes as well; and third, it enables the location and investigation of immaterial labour and labourers at all stages of the circuit.

296 Darnton, “Revisited,” 495-496. 92

Fig. 2.3. The Bentley Circuit, Document 2, General Management. Courtesy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, UIUC.

The most notable aspect of the Bentley circuit is the centrality of finances. The “Cashiers”—a term which, in accountancy, refers to those who are responsible for receiving and disbursing money within an organization—are placed at the heart of the circuit, which establishes economics as the foundation of the publishing process. This is a unique feature. Darton’s model includes “social and economic conjecture” as an influence over literary production, while Adams and Barker draw attention to the ways in which “the whole socioeconomic conjecture,” including “commercial pressures,” impact the environment in which the book circulates. The immediate connection that the Bentley circuit articulates between finances and publishing practice is not just uncommon within this type of model, but also within accounts of nineteenth-century publishing. Although it is taken for granted that the current publishing industry is ruled by marketing and sales, the nineteenth century is conversely romanticized as a

golden literary age, in which artistry was prized over saleability.297 However, this is not an accurate representation of Victorian publishing. Indeed, Victorian writers consistently criticized the commercially driven environment in which they operated and longed for the return of the literary artistry that they believed was prevalent in the previous century. In New Grub Street, the tension between artistic and commercial literary production is represented by the comparison between Jasper, a quintessential late Victorian man of letters, and Edwin Reardon, the suffering novelist whose dedication to his art is represented as an artefact of the literary past. Whereas Jasper understands that “literature nowadays is a trade,” and that writers are “men of business,” Edwin is described as “the old type of unpractical artist” who cannot, or will not, make concessions in his work, and therefore “can’t supply the market.”298 Ultimately, although Jasper acknowledges that he will “never … do anything of solid literary value,” his is a “path … of success” because he approaches his work as a dispassionate tradesman.299 Edwin, on the other hand, is too encumbered by his romantic notions of artistic literary creation, and his emotional attachment to his own work, to be productive. His “failure to look at things in a more practical way” leads to “breakdown and wretchedness.”300

The Bentley circuit corroborates Gissing’s portrait of a literary environment driven by commercial realities. Beyond the centrality of the firm’s cashiers, the sales and financial stages of the process occupy the greatest percentage of the circuit. The detail that George includes in the sales section of the circuit—naming each department under the umbrella of sales and indicating their relationship to one another—demonstrates that he considered the sales department fundamental to publishing practice. The various avenues for sales, which include not just locations (e.g. town, country, foreign and colonial) but also formats (e.g. magazine and books) and advertising income, are accounted for in the lifecycle of print. An earlier quoted letter from George to Richard Sr., in which George reminds his father of the significance of the commercial aspects of publishing, supports this interpretation. By telling his father that the firm would survive or fail based on the saleability of their titles, George demonstrates his belief that

297 See Laura J. Miller, Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption (University of Chicago Press, 2006). 298 Gissing, New Grub Street, 8-9. 299 Ibid., 74. 300 Ibid., 51. 94

marketing and sales, and not literary merit, would be foundational to the success of their business.301 The circuit additionally contains more subtle clues as to the significance of commerciality. Within the construction stage, George predictably identifies processes such as “Outlay” and “Stock,” which could easily be included under Darnton’s Printers label or Adams and Barker’s manufacture stage. However, he also addresses the marketing of literature by including “Adverts out”—referring to the outgoing advertisements for both books and Temple Bar that would have been placed in magazines and newspapers—as part of the publishing process. By incorporating advertisements into the circuit under the umbrella of construction, George communicates that the commerciality of a print product is as essential to its existence as the physical production process, meaning marketing has as much to do with the construction of the printed object as paper and ink.

This line of thinking mirrors the current approach towards print products, where marketing is woven into the physical object. Cover design, for example, has been identified as one of the primary methods of marketing a book, communicating information such as genre or category, whether the title has been endorsed by well-known authors, celebrities, or publications, and whether the title has been awarded any literary prizes or popular recognition. Part of a tactic that Angus Phillips calls “positioning,” all these pieces of information are designed to target specific audiences and influence the consumer to purchase.302 Although George would not have been able to rely on cover- or dustjacket-based advertising in the same way, the outgoing advertisements he accounted for within this circuit had similar aims. A notice to the staff of the advertising department describes not only what was to be advertised, but the goal of marketing as well. Regarding what should be advertised, staff were advised to focus on recently issued works and the lists they belong to (i.e. their genre or category); forthcoming books that will be added to each list; standard books that are kept in print; seasonal lists (e.g. Christmas books); and the “position of the house” and its “essential features.”303 The instructions for how to advertise further establish the purpose of marketing: “the reputation of the House, the reputation of the author, and the continuous sale of the book…have to be kept in view. Advertisements must be

301 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., (no month or day) 1869, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 302 Angus Phillips, “Cover Story: Cover Design in the Marketing of Fiction,” Logos 18, no. 1 (2007): 15. 303 Document 1, September 1886, Advertising Department, UIUC. 95

striking without being sensational, laudatory without being puffing, frequent without being stereotyped,” the document councils. Furthermore, staff are instructed to consider the type of publication they are advertising in, and the “class” and “estimated number” of readers they’d like to attract.304 This notice shows that Bentley and Son relied on marketing as a method for shaping a print object’s identity, which established its place within the literary market. This both explains, as well as justifies, George’s incorporation of advertising into his model of the publishing process.

The departmental documents mentioned above are only a small sample of materials catalogued by the firm for posterity. Notwithstanding documents that have been thrown out, destroyed, or otherwise lost, papers from the firm collectively form one of the most comprehensive archives of a Victorian publishing house. According to Ray, the UIUC collection alone contains more than 13,000 letters. This is only part of the larger archival holdings of the BL, UCLA, and other libraries and private collectors who purchased the letters of specific figures, such as Hans Christen Anderson, Mary Russel Mitford and Charles Dickens.305 The Bentleys’ zeal for their own house history is acknowledged within the circuit itself by the use of the label “Archivist” in the last stage of the publishing process. A rough draft of the circuit, seen in figure 2.4, further supports the argument that this label refers to the preservation of house and publication history; beside the word “Archivist” in this draft, the phrase “Historian of Books” is scribbled in pencil. 306 When analyzed in the context of other models, this aspect of the Bentley circuit is particularly significant. In their analysis of Darnton’s circuit, Adams and Barker argue the importance of accounting for the preservation of print material—something which Darnton’s model lacks. Pointing out that the life of a printed object does not unceremoniously end once it reaches the hands of the reader, they add a stage called “survival,” under which they include: initial creation and reception; where the print object comes to rest without any intensive use; and a final stage when the object is determined to be significant either materially or for the text it

304 Ibid. 305 Ray, “The Bentley Papers,” 178-180. 306 I have deemed this version to be an earlier rough draft of the circuit due to the notes that appear in pencil around the document. These comments reflect a work in progress, whereas the circuit pictured in Fig. 2.3 contains no such additional notes and appears to be a finalized version of what is expressed in Fig. 2.4. 96

contains. As an historical object that “documents the age that brought it into existence,” it “thus enters the world of collecting and scholarly research,” they explain.307

The Bentley circuit similarly identifies preservation as part of the lifecycle of print. However, its focus is the history of publishing processes and labour. The categorization of this type of work as financial could indicate that the firm was solely interested in conserving economic history. This is valuable in and of itself; financially based documents, such as copyright agreements and account ledgers, add to the history of both the firm and individual titles. Additional archival documents, however, demonstrate that the Bentleys’ enthusiasm for publishing history was not limited to the economic perspective. Indeed, George’s use of the term

Fig. 2.4. The Bentley Circuit Rough Draft, Document 3, General Management. Courtesy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, UIUC.

307 Adams and Barker, “A New Model,” 32. 97

“Historian of Books” to describe the firm’s archivist is telling. It demonstrates his understanding of the archivist as someone who safeguarded the histories of printed materials and their production, rather than the firm’s financial information alone. Furthermore, a reader’s report form issued by the manuscripts department instructed readers to write on only one side of the page, because they would later “be pasted into a Report book.”308 This act of archiving was undertaken by manuscripts department employees. A list of their responsibilities includes “pastes up Report Book,” alongside other record-keeping tasks, such as: • In charge of general MSS and Register of Indexing

• Copies valuation book

• Enters TB [Temple Bar] MSS (inwards and outwards)

• Making daily fire copy of sales

• Copies in letterbook309

This list demonstrates that the firm was equally interested in archiving financial information and processes of literary production. While it is possible that the list reflects the Bentleys’ wishes regarding preservation and not employees’ actual practices, the extensive archival holdings still available today suggest that this labour took place. The material that was generated by this preservation work—such as the report books and letterbooks that now compose a significant portion of the Bentley archive—can be used to construct narratives surrounding publication histories of titles and articles, provide an overview of the firm’s editorial approach, and offer insight into how literary labour functioned within the firm. Alongside sales figures preserved in account ledgers, information about the production process—such as letters between the firm and printers which speak to print runs and design—and advertising ledgers, these materials are essential to recounting the history of the firm and its publishing practice. Given the diversity of preserved materials, it is reasonable to assume that all departments engaged in some level of archival work.

308 See Fig. 2.5. 309 Document 18, General Management, UIUC. 98

As the Bentley circuit and other archival documents imply, George made a direct connection between document preservation and the safeguarding of publishing history; that is, between archivists and historians. It is unlikely, then, that the firm was simply making records for its own use. Rather, this suggests that George understood that the publishing process simultaneously produced both printed objects and publishing histories—and that each of these products had value. Evidence shows that George instilled this belief in his son. The historical project that he put in motion, through the process of archiving documentation that spoke to publication and firm histories, was continued by Richard Jr. Even Ray, who largely dismisses Richard Jr. as the Bentley who brought the firm’s activities to an “orderly termination in 1898 by the sale of its assets and stock to Macmillan and Company for £8000” credits Richard Jr. with writing the history of the firm.310 Communications between Richard Jr. and historian, publisher, and author Michael Ernest Sadler throughout the first half of the twentieth century speak to Richard Jr.’s involvement in the preservation of publishing history. A letter from Sadler to Richard Jr. in the fall of 1921 shows the breadth of topics that the two men discussed, encompassing Bentley house history and Victorian print production generally: “I am more than grateful for the trouble you have taken in replying to my queries about Victorian bookmaking. The information supplied is of the greatest value to me and I am particularly interested to learn that priority of publication was given to England in the case of the three books by Herman Melville,” he wrote. In the same letter, Sadler asks detailed questions about the relationship between Richard Sr. and Colburn, and enquires whether Richard Jr. had information about the firm of Saunders and Otley.311 Although Sadler claims to be “a little diffident in thus pestering [Richard Jr.] further,” he explains that there is a need for such histories: “the assistance already given is of the utmost value and that it is interest in the subject that encourages me to a further attempt,” he wrote. The work did indeed continue. For the next decade, Sadler and Richard Jr. were in frequent communication, discussing the histories of various firms and titles such as Oliver Twist, Dene Hollow, and The Purcell Papers.312

310 Ray, “The Bentley Papers,” 178, 200. 311 Michael Sadler to Richard Bentley Jr., November 21, 1921, Box 16, UCLA. 312 See “From Michael Sadler to Richard Bentley,” Box 16, UCLA. 99

Finally, and most significantly in the context of this dissertation, the Bentley circuit distinguishes itself from other scholarly models in that it accounts for the labour associated with each stage of the publishing process. Whereas Darnton’s model prioritizes the actors operating within the circuit, and Adams and Barker’s vision focuses on journey of the book-object, the Bentley circuit usefully marries the two perspectives. Within the circuit, departments and their labourers are seen facilitating each stage of a manuscript’s production. On the rough draft of the circuit seen in figure 2.4, George’s notes that can be seen scribbled around the circuit demonstrate that he defined each stage of production not only by the process the print materials underwent, but also by the labourers and type of labour involved. The stage labelled “Manuscript” is further described as “Readers of Books”; “Outlay” as “Maker of B”; “Stock” as “Keeper of B”; “Adverts out” as “Puffer of B”; “Sales” as “Sellers of Books”; and, as previously noted, “Archivist” as “Historian of Books.” The financial stage, too, is described in terms of actors, specifically referring to the firm’s accountants and archivist. Such recognition of the labour that enabled the publishing process is noteworthy. While Darnton’s circuit identifies figureheads of the publishing process (e.g. author, publisher and printer), George’s sketch is more inclusive and detailed, acknowledging the workers at various levels throughout the firm’s hierarchy, and at all stages in the publishing process. This provides a more detailed picture of what Darnton calls the “human topography” of the literary environment.313As a publisher rather than a scholar, George was well positioned to create a visual representation of the publishing process that encompassed and expressed the minutia of the firm’s business, and the labour that enabled it—providing first-hand insight into how labour functioned within the industry.

His perception of the stage of literary production, for example, differs from that of Darnton’s in this respect. Most obvious, perhaps, is the absence of the author. Indeed, the circuit presumes that the content is already in existence rather than accounting for its creation, thereby minimizing the essential labour that the publishing industry is built upon.314 However, by choosing to label this phase of the publishing process—which includes the reading and editing of

313 Darnton, “Revisited,” 497. 314 In this respect, George’s circuit is aligned with that of Adams and Barker, who also omit the author. The decision to publish, and not the creation of the text, is the first step in the publication process, they claim, further explaining that authors create texts, not bibliographical objects. Adams and Barker, “A New Model,” 18. 100

both book and article manuscripts—as “Literary,” George acknowledges actors that are absent from the other models. Just as the departments named under the sales umbrella are a reference to the people who worked to sell the firm’s books, the departments included under “Literary” (manuscripts and general management) point to the managers, clerks, publisher’s readers and editors who were responsible for manuscript intake and organization, reading, corresponding with authors, crafting copyright agreements and maintaining departmental records.315 Archival documents, such as the letters of manuscripts department deputy head (and later head) Nathaniel Beard and office manager Johnston and give further details regarding employees’ responsibilities. While George and Richard Jr. were intimately involved with the day-to-day business of the firm, they also empowered their employees to negotiate contracts with authors, liaise with suppliers, foster communications between departments and oversee the firm’s financials.316 Beard’s letters contain updates as to the assessment of manuscripts, and advice regarding publication decisions, while Johnston’s demonstrate a deep involvement in operational matters, which ranged from taking care of deliveries of stock, to engaging in copyright negotiations.317

The formalized literary processes that the circuit accounts for, including the manuscripts and general management departments, were not in place until the late nineteenth century. Under

Fig. 2.5. Reader's Report Form, General Management. Courtesy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, UIUC.

315 Document 18, General Management, UIUC contains a detailed list of the responsibilities of manuscripts department employees. 316 See Employee Letters, UIUC. 317 Robert Keith Johnston, Letterbooks Volumes 1-4, Employee Letters, UIUC. 101

Richard Sr., there was no discernable, ruling method for handling manuscripts. Readers’ reports varied widely in terms of their tone and focus, and there is no indication of an organized approach towards assigning manuscripts to readers or tracking reader availability. The first attempts to bring order to literary labour came soon after George took control of the firm. A document titled “Instructions for Staff,” which was likely written in the 1870s, shows an initial effort to standardize the type of information included in a report.318 The document outlines best practices for publisher’s readers (e.g. wait 48 hours after reading before crafting a report), poses questions for publisher’s readers to consider and respond to (e.g. is the style literary and educated? Is perusing the story a duty or a pleasure?) and lists what is referred to as “flavours” that the reader could use to categorize the manuscript.319 Also around this time, the firm produced official forms for publisher’s readers to submit their reports, seen in figure 2.5. This form shows that George intended to bring order to a previously unregulated type of communication. While the information requested from the publisher’s reader by the form seems basic, many of the readers’ reports held in the archive do not contain such details. Certainly, this can be problematic from a scholarly perspective. Without key pieces of information such as an author’s name or manuscript title, it can be difficult to connect a specific report with its appropriate publication. That this form demands the inclusion of these details shows that their absence could have been similarly challenging for the firm. Additionally, the paragraph that appears in italics describes the regulations applied to the transmission of manuscripts. The requests to the publisher’s reader to only write on one side of the paper, so that the reports could be properly pasted into the Report Book and subsequently archived, and to send a postcard alongside the manuscript to safeguard against lost parcels, are moves towards order and efficiency.

As the label “M.S.S. dept.” and the year, 1877, included on the top of the form indicate, these materials were the product of an early manuscripts department. However, letters between

318 While the document itself is undated, it is included in the archives alongside an outlay department report from 1877. “Instructions for Staff,” Box 4, ULCA. 319 Types of manuscripts listed included: “personal sketches, barracks, religious, historical, rural, political, marine, ‘girls love story’, musical, sentimental sporting, for young children, social, crass or objectionable, dramatic, foreign introspective.” Flavours of manuscripts listed were: “sheer narrative, newspaper, politic, sensationalistic murders, mysterious threatening, grim, tragedy, humorous parody, flippant farce, historic, love of nature, realistic, analytical, natural or artificial.” 102

George and Richard Jr. indicate that internally, the department did not fully embody industrial ideology at this point. Aside from the support of their publisher’s readers and office manager, the two men were still largely responsible for the functioning of the department, including manuscript intake and organization, publishing decisions, communications and negotiations with authors and printers, and editorial and marketing work. It was not until 1883 that Richard Jr. proposed they take a step forward in labour division. Reminding his father about the importance of “delegation,” Richard Jr. suggested that they rethink their use of employees.320 The increasing amount of work meant it was no longer feasible for the two men to run every aspect of the firm, he stated. In addition to designating employees who would be responsible for finances and accounts, Richard Jr. envisioned the largest growth to be in the manuscripts department, which he believed needed managers and secretaries to function properly. Later letters indicate that George had approved of Richard Jr.’s suggestion, and the new order was functioning well. After elevating Beard to the position of deputy director from secretary, and appointing Mayer to a permanent support role, Richard Jr. praised the efficiency of the new system.321 With Beard to help him check manuscripts as they arrived, and Mayer to undertake in-depth reading, Richard Jr. was pleased to find that manuscripts did not “[linger] on the shelves” as they once did, and he was no longer obliged to stay at the office for hours after the workday was finished.322

Beyond streamlining how the firm handled manuscripts in-house, these changes in staffing allowed the Bentleys to formalize the role of manuscripts department employees. Beard’s responsibilities not only included keeping track of which manuscripts were assigned to which publisher’s reader, but also each reader’s work availability. For example, publisher’s readers were asked to submit any vacation plans to Beard in advance or notify him if they were unable to work due to unforeseen circumstances such as illness or a death in the family.323

320 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, March 9, 1883, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 321 Until 1889, when Beard was officially designated head of the department, Richard Jr. referred to Beard as his second or deputy. Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, March 21, 1888, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. In a workbook from the archives, Beard’s responsibilities are listed as the following: “temporarily in charge; In charge of general MSS and Register of Indexing; Supervises TB (Temple Bar) MSS; Sends MSS to printers, readers; Correspondence; Dictated Correspondence; Takes Deputy Duty keeps letters and some interviewing; Copies valuation book; Keeps temple bar list of articles, readers’ cash book; Pays temple bar authors; Sorts Temple Bar Proofs; Prepares Agreements; Sends acceptances or declines.” Document 18, General Management, UIUC. 322 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, (no day, no month) 1883, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 323 “Summer Relief,” Document 22, General Management, UIUC. 103

Additionally, from the early 1880s, the firm provided publisher’s readers with more detailed instructions on how to construct their reports. Unlike the previous suggestions to publisher’s readers, which gave them prompts in the form of questions they could answer, these instructions initiated a report structure, offered publisher’s readers a common set of terminology through which they could describe and define the manuscript in question, and set out categories that the publisher’s reader was required to address.324 Simultaneously, there was an effort to communicate a comprehensive house style to prospective authors. In a document issued by the manuscripts department, authors were asked to adhere to specific guidelines, such as writing on one side of the page only, providing paratextual elements like prefaces, tables of content or indices, and informing the publisher if the work had been submitted to any other firm. That this was a new practice is indicated by the document itself, which begins by assuring authors that submissions and publication decisions were now being organized due to the volume of works that Bentley and Son received, not because they intended to be discourteous. Moreover, authors were assured that their manuscripts would still all “be carefully considered,” and “read in the order in which they are received.”325

Such formalization of the firm’s literary processes had a significant impact on women’s labour within the firm. Prior to the 1870s, working as publisher’s readers and editors meant engaging in casual labour, which limited their role. As George and Richard Jr. collectively worked to establish a manuscripts department, with defined positions, responsibilities, and expectations for their employees, the women who worked within this department found that they were increasingly seen and treated as professionals, who were an inextricable part of the publishing process. Certainly, Mayer’s rise at the firm—from freelance publisher’s reader to salaried manuscripts department employee—exemplifies this transition. And although the other

324 Document 3, 1883, Manuscripts Department, UIUC. This included: time, place and characters (e.g. ancient, present day, imaginary future, historical, country, sea); tendency (e.g. domestic, adventurous, tragic, spiritualist, women’s rights, technical); general character (e.g. vivid descriptions and scenery, impropriety, descriptions); style (e.g. literary, educated, natural, vulgar, sensational, oversentimental, parody); arrangement (e.g. letters, narrative, first person, episodes); and general (e.g. resembles known works, translation, will do with alterations). Additionally, the document requests that readers report if the manuscripts is similar to the writing of best-selling authors such as Broughton, Ouida, Zola, Trollop, Dickens, Thackery, Kempy, Scott, Hawthorne, Mrs. Radcliffe, Austen, George Eliot, or Americans. 325 Document 1, July 1883, Manuscripts Department, UIUC. 104

women employees continued to work on a freelance basis, the perception of their professionality demonstrably shifted during this period.326 Women publisher’s readers were no longer part of an informal system which positioned publisher’s readers as friends and helpers to the Bentleys, but were incorporated into a defined hierarchy of manuscript and general management department staff, whose work was considered essential to literary production.

This arrangement of women’s labour within the firm is indicative of a larger shift in the gendering of the publishing industry that was to come. The Bentleys’ understanding of literary production as feminine work would, by the end of the twentieth century, be an accepted truth that visibly shaped the labour force. As Clark and Phillips observe, women made up most of the mass market publishing workforce by the 1980s.327 It is worth examining, however, whether this afforded women professionals any real power within the industry. Certainly, the cohort of women employees at Bentley and Son were on the rise. Their entrance into the firm, which will be traced in detail in the following chapter, represented a new opportunity for women to take part in the business of publishing. This was a noteworthy step forward at a time when women were barred from most professions, and particularly in an industry where, according to Tuchman and Fortin, women were relegated to the bottom of the literary labour hierarchy, unable to “define the nature of good literature” and powerless within systems of “production and distribution.”328 Yet, there were limitations imposed upon these women—such as exclusion from management and the more financially focused roles that were increasingly prioritized over creative work—which hindered their professional mobility. Arguably, these limitations have persisted; Clark and Phillips temper their acknowledgement of women’s quantitative dominance within publishing by pointing out that in the 1980s, women occupied the lower, poorly paid levels of the labour hierarchy, and were managed by men who significantly out-earned them.329 This gestures towards the fact that women’s entrance into publishing has corresponded with the devaluation of publishing labour. Though it is difficult to determine whether publishing labour has devalued due to women’s presence in the industry, or if women have been increasingly able to gain a foothold

326 See Ch. 3 for a more in-depth discussion of Mayer’s professional history and women’s professionalization at the firm. 327 Clark and Phillips, Inside Book Publishing, 29-30. 328 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 209. 329 Clark and Phillips, Inside Book Publishing, 29-30. 105

within publishing as a result of this devaluation, the loss of economic, social, and cultural capital within publishing mirrors the pattern followed by other professions that are considered feminized, such as librarianship and teaching.

When analyzed through the lens of gender history, the Bentley circuit arguably supports the investigation of these histories of women’s labour. This distinguishes it from the aforementioned scholarly models, which, according to feminist scholars, have fallen short in this regard. Peterson, for example, believes that Darnton’s circuit “excludes considerations of gender” altogether, aside from the fact that gender is implicitly part of economic and social conjecture.330 Similarly, Michelle Levy has described how Darnton’s circuit fails to account for issues of gender and class and suggests alterations which would create a more socially inclusive framework.331 Murray, on the other hand, argues that Darnton’s model is gendered, but exclusively masculine.332 Its focus on the commercial and technical aspects of literary production excludes women, she explains, because book history has failed to investigate women’s presence within these fields. The model cannot be applied to feminist publishing because it does not account for the exclusion of women’s writing within the publishing industry at large, or the equalized relationship between publishers and authors that feminist presses have established. Finally, she notes that the model reflects a mainstream (and therefore masculine) perspective on the publishing process. Specifically, she refers to the model as a “diagrammatic schema” which shows how men experienced, and thought about, literary production, which ultimately creates a view of book history that is “fundamentally masculine in gender.”333 To support Murray’s point, the description Darnton offers of the circuit is also masculine. In his article, historians are referred to as “he,” the term “mankind” is used to mean humankind, and Darnton considers how the printed word impacts how “men” think.334

I argue that women’s labour is marginalized within Darnton’s circuit, and issues of gender are more broadly excluded. By labelling a box “Publisher,” for example, Darnton refers

330 Peterson, Becoming a Woman of Letters, 62-66. 331 Michelle Levy, “Do Women Have a Book History?” Studies in Romanticism 53, no. 3 (Fall 2014): 298. 332 Murray, Mixed Media, 12-17. 333 Ibid., 13-14. 334 Darnton, “History of Books,” 204. 106

to the most powerful actor within the publishing house—the capital owner—who is typically a man.335 As a result, the many roles that women did fill within the lower tiers of the publishing labour hierarchy, such as publishers’ readers and editors, are obscured. The box labelled “Printers” in Darnton’s model identifies print production as masculine by referencing “pressmen” and “warehousemen.” The fact that bookbinders are secondary to the circuit, connected only to readers and appearing outside of the circuit itself, diminishes another role which women commonly filled in the nineteenth century. According to John, the number of women binders rose dramatically throughout this period, and women employed in the field contributed towards establishing rights for women workers.336 Additionally, the model does not consider the hierarchies of power that function within, or act upon, the communications circuit, which limits the visibility of social groups, including women, who were subordinated within the literary environment. Adams and Barker’s circuit is not more successful in making women’s labour visible. While their circuit does not use gendered language, or exclusively focus on powerful (men) actors, its focus on the printed object detracts from human involvement in the circuit more broadly, and thus also shies away from issues such as labour hierarchy and social marginalization.

The Bentley circuit differs from Darnton’s and Adams and Barker’s in many of these respects. The absence of gendered terminology, combined with the decentralization of men figureheads, enables the circuit to provide a more gender-inclusive perspective of the publishing process. This is exemplified by the circuit’s account of literary production. As previously discussed, George employs the label of “Literary,” under which he places the manuscripts and general management departments, instead of using the labels “Authors” and “Publishers” to encompass this process. The Bentley circuit’s erasure of authorial labour does, like Adams and Barker’s model, inhibit its ability to highlight women’s literary work. Authorship was undeniably the path most open to women who wanted to enter the literary field in the nineteenth century. Even those who eventually went on to work within publishing—which includes most of Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers—began their careers as writers. Dropping the

335 Cadman, Chester, and Pivot, Rolling Our Own, 5, 17-19; Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital, 385-386. 336 Angela V. John, ed., Unequal Opportunities: Women’s Employment in England 1800-1918 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 82-89. 107

author from the circuit, then, excludes a significant number of women literary professionals. Simultaneously, the circuit’s broad account of literary labour, which looks beyond the limited scope of author and publisher, makes it more gender inclusive, and allows for a deeper investigation of women’s roles in literary production and consumption beyond the often- examined areas of authorship and readership.

As Scott argues, the role of gender history is not to insert women into an established historical conversation, but to create gender inclusive frameworks.337 Simply uncovering new information about women is ultimately ineffective, she explains, because while these “new facts” might “document the existence of women in the past … they did not necessarily change the importance (or lack of it) attributed to women’s activities” when pasted into an existing framework that was biased in favour of the histories of men actors. Focusing on gender history within book history and bibliography, Levy asserts that emphasizing activities within the publishing process, as opposed to distinct roles, helps to excavate women’s actual involvement. Because women moved between various activities in print production, and often in informal ways, “a model that acknowledges how various roles along the circuit could be blurred or even collapsed is needed to capture the nature and extent of women’s involvement,” she explains.338 By using broadly defined publishing stages and departments, the Bentley circuit reveals the intricacies of the publishing process, and allows for the existence of labourers at all points who might be fulfilling any number of tasks. For this reason, women’s labour is as engrained and visible within the circuit as men’s labour. Although clerkships and sales positions continued to be dominated by men throughout the century, women made up a significant part of the workforce, increasingly engaging in tasks that were crucial to the process of literary production. This was particularly true within the manuscripts department. Indeed, as previously noted, the Bentleys came to designate much of the literary work undertaken by the firm—i.e. reading and editing—as feminine, a transition that will be analyzed in greater detail in the next chapter. This signalled a new era for women publishing professionals. Although no woman rose to a management position in the history of the firm, the presumption that they were naturally adept at

337 Scott, Politics of History, 3. 338 Levy, “Do Women Have a Book History?” 300. 108

assessing fiction, and doing editorial work, allowed them to gain unprecedented influence over publishing lists. Additionally, by engaging in this work, women could pivot into other tasks, such as engaging in marketing work and overseeing production.

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Chapter 3 Regendering Office Space: The Rise of the Woman Professional

The swell of women’s professionalism within the firm began with the appointment of Jewsbury as Bentley and Son’s first (paid) woman publisher’s reader in 1858. This position was an extension of her already established career. As an experienced author who turned to reviewing, Jewsbury’s industry knowledge, contacts, and developed critical eye made her ideally positioned to assess manuscripts for publication. It is likely that Richard Sr. and George were familiar with Jewsbury from professional circles prior to her engagement at the firm. According to her biographer Howe, the publication of her first novel Zoe in 1845 launched her into the literary world.339 Her ambitious nature and enthusiasm for what Howe refers to as the “social stir” made her a staple in this environment, and Jewsbury used the connections she made with authors, editors and publishers to build her career. A more direct connection can be made between Jewsbury and Richard Sr. through author Sydney Morgan, who routinely published with Bentley and Son. In 1857, Morgan hired Jewsbury as a secretary and editor. As noted in chapter one, Jewsbury played a central role in the preparation of Passages from my Autobiography, a volume of Morgan’s correspondence and diary entries. The work was published by Bentley and Son in 1859. Whether Jewsbury was acquainted with the Bentleys prior to this project is unclear. However, it is certain that she worked with them professionally through Passages and began her work with the firm the same year the manuscript was submitted.340 Jewsbury was the first member of a developing cohort of women publisher’s readers who made up a significant labour force for literary work. Although Jewsbury appears to be the only official reader at the firm for approximately a decade, several women publisher’s readers worked for the firm at different times, and for varying tenures from the 1870s and beyond.341 The majority of women publisher’s

339 Howe, Geraldine Jewbury, 129. 340 In his work on the house, Gettmann cites letters from Jewsbury to Richard Sr. which indicate that the firm had engaged Jewsbury for the purpose of reading manuscripts. 341 Jackson and Mayer’s tenures with the firm will be detailed later in the chapter. Letters from the archive show that Fetherstonhaugh began her work with Bentley in 1878 and there is no clear indication of when her work for Bentley ended. Pigott-Carleton (later known as Leir-Carleton) describes herself as “new to the work” of reading in 1880, and reports from her exist until 1887. The first indication of Godfrey’s reading work dates to 1881. Evidence of her work as a reader continues through most of the 1880s, until a letter in 1889 from Richard Jr. to George notes that she had been “struck off” their list of available readers. 110

readers—including Jackson, Fetherstonhaugh, Mayer, Sergeant, Pigott-Carleton and Godfrey— came to the firm when George was acting head. The woman with the shortest career as a publisher’s reader was Jackson, who occupied the role for only two years. The longest was Mayer, who came to the firm in 1877, and only left Bentley and Son for Macmillan when the firm was sold in 1898.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the women who undertook literary work at the firm throughout the later half of the nineteenth century. Marryat, whose married name was Ross Church, is listed as one of the firm’s editors. Her letters to the Bentleys further evidence that she occupied this role. Marryat was frequently asked to edit manuscripts for the firm once they were already accepted. The firm’s General Authors Ledger, 1872-1896 gives additional examples of women being paid for “editing,” “revision,” or “literary assistance.”342 Translation work was also a common form of employment for women throughout the nineteenth century.343

Documents in the archive show that this was the case at Bentley and Son.344 Additionally, UIUC holds a single letter written to George from Florence Berger, who undeniably read manuscripts for the firm: “I have gone through the little sketch of Miss Laffan, entitled ‘Rose’ and find it bright and readable, and I think up to the standard of ‘Temple Bar,’” she wrote. “I enclose you my opinion of the three M.S.S. and shall be very pleased to do all the reading you may care to send.”345 Although I am unable to determine how long Berger worked as a publisher’s reader for the firm, this lone letter indicates that it was not a one-time arrangement. For this reason, I cannot ignore the possibility that there were letters and reports that were either never included in the archive, or escaped my notice, which reveal the existence of additional women workers. This

342 A Miss Annie Wood was paid £5.50 for a “revision” in 1876; Evelyn Ashley was paid £52.10 for “editing” work in 1874; and Mrs. Augusta Delves Broughton was paid £100 for her “literary assistance” in 1884. “General Authors Ledger, 1872-1896,” MS 456562, BL. 343 Judith Johnston asserts that translation, alongside travel writing, was one of the most common ways women contributed to cultural production in the nineteenth century. See Judith Johnston, Victorian Women and the Economies of Travel, Translation and Culture, 1830-1870 (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016). 344 Some examples from the General Author’s Ledger include Godfrey, who was paid was paid for several translations between 1879-1884, and Jewsbury, who was paid for what the document calls a restranslation of Balzac in 1878. See “General Authors Ledger, 1872-1896,” MS 456562, BL. The UIUC Correspondence collection contains a number of letters from women translators, notably Evelyn Abbot, who was engaged in translation work for the firm from 1879-1895. 345 Florence Berger to George Bentley, December 14, 1877, Correspondence, UIUC. 111

gesture towards the possibility of a larger cohort than I can identify within this dissertation reinforces the notion that women’s employment at the firm was expanding significantly during this period.

The shift in gendered hiring practices, signalled by Jewsbury’s entrance into the firm, was deliberate. Although the Bentleys exclusively hired men employees in every other department, the manuscripts department held opportunity for women because the publishers designated reading and editorial work as feminine, as shown in chapter one. In 1889, Richard Jr. wrote to George about a lack of available readers.346 Referencing the cold and dark winter they had experienced, he notified his father that Mayer was recovered from an illness, Fetherstonhaugh was out sick, and Sergeant was operating at a much lower capacity due to poor eyesight. Out of desperation, he suggested they try out a new publisher’s reader by giving him a manuscript to review. However, Richard Jr. was skeptical. As he wrote to his father, “men do not often make good readers so it wd [would] have to be very tentatively put.” In the same letter, he acknowledged that Sergeant was their “best reader,” placing her value above the men publisher’s readers working for the firm. While this letter demonstrates the Bentleys’ preference for women readers, it does not contain a clear rationale. Several theories are corroborated by the circumstances of the literary market during this period, as well as evidence drawn from the archives.

One plausible explanation is that the Bentleys relied on women readers to appeal to an ever-increasing female market for print. As previously discussed, the entrance of women into the field of literary production occurred alongside an expanding female readership, and literary production was impacted by the imperative to appeal to women consumers.347 The creation and rising popularity of genres of fiction intended to be women-oriented, such as sensation and new woman fiction, shows the significance of this emerging audience for print. The division of publisher’s readers along gender lines at Bentley and Son, particularly during the first decades of women’s employment, reflects an awareness of these market realities. Though the firm continued

346 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, April 19, 1889, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 347 Flint, The Woman Reader, 13. 112

to hire men to read historical, scientific, and religious manuscripts, they increasingly looked to women publisher’s readers to render judgements on fiction. The firm’s increasing focus on fiction throughout the century—a trend that will be analyzed in greater detail in the following two chapters—can be connected to the growing cohort of women publisher’s readers. Although men publisher’s readers were involved in the assessment of fiction, either for full manuscripts or articles for Temple Bar, their position was also unstable. They were not only engaging in a type of work already covered by the firm’s women publisher’s readers, but also work that they were considered less able to do. Indeed, some of the women publisher’s readers made a connection between their value to the firm and their identities as women leisure readers. In the beginning of her career at Bentley and Son, Fetherstonhaugh questioned her professional abilities, but believed that her love of reading qualified her for the task: “whether I am a good judge of books I cannot say,—but I have read a great many, and a strange mixture; and I’m afraid that I like them all in their own way,—whether it is old Addison or Miss Broughton—Bacon or Whyte Melville—Rochefoucauld or Feuillet,” she wrote to George. “If you think I can really succeed as a ‘critic’ I shall be more than glad, for I should like the work.”348 Notably, Fetherstonhaugh neglected to cite her many years of experience as an author. Rather, it is her status as an upper- class woman reader—and therefore her ability to represent a specific market—that she believed qualified her for the position.

Although this explanation for the Bentleys’ preference for women publisher’s readers is reasonable, it is also limited. A growing female consumer base did not necessarily ensure that women had more control over literary production. In their survey of the nineteenth-century publishing industry, Tuchman and Fortin conclude that “unlike men, women never possessed the power to define the nature of good literature,” pointing to women’s absence from the publishing industry as proof. Even when women worked as literary critics, they argue, “they displayed their internalization of male standards as universal standards.”349 Indeed, Bentley and Son appears to be unique in their employment of women publisher’s readers. As previously noted, the Bentleys’ systematic and long-term use of women publisher’s readers set them apart from their peers, who

348 Minna Fetherstonhaugh to George Bentley, November 8, 1878, Correspondence, UIUC. 349 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 209. 113

did consult women friends, family and authors for opinions on manuscripts, but only in informal ways.350 If the firm’s use of women publisher’s readers was simply a method of connecting to the market and increasing sales, why would other publishers not follow suit?

A more in-depth reading of communications regarding the role and use of publisher’s readers within the firm indicates that beyond using women publisher’s readers to better understand the tastes of the female market, the publishers gendered the actual work of reading as feminine. The qualities that were thought to define Victorian femininity were consistent with those the Bentleys believed were necessary to be a good publisher’s reader. A series of letters from Fetherstonhaugh to George, attempting to procure employment for a friend, exemplifies this point. Asking him if he would like to try a “fresh hand,” Fetherstonhaugh offered the services of Earnest Braithwaite, who was in dire need of money.351 In her first letter, she highlighted Braithwaite’s masculine pursuits and interests, demonstrating how these qualities and experiences could make him valuable to the firm. This included equating his military experience with knowledge of “the world” and its many “stories,” his talent for linguistics, and his ability to direct her own reading. Finally, Fetherstonhaugh attempted to raise his chances of employment by denigrating her own work. She notes that Braithwaite could take over for her as she becomes “old and stupid,” and that he would ultimately outperform her due to his attention to detail. Here, Fetherstonhaugh invokes common explanations for presumed male superiority to make her friend attractive as an employee. As John Tosh explains, a man was expected to accomplish outside of the home and family to be seen as masculine.352 Going to war was particularly romanticized, he adds, noting that it was thought to be glamorous, manly, and essential to building independence and life experience. More specifically related to the educational and literary spheres, Fetherstonhaugh marked Braithwaite as intellectually superior to the average woman of letters, as represented by herself, and invested him with the ability to “direct” women readers’ tastes and reading behaviours. This is significant in light of the assumptions surrounding male knowledge and literary ability. Showalter explains that men were

350 See the introduction, p. 7. 351 Minna Fetherstonhaugh to Geroge Bentley, November 22 (no year), Correspondence, UIUC. 352 John Tosh, A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 3-7. 114

thought to be more realistic, steady, persistent in their work, intelligent, shrewd, and experienced; all characteristics that made them superior scholars and guardians of high-brow literature.353 These masculine characteristics not only invested men with the ability to define good literature, but the authority to determine what women should and could read.

George, however, did not take the bait. Fetherstonhaugh’s second letter, dated three weeks later, makes it clear that Bentley rejected her suggestion, evidently stating that various aspects of the masculine mind were unsuited to the task of reading. In her response, Fetherstonhaugh wrote, “I can see quite well what you mean, in speaking of the tendency which the masculine mind has to see ‘talent’ in a book because it sees ‘solidity.’ They are apt to doggedly remember that a pound of lead and a pound of feathers do weigh exactly the same, yet they forget how different is the feel of the weight in both.”354 This passage, which includes quotations from George’s response to Fetherstonhaugh, shows that while George did not take issue with which characteristics were defined as masculine, he was not convinced they made men superior readers. He apparently believed that the “solidity” exhibited by men held them back as publishers’ readers, whereas women’s natural emotion, sentimentality, and subtlety was to their advantage in this role. Without George’s response in hand, it is not possible to know exactly how he expressed his thinking to Fetherstonhaugh. Yet, from the striking alteration in Fetherstonhaugh’s gendered description of Braithwaite, it can be assumed that George made his preference for readers with feminine characteristics and abilities known. Persisting in her belief that “Braithwaite might suit [him] as a reader,” Fetherstonhaugh explained that he was:

a man who is fond of reading, but in no way pedantic … and he reads every class of thing … and the very fact of reading plenty of light-literature … has its advantage in making the same reader impatient of ‘heaviness,’ and being bored. So many deep readers, who positive[ly] scorn all light things,—are terribly narrow-minded in seeing only one side to life, books, everything—and to be a good “Reader,” I have always thought one must remember that “it takes all sorts to make a world” … [Braithwaite] is I think a thorough good judge of books, for when I am ill or busy, he often selects all those I read,—and his taste is good. I know that, for instance, he ranks “Dorothy Forster,” “Chaplain of the Fleet,” “Springhaven,” and that class of book very high, as novels,—also he is very fond

353 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 90. 354 Minna Fetherstonhaugh to George Bentley, December 16 (no year), Correspondence, UIUC. 115

of “Haven under the Hill,” which many would say was more calculated to please women than men.355

In this letter, Fetherstonhaugh presents a vastly different portrait of Braithwaite. He was no longer the intellectual military man who she first described, but a reader who enjoyed “light literature,” particularly novels that are designed to “please women.” Additionally, she removes Braithwaite’s authority over her. She modifies her statement that he directed her reading to note that he did her the favour of selecting books for her when she was “ill or busy.” At the end of the letter, she promises Bentley that she would act as his mentor: “I shall always be able to talk the books over with him, and take a glance at them, so as to see whether he seems to take to it naturally and easily, or not.”356

This exchange demonstrates that George largely understood professional reading not as an intellectual endeavour, but affective labour, which Johanna Oksala describes as the “labour of human contact and interaction which involves the production and manipulation of affects.”357 This term has significance to feminist theory and politics because it identifies a type of labour most commonly performed by women, she adds, and involves the commodification of supposedly feminine skills and areas of expertise, such as child-rearing and building interpersonal relationships. This contemporary theory engages with Victorian ideology surrounding women’s work, which considered the domestic realm the primary site of women’s labour. While women’s domestic labour included ensuring the efficient operation of the household, requiring a command of household economics, consumer competency, and managerial skills, it was their caretaking or affective labour that defined them. Wifehood and motherhood were considered a woman’s “natural profession,” explain Davidoff and Catherine Hall, meaning their role was to create “havens of comfort, stability and morality” for their husbands and children. 358 As discussed in chapter one, literary work was on the short list of acceptable pursuits for middle-class women in the nineteenth century, alongside professions such

355 Ibid. 356 Ibid. 357 Johanna Oksala, “Affective Labor and Feminist Politics,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 41, no. 2 (2016): 284-285. 358 Hughes, Mrs. Beeton, 248-250; Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (University of Chicago Press, 1987), 22-25, 116. 116

as teaching, nursing, librarianship, and philanthropy. One of the commonalities of these lines of work is that they were all considered caring professions, and women’s entrance into these fields was justified by citing the supposedly feminine characteristics required, such as caretaking abilities, heightened morality, and emotional intuition.359

To some degree, literary work does not seem like a natural fit within this category because the profession does not allow for a direct connection to the people the labour impacts. Additionally, Davidoff and Hall note that several aspects of literary work, including public exposure and the “admission of worldly ambition” were antithetical to the belief that women were meant to be modest, economically dependent, and function as support for men earners.360 However, as Caine observes, there was a growing demand for fiction and articles that centered on the domestic world and family in the nineteenth century.361 Specifically addressing fiction, Showalter observes that women’s sentimental and romantic natures, their sharp observations of the social condition, and their propensity for gossip, were thought to make them ideal novelists.362 Increasingly, then, literary production was identified as affective labour, which women were expected to provide. Scholars such as Sarah Brouillette have similarly emphasized the affective nature of cultural production. Referencing Maurizio Lazzarato’s description of immaterial labour, Brouillette observes that creative labour “‘nurtures, exploits and exhausts’ its labor force by ongoing affective social production of self-sacrificing and self-motivated workers.”363 This type of labour is feminized, argues Cristina Morini, because it involves the “exploitation” of qualities and skills identified as feminine, such as “capacity for relationships, emotional aspects” and “propensity for care.”364 George’s conception of literary labour arguably reflects these perspectives. Indeed, Fetherstonhaugh’s alternative description of her friend as an emotional reader rather than a “pedantic … cut and dry ‘book-worm’” is effective. Although the archive does not contain readers’ reports signed by Braithwaite, a letter from Richard Jr. to

359 Corfield, Power and the Professions, 145. 360 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 147. 361 Caine, English Feminism, 44. 362 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 82-83. 363 Sarah Brouillette, Literature and the Creative Economy (Stanford University Press, 2014), 39. 364 Cristina Morini, “The Feminization of Labour in Cognitive Capitalism,” Feminist Review 87 (2007): 42. 117

George in 1889 notes that Braithwaite has been “struck off” the firm’s list of available readers, indicating that he had previously been engaged in this work.365 It was likely Fetherstonhaugh’s description of Braithwaite’s feminine characteristics and literary preferences in relation to his reading that won him at least a trial as a publisher’s reader.

The letters from Fetherstonhaugh quoted above not only showcase the Bentleys’ preference for women publisher’s readers, but also gesture toward the role they were originally intended to fill. Publishers’ readers became increasingly common in mainstream publishing houses as the nineteenth century progressed. Hired to assess manuscripts for publication, publisher’s readers were relied upon to tackle the ever-growing pile of submitted manuscripts. Reports by Bentley and Son’s men publisher’s readers show that they were mainly assigned works of non-fiction. When they were given fiction titles, the manuscripts mainly fell within the adventure genre, and had few, if any, women characters. A manuscript called Hurricane Hurry, read by J.W. Cole, exemplifies this type of fiction. Cole calls the book a tale “of the American war of independence from beginning to end, done into a Nautical Novel. Nothing but battle, shipwreck and forms … and scarcely any female interest.”366 By contrast, women publisher’s readers were focused on novels, which comprised a quickly growing segment of the literary market. There are few examples of readers’ reports by women dealing with non-fiction manuscripts, and most involve collected volumes of letters and diary entries. One example is Frances Power Cobbe’s work in arranging Fanny Kemble’s diaries and correspondence for publication by the firm at the end of the century. This was not a departure from feminine literary pursuits; as Christina Rieger observes, “the act of compilation could also be cast as decorous and feminine, which may help to explain why women edited so many … collections.”367 By tasking their women publisher’s readers with these types of manuscripts, then, the Bentleys were engaging in a well-established practice.

365 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, April 29, 1889, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 366 J.W. Cole to Richard Bentley Sr., February 9, 1861, MS 46661, BL. 367 Christina Rieger, “‘Sweet Order and Arrangement’: Victorian Women Edit John Ruskin,” Journal of Victorian Culture 6, no. 2 (2001): 231. 118

This distinction between masculine and feminine genres was maintained throughout most of the century. An exchange between Jackson and George, which will be explored in greater detail later in this chapter, shows George’s rigidity on this point. The letters indicate that Jackson struggled with assessing novels, which were not her area of expertise. Although she asked George to allow her to read manuscripts more suited to her talents, specifically historical works, he chose to terminate her tenure as a publisher’s reader rather than erode the gender barriers that he had erected within the firm.368 While these gendered distinctions did begin to break down as the century wore on, this was a function of men publisher’s readers shifting into reading fiction rather than women publisher’s readers assessing non-fiction. The aforementioned increase in fiction titles at the expense of the firm’s non-fiction offerings altered the men publisher’s readers’ original purpose. In fact, by the end of the century, men and women publisher’s readers alike undertook similar types of reading work, transforming them into an identifiable peer group. For example, one of the most productive men publisher’s readers of the 1880s and 1890s, H.E.G. Evans, frequently reported on the same manuscripts as women publisher’s readers, including Sergeant and Mayer. Their letters form important discussions on the merits of certain titles and provide a larger context for these works’ histories.369

Although the role of the women publisher’s readers at Bentley and Son may have been well-defined, it was also not rigidly adhered to. While the types of manuscripts they read were consistent, the varieties of literary work they engaged in expanded from the original mandate. One of the more natural extensions of the reading role was editorial work, which included substantive and copyediting, proofreading, and formatting. This was established as early as 1861, when Jewsbury’s report on the future best-selling sensation novel East Lynne earned her a position as the work’s editor. “I have no hesitation in advising you to accept it as a novel. The story evinces a great skill in construction and invention[;] two qualities not common in these days,” she wrote to Richard Sr., noting that she was eager to read the conclusion for herself.370 “But before you let it go forth to the public you must by all means let the grammar and the

368 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, April 3, 1875, Correspondence, UIUC. 369 See for example the discussion of the publication history of Toddle Island, pp. 132-133. 370 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., June 19, 1861, MS 46656, BL. 119

composition be thoroughly revised by some competent person. The author is not qualified for the task—also there are alterations I wd [would] wish to see made in the story as it stands,” she adds. Ultimately, Jewsbury was appointed as the “competent person.” In the postscript of a later report, she informs Richard Sr. that the manuscript is ready for the printers and enquires when it will be picked up.371

Clues of her intervention are scattered throughout the text itself. One of the substantive suggestions Jewsbury made in her first report was to replace the main character’s holiday destination of Boulogne with the English town of Trouville: “no English husband wd [would] be likely to send his wife unprotected to Boulogne,” she explains. “I wd [would] prefer Trouville a small watering place near Harfleur wh [which] wd [would] in those days have been a very pleasant and retired watering place not then grown into the fashion it is now—and where she might just as easily have met with that man.” In the published version of the novel, Lady Isabel’s destination is indeed Trouville. She and her husband debate the benefits of the two locations, and ultimately decide on Trouville at the recommendation of her doctor. The language used in the novel, where Trouville is called a “pleasant, retired watering-place,”372 echoes Jewsbury’s report. This was not a one-time arrangement. Jewsbury’s reports and letters to the Bentleys frequently included updates on manuscripts’ editorial progress and showed her delight in this work. On a manuscript she called “Mr. Sheppard’s book,” she wrote to George:

You will see that I [have] done a good deal to the work and for I found that by a little care and pains I’d make it applicable to the present condition of things and indeed a seasonable book … I find it clear and vivid and written in an excellent spirit—I have cut out all that was of mere passing interest things known forgotten and tired of—but all that was illustrative of character and the spirit of the time I have kept and rewritten a good deal where the thought was hastily or made quarter expressed—and you will see I have made the MS uniform and tidy! I really think that after all the book will be a success!373

As evidenced by this letter, Jewsbury was heavily involved in various aspects of the preparation of this text. Such editorial intervention by publisher’s readers was a common practice at Bentley and Son. Throughout the readers’ reports and correspondence collections, there is evidence of

371 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., July 20, 1861, MS 46656, BL. 372 Ellen Wood, East Lynne (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2000), 246. 373 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 10, 1871, MS 46654, BL. 120

other women publisher’s readers—including Jackson and Mayer—similarly attending to necessary substantive edits, as well as copyediting and proofreading.

Looking beyond interactions with the text, women publisher’s readers also engaged with the firm’s business concerns and project management. Jewsbury routinely took on work which would be defined within twenty-first-century publishing as commissioning, acquisitions, and marketing. She used her connections within the literary realm to convince notable authors to publish with Bentley and Son, acted as a liaison between the authors and the firm when it came to editorial issues, publication schedules, and marketing efforts, and brought her experience with the press as a literary critic to bear on her work at the firm. Two authors that Jewsbury had set her sights on for the firm were Margaret Oliphant and Cobbe. A letter from Jewsbury to George in 1873 indicates her intention to use her social connection with Oliphant to attract her to the firm: “Mrs Oliphant is coming here on Thursday—she has just completed her engagement with the Graphic for “Innocent” and I think she is now unattached and at liberty,” she wrote.374 Extoling the virtues of Oliphant’s “workmanship,” Jewsbury suggested the author for Temple Bar: “if you were to get a Scotch story it wd [would] I think be sure to be good … Her name is good and she is really the best story writer going after George Eliot.” Following up on her meeting with Oliphant two days later, Jewsbury reported that Oliphant was “quick and frank” in response to her proposal: “it wd [would] depend on what she was offered but she wd [would] require high terms.”375 Although Jewsbury noted that these terms were a “private matter” between author and publisher, she also did not extricate herself entirely. She assured the publishers that “Mrs. O” would attract readers, and that she commonly asks for, and gets, “high terms” from other publishers. Jewsbury evidently succeeded in opening communications between Oliphant and the firm; letters from the author appear in the UIUC collection starting in the fall of 1873. Michael L. Turner’s Index to the Bentley Lists indicates that this was not the first time Oliphant worked with Bentley and Son.376 In the early 1850s, the author published two stories with Bentley’s Miscellany (Temple Bar’s predecessor) under the pseudonym William

374 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 10, 1873, MS 46655, BL. 375 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 12, 1873, MS 46660, BL. 376 Michael L. Turner, Index and Guide to the Lists of the Publications of Richard Bentley & Son 1829-1898 (Bishops Stortford, UK: Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1975), 218. 121

Mitchell. However, the relationship had apparently lapsed when Oliphant’s fame grew, and Jewsbury can be credited for reestablishing a valuable business connection.

Similarly, the firm’s connection with Cobbe was orchestrated by Jewsbury, who approached Cobbe on behalf of Bentley and Son when she discovered that Cobbe was displeased with her previous publishers.377 “I advised her to come to you,” she wrote to George, noting that Cobbe already had a “a collection of Papers on old and modern beliefs” ready to publish. She further suggested that George should “write her a note or call on her … and see whether you come to arrangement. She does not ask high prices at all and her name is so well known that I think it wd [would] answer yr [your] purpose. … Make her acquaintance. … You can use my name in writing to her.” Here, Jewsbury shows the value of her name and connections. It is her name, and not the Bentleys’, that holds sway with Cobbe. As with Oliphant, Jewsbury managed to bring Cobbe into the Bentley and Son fold. Although the specific “collection of Papers” referred to in this letter was not published by the firm, Bentley and Son did publish several of her works and eventually employed Cobbe as a publisher’s reader and editor. 378 Most notably, Cobbe was the editor of a previously mentioned volume of the diaries and correspondence of Kemble, published in 1895. She also brought promising manuscripts and authors to the firm, including acting as an agent for Sarah Wister.379

In addition to particular authors, Jewsbury had her eye on certain works that she thought would be beneficial for Bentley and Son to publish, including a volume of Plato’s writings prepared by Georgiana Chatterton, and the autobiography of Augusta Hall, Lady Llanover. Once involved with a manuscript, Jewsbury was typically engaged in the entire publishing process. In the case of Sheppard’s manuscript, for example, it was Jewsbury who followed up with the author on marketing strategies and encouraged Sheppard to use his contacts within the press to

377 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, March 13, 1868, Correspondence, UIUC. 378 Evidence from the archives shows that Cobbe published several articles in Temple Bar and published her autobiography with the firm in 1894. Additionally, Bentley bought out the copyrights of Cobbe’s books published by Fisher Unwin in 1894 and began to sell these titles. For a more detailed discussion on the “collection of Papers” referenced here—likely a reference to a title called Dawning Lights—see Ch. 4, pp. 193-197. 379 See Correspondence, UIUC. Sarah Wister was the daughter of Fanny Kemble, and mother to American author Owen Wister. 122

ensure that the novel would be reviewed.380 Her contribution to Hall’s book is also well- documented. The issues that she reached out to the publishers to discuss, often on behalf of the author, were diverse, and included design and production, the book’s dedication, indexing, and spelling. The marketing of the book was also of the utmost importance. In the fall of 1860, Jewsbury debated with Richard Sr. as to the correct way to advertise the book. Representing the author’s interests, she wrote to Richard Sr. on the preferred wording for the book’s advertisement, as developed by Hall and herself. When a different advertisement appeared, Jewsbury expressed her disappointment: “[Llanover] is dreadfully annoyed at the advertisement wh [which] is not really half so attractive as the one I brought you and wh [which] Lady Ll and I concocted between us. Will you send me a line to tell me that you have attended to this matter in order that I may write to let her Lp’s [Ladyship’s] mind at ease. … I shall be glad to be able to tell her the right advertisement is inserted.”381 Two days later, Jewsbury wrote again to reinforce her point.382 She noted that she had again seen the advertisement in “the old style” rather than the more “enticing” version that she submitted. She also warned Richard Sr. that he was causing “pain and distress” to the author, and that it was important for his business that the marketing tactic was altered. Beyond demonstrating the extent of Jewsbury’s involvement in marketing concerns, these letters are valuable for showcasing her influence within the firm. Bucking the stereotype of the meek Victorian woman, Jewsbury approached the publishers from a position of strength, betraying her confidence in her abilities and opinions. She stated as fact the superiority of the advertisement that she and Hall created, and in asking Richard Sr. to notify her when the “right” advertisement was inserted, showed that she was giving a direction rather than making a request.

Finally, women publisher’s readers were also known to participate in project management at the firm. There are examples of women employees not only developing proposals for publishing projects, but also bringing them to fruition. In 1893, Mayer proposed the creation of a multivolume work called Women of Action (published under the title Women of Letters),

380 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 10, 1871, MS 46654, BL. 381 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., November 1, 1860, MS 46653, BL. 382 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., November 3, 1860, MS 46653, BL. 123

focused on famous women writers. Picking up on Richard Jr.’s idea of circulating “the papers of literary women,” she suggested a two-volume format which incorporated writings, letters and diaries, and biographical information:

I should like to include … “The Queen of the Whigs” and “Lady Caroline’s Lamb.” They … originated the series both in subject and treatment ... Lady Hervely and the Countess Cowper were not exactly literary women either but the papers are based on the letter of the one and the Diary of the other, so perhaps they might pass muster... I enclose a list of the papers “as far as they have gone” ... For future ones, you were once kind to suggest “Lady Mary Wortley Montagu”—and I had thought of Sarah of Marlborough—Mrs. Opie and Mrs. Inchbald, subject to your approval. They will make rather a menagerie!383

In discussing the series’ “subject” and “treatment,” Mayer worked to establish the scope and purpose of the work, much like an anthology. The series of letters that follow show Mayer and Richard Jr. in the process of refining the idea. Various women, including Mary Shelley, Fanny Burney, Hannah More, and Hester Lucy Stanhope were considered for inclusion. Each woman was assessed based on the literary merit of her work, as well as her marketability. Shelley, for example, was immediately agreed upon. More was more extensively debated. Mayer worried that her inclusion in a contemporaneous book called Twelve Authoresses could diminish the sales of their own publication and incite accusations of plagiarism.384 Stanhope—Richard Jr.’s suggestion—was dismissed by Mayer out of hand for not “com[ing] within the scope of the series.” As Mayer pointed out to her employer, Stanhope was not truly a writer.385

As the selection, writing, and editing processes winded down, Mayer’s continued involvement in design and production showed her ownership of all aspects of the project. Richard Jr. was evidently pleased with her efforts and the title’s prospects on the market. Prior to publication in 1894, he encouraged Mayer to extend the original volumes into a longer series, even making suggestions for authors to include in the next installment. “It is very good of you to encourage me to begin another,” Mayer wrote to him, “and your promise of co-operation ‘when we come to Miss Jewsbury’ is delightful and valuable.”386 Although there never was a third

383 Gertrude Mayer to Richard Bentley Jr., February 4, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 384 Gertrude Mayer to Richard Bentley Jr., March 9, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 385 Gertrude Mayer to Richard Bentley Jr., July 15, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 386 Gertrude Mayer to Richard Bentley Jr., November 4, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 124

volume of the work, it is plausible that this was due to problems at the firm more generally, culminating in its sale, rather than the failure of the title itself. Regardless, opportunities for women to become as extensively involved in the business of publishing as Mayer had done in this case were rare at the time. That Richard Jr. allowed her to spearhead such a project showed that he trusted her judgement and skill.

Given the importance of the roles Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers filled within the firm, there is no question that they served a professional function. Whether the Bentleys understood and interacted with them as publishing professionals, however, is a separate matter. Some of Bentley and Son’s women employees, such as Jewsbury, came to the house with established literary careers. Richard Sr. and George were aware of Jewsbury’s work as a reader for Hurst and Blackett, and by the time of her employment at the firm, she was already a well- known critic with the literary magazine, the Athenaeum. Other readers, such as Sergeant and Godfrey, were acquainted with the publishers as authors. When the relationship between a publisher’s reader and the Bentleys was professional from the beginning, it is reasonable to assume it would continue in this vein. However, women employees who arrived at the firm under different circumstances were not always seen or treated as professionals. Several publisher’s readers, including Fetherstonhaugh and her sister Pigott-Carleton, were socially connected to the Bentleys. Few letters in the archive bear witness to how the Bentleys viewed these women as professionals. I found no letters written from the publishers to either woman. However, their own reports and letters speak to the construction of their professional identities. Notably, their professional status is undermined by the women themselves. Within the archives, their readers’ reports are tellingly classified as personal letters, and held within the UIUC collection, rather than being included in the collection of readers’ reports at the BL. This is partially a reflection of archival practices. In these cases, the professional content of the letter, meaning the reader’s report, is preceded by social content, such as news on mutual friends, vacations, and outings. Archivists evidently identified this personal content as the primary content of these documents and categorized them accordingly.387

387 See Ch. 1 for a more detailed discussion on archival and historiographical practices. 125

The question of why this personal content is included in the women’s readers’ reports is also worth raising, particularly since none of the men’s readers’ reports in the UIUC or the BL collections contain this type of material. It is possible that the women were reluctant to present themselves as professionals for fear of eroding their economic or social status. As paid work was moved outside the home through the process of industrialization, explains Caine, there was a “new sense that income should be earned by the man household head, leaving his wife and daughters secure within the domestic realm.”388 Taking on paid work or engaging in a professional atmosphere was identified as unfeminine, and typically associated with the lower classes. In contrast, there was no motive for men publisher’s readers to disguise their professional activities. Their reports contain few, if any, pleasantries, highlighting their position as employees rather than friends. Even the salutations within the men’s reports speaks to their relationship with the firm. They were more likely to begin their reports with “Sir” rather than “Dear Mr. Bentley,” which is common in the women’s reports. The use of this title alone is indicative of the presence of social and economic hierarchy. As Raymond Chapman observes, “the most common use is to a man regarded as superior in age, rank, or immediate relationship,” for example a servant addressing the master of a house.389 That women readers tended to use more familiar ways of addressing their correspondence indicates that they did not define their relationship with the Bentleys in the same way their men colleagues. Fetherstonhaugh’s ongoing correspondence with George exemplifies how some of the women publisher’s readers distanced themselves from the literary profession. In 1881, she asked George to not send her any more manuscripts for six weeks, because she was tired of the work and would shortly be leaving for Europe.390 A few months later, she asked him to limit the amount of manuscripts he sent her to “one book a week,” noting that “four M.S. a month … is the extent of the ‘reading’ I can do properly,” and that the work was getting in the way of her leisure reading.391 Both Fetherstonhaugh and her sister Pigott-Carleton were also careful to emphasize their lack of expertise and their deference to George. In the first year of her employment, Pigott-Carleton

388 Caine, English Feminism, 14. 389 Raymond Chapman, Forms of Speech in Victorian Fiction (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), 79. 390 Minna Fetherstonhaugh to George Bentley, February 15, 1881, Correspondence, UIUC. 391 Minna Fetherstonhaugh to George Bentley, July 10, 1881, Correspondence, UIUC. 126

asked George for his advice on crafting reports: “excuse me if I do not write my criticisms at sufficient length nor with enough detail; I am new to the work and only afraid of writing too much. … Should you have any instructions to give, be sure I will try to carry them out; I am not self-willed, only very ignorant.”392 In a following letter, she enthusiastically thanked George for his “hints.”393 In highlighting her own “ignorance” on professional matters, Pigott-Carleton identified herself as an amateur.

On the other side of the spectrum were readers such as Jackson and Mayer, who came to the firm through economic necessity. They represent the type of professional woman Fetherstonhaugh worked to distance herself from—the middle-class woman who had been forced into the labour market, plagued by a loss of economic security and social status. As the wife of a moderately successful author and a published historian, Jackson was no stranger to the literary environment. When her husband died, she reached out to George, hoping to supplement her income through additional literary work. Her position as a publisher’s reader may have been granted through George’s kindness, but his expectations for her mirrored those for any other employee—expectations that Jackson was unable to meet. In her correspondence with George, she frequently referred to herself as “troublesome,” and addressed her inability to fulfill the requirements of her role: “I think I have disappointed you lately—you attribute more merit to me than you have since found me deserving of. It must be so; for you have never allowed me to see the letters you once spoke of, and you send me no more MSS,” she wrote, just two months after beginning her work.394 Although Jackson continued to work as a publisher’s reader for another two years, she never became more confident. To some extent, this was a function of the gendered boundaries that guided the roles of publisher’s readers at the firm. Specifically, the fact that women were usually relegated to the reading of fiction. At the beginning of April 1875, Jackson wrote to George to say that she found “the reading of M.S.S. and especially of novels” to be “a most uncongenial pursuit.”395 She asked: “as it seems you have little, or nothing for me to do, in connection with our arrangement for literary assistance, could not some other, more satisfactory

392 Henrietta Pigott-Carleton to George Bentley, August 21, 1880, Correspondence, UIUC. 393 Henrietta Pigott-Carleton to George Bentley, September 26, 1880, Correspondence, UIUC. 394 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, May 13, 1873, Correspondence, UIUC. 395 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, April 3, 1875, Correspondence, UIUC. 127

one be made? One in which I should feel more confidence in my ability to fulfil my part of it?” Although she suggested that George send her historical manuscripts to read in place of novels, which would better suit her as a practiced historian, he instead decided to end her tenure as a publisher’s reader.396 When manuscripts ceased to come her way, Jackson wrote to George:

As to our literary engagement, I have no wish to shorten it .... I only cannot understand, if you will pardon me for saying so, how it is, if you really have the confidence in me you were good enough to say you had … that you give me nothing to do. Did I fail in the revising of those books? I should like to know. Your letter seems to say, ‘good bye, till we meet in the Kingdom of Heaven.’ Not so, I say. But if you are my friend, let me earn the £25. Otherwise, I am lost.

This passage highlights George’s dilemma between providing work for a friend in financial need and the desire to maintain high performance standards for his employees. His decision to remove Jackson from his roster of readers speaks to the extent to which he viewed manuscript reading as a professional endeavour. It appears that George did allow Jackson to “earn the £25” she had already been given but altered their original agreement. Instead of reading manuscripts, Jackson was asked to undertake translation and proofreading work, which was less prominent and less formally organized within the firm than other forms of literary labour.

In contrast, Mayer’s path at the firm took a different turn. Jackson and Mayer may have been employed under the same circumstances, but once her foot was in the door, Mayer thrived in the literary environment. Prior to 1877, Mayer’s literary experience was largely unseen and unpaid. Like many wives of literary men, she provided editorial, research, and administrative support for her husband, Samuel Mayer, working within the home. It was only her husband’s illness, and the family’s resulting financial want, that drove her into the public sphere: “as I think you know what the state of Mr Mayer’s health has recently been, you will not be surprised that I am anxious to do anything in my power towards lessening his cares,” she wrote to George. “If you happen to have a little literary work to give away, in the shape of translations from the French, manuscript reading, or correcting proofs, will you try me and I should be eternally grateful, and would do my utmost to satisfy you.”397 Despite this fraught beginning to her career,

396 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, April 8, 1875, Correspondence, UIUC. 397 Gertrude Mayer to George Bentley, November 12, 1877, Correspondence, UIUC. 128

Mayer became one of the most prominent publisher’s readers at the firm in the following two decades. She was the first permanent woman employee at the firm following the restructuring of the manuscripts department in 1883. Although Richard Jr. immediately appointed Beard as the deputy head of the department, citing Beard’s “genuine literary instincts,” he also believed that Mayer would “prove more useful than originally anticipated.”398

In additional letters, he detailed her role in the department and how she benefitted the firm.399 Richard Jr. noted that Mayer’s labour improved workflow within the department and freed him from excess work: “formerly I checked the MSS and Beard read them. Now Beard checks them and Mrs. Mayer reads them,” he explained to his father. “A large proportion of MSS which come in are at once instinctively classed as declinable by Beard and myself. But they cannot conscientiously be declined without being read in portion—and so lingered on the shelves until Beard and I had time after hours to look at them.” This correspondence also reveals Mayer’s place within the workplace hierarchy. Richard Jr. notes that he relegated the “bad” and “mediocre” manuscripts to Mayer’s care, a job which he described as “depressing.”400 This indicates that she often performed the grunt work that her superiors found unpalatable. Yet, Mayer was still valued and valuable. Richard Jr. described her employment as having a “beneficial result,” and Mayer herself as “useful.” A more specific example is a letter in which Richard Jr. discussed the possibility of establishing a new in-house magazine of “ladies’ fiction,” which would contain short stories. The men toyed with the idea of tasking Mayer with the project and appointing her as editor.401 Although this magazine never came to fruition, it is important to note that the letter was written a decade before Mayer worked as the editor of Women of Letters. It is possible that the idea for this magazine is connected to, or even the inspiration for, the eventual publication. Richard Jr.’s consideration of Mayer as a potential editor for this project, and her later work in compiling an anthology along these lines, demonstrate his faith in Mayer’s abilities.

398 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, March 9, 1883, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 399 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, 1883, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 400 Ibid. 401 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, March 3, 1883, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 129

Mayer was not the only woman employee at this point to have a significant role in the functioning of the firm; as a letter cited earlier indicates, George and Richard Jr. referenced other women employees, and thought of Sergeant as their best reader. In addition to Fetherstonhaugh and Sergeant, Godfrey and Pigott-Carleton’s names appears frequently in discussions on publisher’s readers during this period. However, Mayer was unique in two ways. The first is that evidence from the Bentley archive suggests that Mayer was a salaried employee. In a list of employees and yearly salaries, Mayer’s name appears beneath Beard’s, the fourth name on the list overall.402 Her salary is listed as £100 annually, an impressive sum even when compared to Beard’s salary of £160. To provide greater context, only Beard and two other employees earned more than Mayer. This included Van Honright, the office manager, whose employment at the firm spanned decades. A total of seven employees are listed under Mayer and receive lower salaries. Those I can identify through other archival materials were clerks, who earned anywhere between £50 to £88 yearly based on seniority. This list is an indication of Mayer’s position within the firm. While she was not included in the ranks of management, her value was above most of the men employees handling day-to-day business, and she was compensated accordingly.

The second reason that Mayer was notable is that she had a presence in the physical office space, which is further evidence of her rise within the firm. Prior to the establishment of the manuscripts department, most of the literary work of the firm was either done by publisher’s readers in their own homes, or by George and Richard Jr. at their residences or respective offices. When Beard was appointed department head, however, he—and therefore Bentley and Son’s literary operations more broadly—were afforded physical space at the premises on New Burlington Street. A postscript of a letter written in 1886 indicates that as part of her role within this department, Mayer had been afforded a room of her own. Following a lengthy discussion of the author Hall Caine, Richard Jr. added a line to assure his father that “a temporarily missing piece of Mallock’s novel” had been found. The manuscript had been “left out in Mrs. M’s room when the painters were in ours,” he explained.403 Although women were undoubtedly entering the public space for both social and professional purposes throughout the century, having a

402 Document 17, General Management, UIUC. 403 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, May 15, 1886, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 130

woman employee in the office environment was still rare during this period. Aside from the lower-class women who worked in factory environments, most middle-class women who entered the workforce were limited to work that either took place within the domestic space (i.e. governesses and seamstresses) or was considered an extension of their feminine role (i.e. nursing and teaching).404 Literary work was no exception. It became an acceptable career path for middle-class women throughout the nineteenth century because it was not thought to violate the theoretical distinction between the public and private spheres. Not only was literary work typically done in the domestic space, but it was thought to suit women’s gender-specific abilities and characteristics.405 Mayer’s presence in the Bentley and Son offices, then, represents the breakdown of the supposedly isolated spheres of domestic and public. This was arguably an inevitable result of Bentley and Son’s industrialization. Once literary labour, and manuscript reading in particular, was formally organized in an industrial sense and housed within the work environment, it was perhaps inevitable that this space would open to women employees, who were heavily involved in this work.

Not only was Mayer the first woman publishing worker to be given an office at Bentley and Son, but there is also no indication that any other reader operated in-house. Even Evans, who did a significant portion of the reading and editing for Temple Bar, worked on a freelance basis. His correspondence, which include references to being sent manuscripts by mail and returning reports to Beard by telegram, suggests that he worked from home and was paid per piece.406 Mayer’s daily proximity to Richard Jr. and Beard positively impacted her role at the firm, encouraging the two men to consult with her on manuscripts department matters. Beard’s letters to Richard Jr. indicate the extent to which he relied on Mayer to inform his publishing decisions. Throughout the 1890s, Beard frequently cited Mayer’s opinion on manuscripts and articles, and uses her views to justify his recommendations in terms of acceptance and rejection. Mayer was also relied upon for her editorial skills. Like manuscript reading, editorial work was done outside of the firm for most of the century. The Bentleys frequently asked friends to look over

404 Corfield, Power and the Professions, 145. 405 See Ch. 2 for a more in-depth discussion. 406 H.E.G. Evans to Richard Bentley Jr., January 15, 1891, Correspondence, UIUC. 131

manuscripts or perform editorial work themselves. As previously discussed, manuscript reading commonly evolved into editorial work, as was the case with Jewsbury’s editing of East Lynne. Additionally, publishers relied on printing firms’ printers’ readers for copy-editing, and much of the editorial work fell on the authors themselves.

As the century wore on, however, the firm formalized their approach to editorial work, centralizing and standardizing this labour. By the 1880s, the firm maintained a formal list of employees who were relied upon for editorial work.407 Mayer benefitted from, and contributed to, this process, working as an in-house editor. In the case of a manuscript called A Cairo Scandal, Beard told Richard that he and Mayer agree that the novel should be accepted, with a caveat: “the drawback of course is its length—and the accident in the tunnel ought to be abridged, and could be easily by Mrs Mayer, whose fellow report, I see, points out the same necessity.”408 Another letter notes that she had successfully made corrections to an article without “upsetting” its overall composition.409 In most of the recorded discussions surrounding the work of content and copyediting at the firm between George, Richard Jr. and Beard, the men reference Mayer as the employee who either has or will attend to the necessary work. Additional evidence suggests that she was authorized to liaise with outside business associates on behalf of the firm. Letters from the printing firm of William Clowes demonstrate that Mayer periodically served as their contact within the firm, dealing with issues such as formatting and illustration choices.410 Arguably, her physical presence alongside her employers and the head of her department cemented her role within a male-dominated peer group. The letters referred to above show that Mayer was able to take on tasks exclusively assigned to in-house employees, and that her opinion was frequently and easily sought due to her availability.

Occasionally, Beard had reason to question Mayer’s analysis of a manuscript and relied on other publisher’s readers for a second opinion. Noting that her assessments of two manuscripts, A House of Cards and Knight of the Blue Rose were indecisive, Beard asked

407 Document 20, General Management, UIUC. 408 Nathaniel Beard to Richard Bentley Jr., October 25, 1894, Employee Letters, UIUC. 409 Nathaniel Beard to Richard Bentley Jr., June 15, 1895, Employee Letters, UIUC. 410 William Clowes to Messrs. Bentley and Son, Correspondence A-F, Box 1, UCLA. 132

George if they should be “sent along to Evans” for additional feedback.411 In fact, Evans and Mayer were often asked to report on the same manuscripts, and apparently, were usually at odds. A manuscript written by “Poor Mrs. Paul King” had to be declined, Beard wrote to George, because “for once, both [Evans and Mayer] are agreed upon this subject.”412 In addition to bearing witness to the commonality of their disagreements, this letter also shows that the publisher’s readers were considered peers within the firm. In this environment, they were both asked to share their perspective, and could agree or disagree on equal footing. Not even the most prominent men publisher’s readers, including Evans, had more sway over publishing decisions than their women colleagues. The history of a novel called Toddle Island illustrates this point. The novel, which was a satire of English politics and life, caused the firm much consternation. Prior to its publication, there was a great deal of debate within the firm on whether the book was appropriate for the marketplace. Its criticism of the state of marriage in England was the main cause of concern. The first reader, Sergeant, noted that the book was “the sort of manuscript calculated to make a critic lose his (or her) temper.”413 For his part, Evans found the work confusing. While he acknowledged Richard Jr.’s belief that “the book may make some stir,” he noted that he did not “know what the meaning of ‘married woman’s madness’ is.”414 In this case,

George disagreed with his publisher’s readers, insinuating that they were short-sighted.415 Referring to a passage in the manuscript which read, “itch was usually considered respectable in a man, but always disgraceful in a woman,” he conceded that the wording itself was “filthy,” but that the “metaphor to imply that adultery is respectable in a man and not so in a woman … is dully so far true that in a woman it is more disgraceful in the eyes of society.” To George, the truth behind the statement made this criticism of the institution of marriage a valid one, regardless of how crudely it was expressed. Therefore, this was a matter of editing, not content. He questioned why Evans turned the manuscript down, and suggested that Mayer be asked for her opinion, because she would better understand the author’s point. The novel was eventually

411 Nathaniel Beard to George Bentley, October 1, 1894, Employee Letters, UIUC. 412 Nathaniel Beard to George Bentley, October 9, 1894, Employee Letters, UIUC. 413 Adeline Sergeant to Richard Bentley Jr., March 17, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. 414 H.E.G. Evans to Richard Bentley Jr., November 21, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. 415 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., November 1, 1894, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 133

purchased for a six-shilling royalty and published in 1895. The variety of opinions surrounding this novel, expressed within ongoing conversations that can be reconstructed through the archives, speak to the collaborative nature of the manuscripts department. The voices of Sergeant and Mayer factored into this conversation as greatly as that of Evans and George, and responses to the manuscript were not drawn along gender lines, even when approaching an issue central to the women’s movement.

Richard Jr.’s professional respect for Mayer is further exemplified by his effort to find her employment with Macmillan after the closure of the firm. She was one of a few manuscripts department employees—along with Beard—whom he convinced Macmillan to take on. 416 Mayer quickly made her mark at her new place of employment, producing 81 reader’s reports in her first year. This vote of confidence and aid in obtaining future employment was not guaranteed. Although Richard Jr. showed remorse for selling the firm, and expressed concern for his employees, he was not able to ensure that they all found new positions. 417 Two years after the closure of the firm, and the year that the Temple Bar ceased production, Evans wrote to Richard Jr. to thank him for “mentioning [him] in St. Martin’s Street,” regardless of “whether anything comes out of it or not.”418 Bemoaning the difficulties of finding employment, Evans addressed the lack of opportunity at Macmillan, accusing the company of being elitist: “Macmillan here so lays a connection amongst university men of proved ability that it would be surprising indeed if they offered anything to an outsider. Is it possible that any other firm might be more accessible?” As a firm, Macmillan did have a reputation as a scholarly, high-brow house, which Evans references here.419 Yet, in the same year, Mayer was still employed at

Macmillan.420 The firm’s willingness not only to employ Mayer on a continuous basis, but also

416 A letter from Beard to Richard Jr. written on Macmillan & Co. letterhead is evidence of his employment at the firm. Nathaniel Beard to Richard Bentley Jr., October 8, 1898, Employee Letters, UIUC. 417 Nathaniel Beard to Richard Bentley Jr., August 16, 1898, Employee Letters, UIUC. In this letter, Beard thanks Richard Jr. for “the forethought which seems to have been evinced for the future welfare of the staff.” 418 H.E.G. Evans to Richard Bentley Jr., August 2, 1900, Correspondence, UIUC. 419 Responding to Richard Jr.’s notice that the firm was to be sold, Charles Wood wrote: “I like the House of Macmillan very much, and am very pleased to be associated with them…I always had an impression that they went in specially for heavier books.” Charles Wood to Richard Bentley Jr., August 15, 1898, MS 46648, BL. 420 A letter from Maurice Macmillan to Richard Jr. in this year, in which Macmillan says he will pass along Richard Jr.’s message to Mayer, indicates that she is still working with the firm. 134

to make her one of their main publisher’s readers alongside the long-serving John Morley, demonstrates that it was not exclusively “university men” who made the cut anymore.

Evidence gleaned from payment structures for publisher’s readers can also be used to indicate how the Bentleys’ women employees were treated compared to their men colleagues. The firm’s account books give little insight into how publisher’s readers were paid. They record only lump sums of cheques distributed, and do not assume a pattern in terms of payment dates or amounts. For this reason, it is difficult to use them to provide an analysis of compensation for publisher’s readers, or to compare payments made to men and women. Letters and readers’ reports, however, contain more information on the firm’s payment system. Apart from Mayer, none of the publisher’s readers at the firm received annual salaries. Instead, they were paid a fee per manuscript read, and not in a regular or organized manner. In her dissertation on Jewsbury’s career, Fahnestock uses these materials to conclude that a publisher’s reader was paid two to three times yearly, earning approximately £50 to £70 total.421 Though Fahnestock implies that Jewsbury was underpaid for her work, noting that Jewsbury supplemented this income with reviewing work, family money, and inheritance, she does not comment on how Jewsbury’s compensation equated to that of the men publisher’s readers. Admittedly, there is a lack of information available for a definitive comparison. There are few examples in the archives of men publisher’s readers asking for payment, or clearly articulating how much they were owed based on how many manuscripts they had read.

One useful comparison is between William Stubbs and Jewsbury, since invoices—letters requesting money based on the number of manuscripts read during a certain period—exist from both in the year 1866. In Stubbs’s letter, he listed ten manuscripts reported on and asked for a payment of ₤13 9s 1d, or ₤1 7s a manuscript .422 Jewsbury’s invoice covers twenty-four novels read, for which Bentley owed her ₤25 4s, or ₤1 1s a manuscript.423 Six shillings in 1866 converts to approximately ₤14 today, making this difference in payment worth noting. Yet, this does not

421 Jeanne Rosenmayer Fahnestock, “Geraldine Jewsbury: Novelist and Publisher’s Reader,” (PhD Diss., University of London, 1970), 323-324. 422 William Stubbs to George Bentley, January 11, 1866, MS 46654, BL. 423 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, August 30, 1866, MS 46654, BL. 135

provide conclusive evidence of an official discrepancy in payment for men and women publisher’s readers. An earlier invoice sent to George from Jewsbury from 1863 shows that Jewsbury’s income doubled in just three years of employment. For twenty-two manuscripts, Jewsbury was paid ₤11 11s 6d, which works out to 10s 6d a report.424 The type of manuscript in question also mattered. In 1872, Jewsbury sent Richard Jr. an invoice for £28 16s 6d for twenty- nine manuscripts.425 Although this came to less than £1 per manuscript, Jewsbury provided an explanation. She reminded Richard Jr. that her fee was cheaper in this case because many of the manuscripts were short articles for Temple Bar. Evidently, Bentley and Son paid their readers on a sliding scale, offering them greater payment for their own time and experience, as well as the length and complexity of the manuscript. For this reason, I cannot assume that the discrepancy between Jewsbury’s and Stubbs’s income in 1866 is directly caused by gender as opposed to the place they were in in their respective careers and the types of manuscripts they were reading. Simultaneously, this does not make gender a non-factor. If payment was indeed determined by experience and type of manuscript read, gender plays a central role in that career trajectories and the types of work available to the readers was shaped by gender ideology.

That Bentley and Son used the same process of payment for publisher’s readers of both genders is more clearly demonstrated. The firm did not offer payment at regular intervals but waited until the publisher’s readers requested compensation. They would write to the Bentleys to tell them how many manuscripts they read over a certain period of time, and how much they were owed. In a letter from Stubbs to George concerning payment, Stubbs wrote, “I am quite ashamed to write to you but there are such things as Christmas bills and they are heavy just now.”426 Jewsbury’s requests for money were similarly apologetic, and implied that she would not ask for money without reason. She wrote to George: “Please will you send me some money? For I am going out of town—and one needs money to set one in the straight road.”427 By putting both Stubbs and Jewsbury in the position of needing to ask for payment that was justly theirs, the firm equally mistreated men and women publisher’s readers. This is particularly true given that

424 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, February 1863, MS 46653, BL. 425 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Jr., August 30, 1872, MS 46654, BL. 426 William Stubbs to George Bentley, January 11, 1866, MS 46654, BL. 427 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, undated, MS 46654, BL. 136

both Macmillan and Chapman and Hall kept their (entirely male) reading staff on salary.428 Furthermore, the publisher’s readers’ employment was precarious compared to their salaried colleagues who worked in-house as clerks or salesmen. According to theorists such as Lazzarato and Rieger, this instability is a defining feature of immaterial labour. Within this type of economy, “a polymorphous self-employed autonomous work has emerged as the dominant form, a kind of ‘intellectual worker’ … inserted within a market that is constantly shifting,” Lazzarato explains.429 Despite being self-employed, of course, the immaterial labourer engages in work that is precarious, hyper-exploitive, and mobile. The way in which Bentley and Son’s publisher’s readers were compensated exemplifies this tendency. Though hypothetically working on their own terms, the publisher’s readers could not rely on the workflow or income provided by their literary work.

Whether publisher’s readers received payment for the work that they performed beyond reading and reporting is unclear. Fahnestock argues that the system of payment per manuscript was unfair because it did not cover all the “additional things that Miss Jewsbury did for the firm” such as suggesting manuscripts and authors, keeping the Bentleys up to date on trade news, and promoting titles.430 The most she concedes is that this labour was recognized in “unrecorded ways,” and specifically that Jewsbury was “paid in kind by a free supply of Bentley publications.” Indeed, there is evidence to support her conclusion. In her letter detailing her editorial work on Sheppard’s manuscript, Jewsbury wrote: “as for me please clearly understand one thing—I am not going to receive a simple farthing of payment.”431 In lieu of her own compensation, she asked that George advance the author £10 to £15, which would allow him to take a desperately needed vacation. Additionally, there are no invoices in the archive sent from Jewsbury to the firm requesting payment for her editorial or marketing efforts. The general authors ledgers, however, suggest that at least some of this type of labour was paid. According to the ledgers, a cheque for £20 was issued to Jewsbury in 1863 for editing a travel memoir called

428 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 68. 429 Maurizio Lazzarato, “Immaterial Labour,” in Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, eds. Paolo Vimo and Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 140. 430 Fahnestock, “Novelist and Publisher’s Reader,” 323. 431 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 10, 1871, MS 46654, BL. 137

The History of Andrew Deverell.432 Cobbe was paid the relatively large sum of £92 for writing a forward for an unnamed title in 1891.433 Such examples are few throughout these ledgers, which primarily contain information regarding copyright and royalty payments. Yet, these possibly misplaced notations indicate that, at least occasionally, additional labour performed by publisher’s readers was paid.

Bentley and Son’s relationship to their women authors provides an additional perspective on the firm’s approach towards women professionals. Where evidence of payment for women publisher’s readers—and in fact, publisher’s readers generally—is scarce, author’s ledgers and agreement memorandum books leave behind a comprehensive view of financial arrangements between the firm and its authors. An examination of these sources shows that it is primarily the Bentleys’ assessment of a title’s marketability and potential sales—influenced by factors such as the reputation of the author, the genre of the work, and the size of its potential audience—that governed copyright or royalty structures. Notably, most of the firm’s highest earning authors are women, including Wood, Broughton, and Marie Corelli. Wood’s copyright agreements are of interest because they demonstrate how the value of an author’s writing can alter dramatically with increased fame and sales. For East Lynne, the first novel that Wood published with Bentley and Son, she was offered a £50 advance on a half profit model.434 Because the novel was a runaway success, she commanded much higher prices for her work in the future. Just one year later, in 1862, Wood sold The Channings to Bentley and Son for £500.435 At the height of her popularity, the Bentleys offered the author over £1000 per novel.436 As the century wore on, Wood’s waning sales are similarly reflected in her publishing agreements, settling at a low of approximately £500-550 in the late century.437 Similar patterns can be seen in Broughton’s publishing agreements.438 Corelli’s agreements do not show the same decline as Wood and

432 General Author’s Ledger 1861-72, MS 46561, BL. 433 General Author’s Ledger 1872-96, MS 46562, BL. 434 Agreement Memorandum Book 1854-1863, MS 46617, BL. 435 Ibid. 436 Agreement and Publication Ledger, MS 46629, BL. 437 Ibid.; Richard Bentley Sr. to Ellen Wood, July 14, 1870, MS 46643, BL. 438 Broughton’s first novel with Bentley and Son, Not Wisely But Too Well, was published in 1865 with no advance and at half profits. In 1869, she earned £325 for Red as a Rose is She, £900 for Goodbye, Sweetheart in1870, and a 138

Broughton because she chose to work with different publishers when George would not meet her financial demands.439 When these women authors were at the top of their game, not even the firm’s best-selling men authors could compete. Wilkie Collins, for example, was offered at most £750 for his work.440

Of course, these authors’ success is not necessarily indicative of the experience of women authors as a whole. As Tuchman and Fortin might argue, Wood, Broughton and Corelli represent exceptions to the rule of women authors as the underclass of literary production.441 For this reason, it is important to explore how Bentley and Son compensated unknown men and women authors, under the assumption that differences in their publishing agreements would be more indicative of the impact of gender, given that their potential salability is more equal. Offers made to Edward Maitland and Constance Blount in 1873 provide a useful comparison. Both were first- time authors, and both manuscripts received lukewarm reviews from the same publisher’s reader. On Maitland’s novel By and By, Jewsbury wrote that she objected to the author’s view of marriage, and that she found the work “shallow” overall.442 However, she did ask to see another volume before rejecting the work outright. Blount’s Little Lady Lorraine attracted similar criticisms.443 Although Jewsbury felt that this author was able in her descriptions of “female psychology and romance,” the novel was also deemed “frivolous.” In the end, both authors were offered half profits for the copyright of their work.444 The same fate befell a first-time author named George Christopher Davies, whose work The Golden Shaft was published on half profits in 1875. Despite the ultimate decision to publish the novel, Jewsbury’s review, in which she expressed doubt in the work’s “good taste” and guessed the author was “young” and “not accustomed to society,” likely made the publishers wary against investing too much in the

peak of £1300 for Alas in 1889. However, in the 1890s, Broughton was offered significantly reduced prices for her work, from £300-350. Agreement and Publication Ledger, MSS 46629, 46630, BL. 439 See pp. 144-149 for a more detailed discussion of Corelli’s publication history and negotiations with the firm. 440 Wilkie Collins was offered £750 for Poor Miss Finch in 1871. Agreement Memorandum Book, MS 46618, BL. 441 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 1-8. 442 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, January 20, 1873, MS 46660, BL. 443 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, May 13, 1873, MS 46660, BL. 444 Agreement and Publication Ledger, MS 46629, BL. 139

title.445 Tellingly, Jewsbury’s enthusiasm for works penned by new authors, such as F. Weller Shephard’s Made in Heaven, did encourage the Bentleys to offer more money upfront. Unlike his peers, Shepard was offered £52 10s for the copyright of his work in 1873.446

This lack of conclusive evidence that Bentley and Son employed gender-bias payment methods supports the argument that the firm had a relatively progressive perspective of women’s professionalization. However, it is simultaneously true that the Bentleys espoused Victorian gender ideologies which impacted their business dealings and relationships with women who were either employed or published by Bentley and Son. These assumptions occasionally worked to the women’s benefit. As previously noted, women were presumed to be more able to undertake reading work due to their feminine characteristics and penchant for affective labour. However, the publishers’ implementation of gender ideology could equally prove to be a hindrance to women employees and authors. Although Bentley and Son’s payment structures for publisher’s readers and authors were not directly guided by gender, the publishers did use Victorian gender norms to their benefit during negotiations. Trading on the expectation that women were meek and motivated by emotion rather than economic gain, Richard Jr. prevailed upon women authors to accept lower payments in times of financial struggle, or for the sake of a long-standing friendship between the author and the firm. In a letter that appears to be a negotiation for the copyright of a novel by an author identified only as Mrs. Cross, the publishers called attention to the state of the market: “the present is not a good time … for the production of Novels owing [to] the low financial look out all round, and the controversy at present going on among Public, Publishers, and Libraries, as to the form in which books are in the future to be produced,” they explained.447

445 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 23, 1874, MS 46660, BL. 446 Agreement and Publication Ledger, MS 46629, BL. 447 Richard Bentley and Son to Mrs. Cross, September 22, 1894, MS 46646, BL. This refers to the ongoing debate between publishers, librarians and booksellers on whether to keep or discard the three-volume novel format. See Ch. 4, pp. 205-207 for more details. 140

The strength of Cross’ position is important to consider. As a lesser-known author, she may not have had the ability to negotiate, or to threaten to take her work to another publisher.448 However, this plea was used not just with less established authors, but the most famous as well. In a negotiation with Broughton, Richard Jr. also cited poor market conditions in the attempt to procure her latest novel at a discount. “The values of copyrights have not yet recovered from the rude shock they had some three years ago when the abolishing of the ‘Library Edition’ of Novels an avalanche of cheaply produced (and generally very inferior) works poured into the market,” he explained, justifying his request to reduce the offer from £350 to £300.449 Broughton, who once commanded upwards of £1000 for the copyrights of her novels, accepted this low-ball offer.450 Her leniency could be attributed to a realistic view of the marketplace. Temple Bar sales statistics from the mid- to late 1890s, the period when these letters are dated, corroborate with Richard Jr.’s analysis that the market was flooded with novels and fiction contained in newspapers and magazines, but without the increased readership.451 These statistics demonstrate that Richard Jr. was not falsifying the firm’s difficult economic position. It is possible that Broughton was aware of these issues, which would explain why she was willing to accept a lower payment. Notably, however, there are no examples that I uncovered in the archives of the publishers citing the poor state of the market in negotiations with men authors during the same period. Using this appeal to women authors therefore reflects the extent to which the Bentleys approached business dealings differently based on gender.

448 It is unlikely that Cross ended up publishing with Bentley and Son. There is no author listed in the Index to the Bentley Lists whose name and publication dates would indicate this author. The only other woman author with the same last name, Ada Cross, published her novels more than a decade before this letter was written. See Turner, Index and Guide. 449 Richard Bentley Jr. to Rhoda Broughton, February 16, 1898, MS 46648, BL. 450 Richard Bentley Jr. to Rhoda Broughton, February 18, 1898, MS 46648, BL. 451 Magazine circulation, as measured by the number of printed copies, reached a high of 169,250 in 1876. However, these numbers declined steadily until the end of the century. In 1886, 144,750 copies of Temple Bar were printed, and the sharpest drop took place between the years 1895 and 1896, when the number of printed magazines reduces from 121,250 to 108,675. By 1898, the year of Richard Jr. wrote to Broughton about Bentley and Son’s issues with the market, circulation had dropped below 100,000. I take these falling circulation numbers as a better indication of the state of the market than sales statistics for novels because there are fewer variables, such as the popularity of a singular novel, or common declines in sales as a novel becomes older, that impact these statistics. “Some Decennial Statistics (Temple Bar Magazine),” MS 46606, BL. 141

In addition to citing financial difficulty to gain the upper hand in a negotiation, the Bentleys also used their personal relationships with women authors to exert control and gain advantage. Using personal connections for business related purposes was not an exclusively masculine practice. An earlier cited letter from Jackson, for example, implored George to find her new work, following her failure as a publisher’s reader, for the sake of their friendship. Mayer similarly relied on George’s friendly feelings for herself and her husband when asking for literary work. However, the power dynamics at play between the publishers and their women employees are important to consider. When Jackson and Mayer relied on feelings of friendship to beg a favour, they did so from an acknowledged position of weakness. Their dependence on George’s kindness is evident. In contrast, the Bentleys’ invocation of personal relationships emphasized their position of power. It was not a plea, but a statement of their advantage. Tellingly, the Bentleys convinced Wood to accept an offer for a novel in 1863 that was more favourable to the publishing house than the author herself on this basis. Attempting to convince her to accept payment based on profits rather than upfront, George wrote:

My father has departed from all his rules of business to make an exception in your case, and I think you will agree that so large an allowance upon account of two thirds of the profits shows an earnest desire to meet your views and to continue a connection which you can readily imagine has been very pleasing to him, not alone for the profits, but for … the friendship which has gone along with it.452

Although George acknowledged that publishing Wood’s works was economically advantageous, he simultaneously claimed the upper hand. By telling Wood that an “exception” has been made in their dealings with her, he signals her professional debt to the firm. Additionally, he insinuates that her non-compliance in this case would not only be damaging to their professional relationship, but to their personal one as well.

This stands in contrast to the language the Bentleys used in their business dealings with men. An example of this is a letter to John Birch Webb, who temporarily conducted copyright negotiations with the firm on behalf of his wife Annie. In his letters to the author herself, Richard Sr. used terms such as “literary friends” to refer to not only the relationship between Annie and

452 George Bentley to Ellen Wood, July 30, 1863, MS 46642, BL. 142

the firm, but also to his publisher’s readers.453 His correspondence with John, however, was entirely business minded:

To give Mrs. Webb £50 for a work to be sold for 5/1000 copies would literally leave me with the pleasure of publishing without any profits. Now this I feel sure you do not expect me to do. You mistake, when you say “I must allow that for Mrs Webb’s labour she deserves what she mentioned as her share 1/- out of 5/-.” The price to the public, it is true, is 5/-, but I do not receive more than 2/10 out of which has to be paid the expense of printing, paper, advertising and author. You will see that it is impossible for me to amend my offer. … I have stopped the printing and will do just as you like if you desire to place the work in other hands on payment of my present expenses.454

Here, Richard Sr. appeals to John based on economic realities rather than friendship. He explains the financial details surrounding the publication of Annie’s work, and takes John’s understanding of these issues for granted. This is a gendered assumption. The firm’s letterbooks—which contain the Bentleys’ business correspondence—demonstrate that when women challenged the Bentleys, they attributed it to ignorance of the literary or business spheres.455 Moreover, it is the Webbs’ professional connection alone that Richard Sr. threatens when he writes that he has “stopped the printing” and will “place the work in other hands” if requested—and only if compensated for his expenses thus far. For women who did business with Bentley and Son, more than their personal and professional connection with the firm was at stake. Women who were at odds with the publishers—and insisted on standing their ground—were accused of transgressing against proper feminine roles and behaviours. Responding to the complaint of a poet identified only as Miss Vaughan, who had accused the publisher of “covert discourtesy and ridicule,” George haughtily retorted that he had spoken to her as a “gentleman to any lady.”456 By invoking social rather than professional roles, George reminded Vaughan of the hierarchy that governed

453 Richard Bentley Sr. to Annie Webb, May 7, 1859, MS 46642, BL. 454 Richard Bentley Sr. to Rev. J.B. Webb, June 21, 1859, MS 46642, BL. The format in which Richard Sr. expresses prices within this letter (i.e. 1/-) is a common way of referring to shillings and pennies, denoted elsewhere in this dissertation more formally as “s” and “d”. It is worth noting that this Rev. Webb did not end up cancelling the book according Turner, Index and Guide, 213. 455 In a letter addressed to a Mrs. Lockwood, George accuses her of “utter ignorance of our literary standing and of business matters in general” when she complains that her manuscript has not received the appropriate attention from the editor of Temple Bar. George Bentley to Mrs. Lockwood, April 27, 1877, MS 46644, BL. 456 George Bentley to Miss Vaughan, December 13, 1878, MS 46644, BL. 143

their relations. Her interpretation of the publisher’s behaviour was dismissed out-of-hand based on his presumed masculine authority and superiority.457

The Bentleys’ reliance on, and assumption of, gender privilege is exemplified by the long-term relationship—turned feud—between George and Marie Corelli, who was one of the best-selling sensation authors of the late nineteenth, early twentieth century. Janet Galligani Casey explains that while the author was “never to enjoy critical acclaim … this now forgotten novelist was phenomenally popular.”458 Over half of Corelli’s 30 novels were considered bestsellers, and they were translated into virtually every European language and some Asian languages. Pinpointing 1906 as the “height of [Corelli’s] fame,” Casey notes that “over 100,000 copies of her books were sold,” which was more than the sales of books by Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H.G. Wells combined in the same year. Given Corelli’s popularity and sales, it is unsurprising that she was one of Bentley and Son’s most highly valued authors at the end of the century. Writing to the New York-based firm Harper and Brothers, George described the author’s talent as “genius,” and noted that “the sale of Miss Corelli’s works is very large [in England], and in view some day of possible copyright, we had thought it might be deemed politic for you to secure so saleable an author.”459 This claim is not only reinforced by Casey’s overview of Corelli’s sales, but also Corelli’s own assessment of her commercial power. In a letter to George in 1889, the author reminded her publisher that her novels had sold in the thousands in England, and that there were editions in several countries and languages, including the United States, Sweden, Italy, France and Russia.460 Within England itself, the Bentleys were highly protective of their association with Corelli. In response to a request from Longman and Co. for her address, George warned them away: “we rather naturally dislike giving the addresses

457 This attitude towards women authors is showcased in another letter where George informs a Miss Bewicke that “when Ladies ‘insist’ they lose the advantage which is always yielded by gentlemen to their ‘Wish.’ I must decline to yield to a command.” Here, George reinforces the rules of a gendered hierarchy where women can only ask their men superiors, not demand of them. George Bentley to Miss Bewicke, July 7, 1874, MS 46643, BL. 458 Janet Galligani Casey, “Marie Corelli and Fin de Siècle Feminism,” English Literature in Translation, 1880- 1920 35, no. 2 (1992): 163. 459 George Bentley to Messrs. Harper and Brothers, November 3, 1890, MS 46654, BL. 460 Publication Ledger, MS 46601, BL; Marie Corelli to George Bentley, February 12, 1889, MS 46622, BL. Additionally, ongoing correspondence in the same MS between Bentley and Son and Corelli’s Swedish publisher demonstrate how well her works were selling in Sweden. 144

of Authors who publish with us as too frequently we find it leads to offers made to them,” he responded, pointedly writing that he was certain this would not be the case.461

This does not mean that the relationship between the two parties was smooth, however. When it came to her business matters, the Bentleys found Corelli far less pliable than her women peers, such as Wood and Broughton. Several disagreements led up to the ultimate break between Corelli and the firm. One example is a spat over page count in Corelli’s novel Ardath. In response to George’s request that Corelli shorten the novel for inclusion in Bentley’s Favourite Novels series to save production costs, the author refused outright. “I cannot alter or abridge the book now,—it must stand as it has been accepted and admired by the public,” she wrote to George, adding:

It seems rather hard that you should propose to curtail my royalties, simply because the book is lengthy … I feel it a little startling that you should make the new edition of “Ardath”—so much a question of expense—,were I an unsuccessful or unstable author I could understand it, but as I have never been a loss to you, I do think this curtailing of royalties because a book is a little more costly to bring out is—well!—let me say just a little surprising. Anyways “Ardath”—is written, and I desire to abide by it as it stands.462

Corelli supported her position by citing her success. She established her power within the relationship by referencing the profit she produced for the publishing house. Her follow-up letter further reminded the publishers of both her financial and literary value. She admonished them for attempting to print cheaply a novel that has shown to be “an acknowledged success and admired.”463 Her final verdict was absolute: she told the publishers not to reprint the work if they could not make a profit.464 Another disagreement along similar lines occurred when Corelli reproached George for charging her for a specially bound copy of one of her novels given to the Queen. She claimed that the firm had exploited her in this case, and that the cost should be theirs as it would be to their advantage to have the Queen read one of their publications.465 To some

461 George Bentley to Messrs. Longman and Co., June 22, 1890, MS 46645, BL. 462 Marie Corelli to George Bentley, February 19, 1890, MS 46623, BL. 463 Marie Corelli to Messrs. Bentley and Son, February 25, 1890, MS 46623, BL. 464 Corelli’s resolve on this matter won out. The publishers informed Corelli that the novel would be published “as normal.” R. Bentley and Son to Marie Corelli, February 21, 1890, MS 46645, BL. 465 George Bentley to Marie Corelli, January 29, 1892, MS 46645, BL. The matter in question was resolved when George offered to pay Corelli back personally for the amount that she was charged. He objected to Corelli 145

extent, this is a privileged position. As a well-known author who was wealthy in her own right, Corelli was not reliant on the Bentleys’ good graces for her livelihood. However, considering their high sales, Wood and Broughton could have exercised similar power over the publishers if they had chosen to. Corelli was unique in her insistence that the Bentleys should recognize her worth.

These arguments did little to alter Corelli’s personal feelings towards the publishers. Even in the middle of tense communications, she made it clear that she was at odds with the Bentleys’ business decisions, not the publishers themselves. While emphasizing her position on Ardath, for example, she wrote that she still thought of George as “the most kindly and excellent of honourable friends.”466 For George, however, Corelli’s unwillingness to bend to his demands eroded their personal connection. By the early 1890s, George no longer wrote directly to Corelli. She was either addressed impersonally as “Madam” in letters singed by R. Bentley and Son, or Richard Jr. communicated with her on behalf of the firm. Additionally, the publishers’ increasingly bitter attitude toward Corelli is conveyed by letters contained in UIUC’s collection of Bentley Family Letters. They showed annoyance with what they believed to be Corelli’s inflated sense of importance, mocking her belief that her communications were “urgent,” and her attempts to promote her work.467 George further degraded Corelli by continually referring to her as “the Corelli” in place of Miss Corelli, and claiming that she had a dramatic and highly emotional nature—a common gendered criticism. George’s use of the title “the” is telling. It is likely that George was associating Corelli with the figure of the woman singer or actress of the time, which invokes negative gender stereotypes.468 According to Susan J. Leonardi and Rebecca A. Pope, the title “the” was commonly assigned to divas as of the nineteenth century,

associating him with a “vulgar system of exploitation,” and claimed it was only natural that the firm should assume she wished to pay these costs, because it was her own choice to give the book to Queen Victoria. 466 Marie Corelli to Messrs. Bentley and Son, February 25, 1890, MS 46623, BL. 467 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, April-June 1889, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC; George Bentley to Maarten Maartens, June 5, 1892, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. In this letter, George makes fun of a poster Corelli created for her own publication and writes that Corelli is raising “a storm about her ears” and “building so questionable a reputation.” 468 I would like to thank Carole Gerson for suggesting this line of thinking. This idea is further supported by a letter in which George describes Corelli as “an actress lost to the stage.” George Bentley to Maarten Maartens, February 7, 1893, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 146

highlighting the presumption that women of the stage were arrogant and self-centered. In this masculinist tradition, they explain, the diva “is seducing siren and whore,” incapable of being a “wife, good woman, true woman. Divahood kills womanhood … divahood corrupts virtue.”469 Adding to this perspective in an article on representations of divas in Victorian literature, Pope notes that prima donnas, or divas, were “reputed to be … ruthlessly competitive, capriciously temperamental, extravagantly vain, and glamorously ornamental.”470 By associating Corelli with this type of female figure, George identified her as a specimen of corrupted womanhood. Her confidence in her business acumen and literary value was portrayed as threatening not only to the publishers, but also to her own femininity.

The relationship reached its low point in 1892, when Corelli proposed the publication of a satire of the political and literary world. Based on her history with the firm, the author assumed that they would be willing to negotiate with her prior to the work’s completion, which was not an unusual practice in nineteenth-century publishing. This, combined with Corelli’s interest in using a literary agent, made George livid: “The Corelli proposed to send ERIC to me to negotiate for her Satire!!! I have replied it is no good, since I cd [could] not negotiate without reading it,” he reported to Richard Jr. “She says that it is a ‘frigid reply’ and she will not trouble me with the Satire. So much the better.”471 Ultimately, Corelli found another publisher for her work, called The Silver Domino. Upon publication, George gleefully criticized the satire as “silly,” “vulgar,” and “low,” while simultaneously complaining that she had “attacked [him] and Temple Bar” out of spite.472 Although the underlying cause for George’s anger was arguably financial, his greatest criticism of the work was gendered. 473 In a letter to his friend author Maarten Maartens, George expressed his dismay that in the text, Corelli claimed that best-selling women authors deserved similar compensation to men: “she could not see Kipling making such a large fortune

469 Susan J. Leonardi and Rebecca A. Pope, The Diva’s Mouth: Body, Voice, Prima Donna Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996), 11-16. 470 Rebecca A. Pope, “The Diva Doesn’t Die: George Eliot’s ‘Armgart,’” Criticism 32, no. 4 (1990): 469. 471 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., May 30, 1892, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 472 George Bentley to Maarten Maartens, November 12, 1892, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 473 In a letter to Richard Jr., George admits that his primary point of contention with Corelli was that she “materially injured [the publishers] by rendering it impossible for us to offer for her new novel.” George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., May 6, 1893, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 147

without feeling vexed that she did not equal it,” and she “had no wish to be satisfied with Miss Broughton’s position,” he wrote to Maartens. 474 Although he did not deny that Broughton made comparatively little money in light of her popularity, he insisted that Broughton, unlike Corelli, was too womanly to concern herself with finances. He imagined Broughton’s “delicate, proud little face,” staring at Corelli in opposition, silently rejecting the other woman’s pity. “Surrounded by friends who regard it as a privilege to know her, and with such competency which satisfies her modest wants, she prefers the shade of retirement to the noisy side of literary life,” wrote George of Broughton, assuming that Broughton’s anger would be based on Corelli discussing her “private matters,” rather than at the injustice of her income.

Here, George sets up the “delicate” and feminine Broughton as a foil to the brash and masculine Corelli. According to George, Broughton embodied the feminine ideal by privileging social rather than economic success and preferring the domestic to the public sphere. This was not a recounting of Broughton’s response to Corelli’s comments, but an imagining of it. George speaks for Broughton in this letter by predicting how she would react, painting an idealized portrait of a silent Broughton standing in opposition to Corelli’s boldness. As a result, his defense of Broughton is more an endorsement of Victorian gender ideology rather than a mark of the publisher’s respect for Broughton as an author. Ultimately, this letter in particular, and the Bentleys’ relationship with Corelli more broadly, showcases the limitations to the publishers’ permissiveness regarding women professionals in the literary space. Although they acknowledged women’s ability in terms of reading, editing, marketing, and other significant roles through their hiring decisions, they also did not understand and treat women as equals when engaging in the business of publishing.

In the attempt to repair their relationship, Corelli wrote to George to assure him there was no ill will on her part.475 She implored him to “meet [her] halfway and metaphorically shake hands,” and noted that it was a “pity that [he] should permit people to have the malicious satisfaction of saying that I also … have left [him] as really [he had] never had a more loyal and

474 George Bentley to Maarten Maartens, June 2, 1893, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 475 Marie Corelli to George Bentley, July 10, 1893, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 148

ardent worker for [his] house.” George, however, could not forgive the perceived injury caused by Corelli’s readiness to publish elsewhere when the two could not come to mutually satisfactory terms.476 Rather than understanding this as Corelli’s right as a literary professional, he saw it as an unforgivable act of defiance and a personal attack. In response, he told Corelli that while he did not doubt her abilities, her unwillingness to “take the only course which would set matters straight”—meaning abide by the publisher’s terms and decisions—it would be best if they did not “prolong” a “painful” correspondence. Arguably, the crime that Corelli committed was not one against business ethics. The Bentleys themselves had informed authors that they could take their business elsewhere if they were dissatisfied with the conditions set by the firm, as demonstrated by the previously quoted letter to John Birch Webb. Instead, Corelli had committed what Roxanne Gay identifies as the greatest crime a woman can: that of being unyielding, blunt, and unapologetic—or, in other words, unlikeable.477

476 George Bentley to Marie Corelli, July 10, 1893, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. The relationship was formally severed in 1895, after the death of George Bentley. Corelli requested that Richard Jr. transfer all her literary properties that remained with Bentley and Son to another publisher because she was dissatisfied with the royalties gained from these works. Additionally, she told Richard Jr. that the firm was responsible for the severance of the relationship because they refused her last few works. Marie Corelli to Richard Bentley Jr., June 26, 1895, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 477 Roxanne Gay, “Not Here to Make Friends,” in Bad Feminist: Essays (New York: Harper Perennial, 2014), 83-95. 149

Chapter 4 Gender in Process: New Approaches to Gender on the Page

Although the increase in women professionals within the nineteenth-century literary environment was an indication of the industry’s feminization, it did not necessarily guarantee power or influence. Tuchman and Fortin’s account of the Victorian woman writer exemplifies this point; they argue that the prevalence of women authors during this time did not ultimately give them power over systems of production and distribution or cultural influence.478 Scholars have further observed that women in masculinized fields have sometimes served to reinforce patriarchal standards and systems. According to Flint, one of the only ways for women to gain cultural capital was to uphold subjugating gender ideology: “commenting on and censoring the behaviour of their own sex was one means by which they could readily wield authority in a society where direct access to public expression of opinion could be difficult for a woman,” she explains.479 Invoking George Eliot’s essay, “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” as an example, Showalter argues that it was not uncommon for successful women authors of the Victorian era to denigrate women’s literature and women writers.480 Indeed, in the essay, Eliot describes “silly women’s novels” as “the frothy, the prosy, the pious, or the pedantic,” and criticizes women’s literary ability. Although women did not lack intelligence, she admits, they did have a “want of moral qualities that contribute to literary excellence—patient diligence, a sense of the responsibility involved in publication, and an appreciation of the sacredness of the writer’s art.”481 As noted in chapter one, Jewsbury has been similarly accused of standing in judgement of womankind. Fahnestock argues that as a publisher’s reader, Jewsbury was hostile to women writers and works that were otherwise gendered as feminine, including novels set in the domestic space.482 Therefore, the presence of women publisher’s readers at Bentley and Son is not enough to demonstrate that the firm had an evolving perspective of gender ideology. By engaging in close readings of reader’s reports, letters, and other archival documents, however, this chapter

478 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 209. 479 Flint, The Woman Reader, 10. 480 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 96. 481 George Eliot, “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists,” Westminster Review, October 1856, 442, 460. 482 See Ch. 1, pp. 62-66 for more details on Fahnestock’s criticism. See pp. 151-157 for an in-depth discussion of Jewsbury’s reader’s reports in relation to these charges. 150

will demonstrate how Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers used their position within the firm to enable the publication of fiction and non-fiction titles that challenged traditional notions of gender and promoted gender ideology in line with the Victorian women’s movement.

The rise of women professionals at the firm, as described in the previous chapter, occurred concurrently with shifts in the gendering of the publishing process, print materials, and the representation of gender in print. The publishers’ decision to hire women publisher’s readers was partially an attempt to appeal to the growing female readership. Yet, this was also not a one- directional case of cause and effect. Once installed at the firm, the women had a substantial impact on the publishing environment in which they operated and the print materials that the firm produced. While the increase in publications for a female market is undeniably indicative of the women’s influence both within and without the firm, the nature of these print materials more accurately reflects how Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers promoted new approaches to gender on the page. This is demonstrated by their analysis of incoming manuscripts. As readers’ reports show, titles that supported women’s education and marriage reform were often favourably received and recommended for publication. On the other hand, the women publisher’s readers were typically critical of works in which women characters embodied ideal Victorian femininity—particularly exaggerated performances of morality and religiosity—and those that reinforced the subordination of women. The growing prevalence of genres on Bentley and Son’s lists which critiqued Victorian gender roles, such as sensation and new woman fiction, in the later nineteenth century are indicative of the women publisher’s readers’ influence. Additionally, they were instrumental in the publication of non-fiction titles, including academic and historical works for the female market, which blurred the boundaries between masculinized and feminized literary genres.

It would be inaccurate to describe Bentley and Son as a bastion of progress and liberalism. Unwaveringly mainstream, the firm was never associated with the few feminist presses or publications that were operational during the Victorian period, and the Bentleys never

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embraced a political mandate.483 Paul F. Mattheisen, Arthur C. Young, and Pierre Coustillas, the editors of volumes of Gissing’s letters, categorize Bentley and Son as an “old type” of firm, whose publishers acted “as guardians of public morality and authorities in matters of literary taste.” 484 They specifically refer to George as an “arch-philistine.” Indeed, ample archival evidence shows that the firm—and its publisher’s readers—did uphold some conservative social values. A recurring example is the publishers’ and publisher’s readers’ aversion to women’s adultery. The report on a manuscript called Varina—which Jewsbury told George to reject outright—reflects their disapproval of sexually impure women.485 Objecting to the fact that the heroine has “forsak[en] [her] duties” by leaving a husband who makes her “‘unhappy’ to go away with somebody else who promises better,” Jewsbury proclaimed that such “‘misunderstood women’ are … generally weak and troublesome,” and that she had “no patience with novels that set up excuses for failure instead of examples of patient continuance in well doing.” The “false sentimentality” and “bad morality” that the novel shows are reason enough to not only refuse the work, but also to write off the author altogether, she said. In positioning wifehood as a duty that must be patiently born, regardless of a woman’s feelings or emotional well-being, Jewsbury signalled her agreement with fundamental notions of Victorian femininity. For a woman to pursue her own happiness is not only “weak and troublesome,” according to Jewsbury, but represents her “failure” as a wife—and therefore as a woman.

Although Bentley and Son published novels that featured adulterous women, acceptance of such manuscripts depended on whether a woman was punished for her misdeeds. Varina was not the only manuscript criticized and ultimately rejected for its depiction of consequence-free adultery. Jewsbury pronounced a novel called Hearts and Homes Changed and Exchanged “rubbish,” taking moral issue with the main character.486 After marrying for money, the heroine

483 The Victoria Press and its associated publication the Victoria Magazine, as well as the publications associated with the Langham Place Group, such as the English Woman’s Journal, discussed in Ch. 1, are examples of feminist presses and publications during the Victorian period. 484 Paul F. Matteisen, Arthur C. Young, and Pierre Coustillas, introduction to The Collected Letters of George Gissing Volume V, by George Gissing, eds. Paul F. Matteisen, Arthur C. Young and Pierre Coustillas (Athens: University of Ohio Press, 1994), xviii. 485 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, February 18, 1860, MS 46656, BL. 486 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 27, 1862, MS 46656, BL. 152

abandons her husband and child, remarries without divorcing, and in a plot line similar to Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret, attempts to poison those who know the truth. Unlike Lady Audley, however, the heroine of this manuscript is not discovered and excommunicated from polite society. To Jewsbury, this was an essential difference. Despite finding Hearts and Homes “readable” and seeing its potential as a “railway book,” she could not overlook the fact that in the end, the heroine is able to return to her original husband and child with “no difficulty.” Jewsbury’s primary objection to this title was the lack of consequences for immoral behaviour. This argument is reinforced by her positive review of novels where adulterous women are depicted as fallen women.487 In fact, she unreservedly suggested that George accept Lady Audley’s Secret, believing that it would sell well on the merit of Braddon’s first novel, Aurora Floyd. Bentley and Son did not publish Braddon’s work, but the reason was solely financial— they were outbid by another publisher. East Lynne is yet another example. Within this novel, which Bentley and Son did publish, the heroine Lady Isabel Carlyle is punished for leaving her faithful husband when she is disfigured in a train accident and her illegitimate child is killed. She eventually returns to her husband’s home as a governess and dies ostensibly of guilt after confessing her transgressions. Isabel’s adultery did not act as a barrier to the acceptance of the novel. In fact, it is not even mentioned in Jewsbury’s assessment.488 While she does note that the work contains “sins against good taste” that should be altered before publication, it is Carlyle’s second wife, Barbara, who is the subject of scrutiny: “I have not the least objection to the unrequited attachment of Barbara to Mr Carlyle,” wrote Jewsbury, “but that violent explosion after his marriage that passionate declaration to him needs to be re-considered and re-written. She wd have betrayed herself in some way is certain but it must be in a less violent manner.”

It is worth noting that it was not Barbara’s emotions that Jewsbury objected to. Indeed, she noted that Barbara’s “unrequited attachment” was unproblematic, and her love for Carlyle would have come out in “some way.” Rather, Jewsbury criticized the “violent manner” in which they are expressed, which she described as an “explosion” of passion. While this could reflect Jewsbury’s personal distaste for feminine passion, it is also a matter of social protocol. She

487 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, July 29, 1862, MS 46656, BL. 488 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 19, 1861, MS 46656, BL. 153

suggested that it was unlikely that a woman of the period would express herself in this way. Her review of a manuscript called Dolly further reinforces Jewsbury’s conservative stance on women’s sexual expression. Clarifying that she did not insist on upholding feminine “innocent prudery,” or believe a woman must be entirely “silent about the caresses of her lover,” she called it a matter of “grave concern” that the novel’s heroine “expatiates on her own sensations of exceeding bliss.”489 Such emphasis on sexual pleasure, Jewsbury worried, eroded the importance of love: “There is nothing grand or noble or heroic in the love felt—it is a mere matter of finding honey and eating it to the full—if I were a man reading this MS I shd [should] enquire—are the young women of England trying to qualify as courtesans? … The whole story, so far, consists in kissing and crying.” Embedded in each of these criticisms is a prescription for feminine behaviour as it relates to love and sexual expression. Fahnestock’s observation that Jewsbury was hostile towards depictions of female sexuality, as discussed in chapter one, is supported by Jewsbury’s respective reports on East Lynne and Dolly. In these documents, Jewsbury reinforces traditional notions of feminine behaviour by deeming it acceptable for women to love and express love in a docile manner, but not for women to demonstrate sexual desire and passion.

To some extent, these reports do suggest that Jewsbury was socially conservative. However, analyzing her disapproval of women’s sexual expression without the benefit of historical context paints an incomplete picture. In chapter one, I argue that while Jewsbury’s rejection of freely expressed female sexuality does not align with the values of second-wave feminism, her stance does reflect common principles of the Victorian women’s movement. Primarily, Jewsbury’s alignment with the women’s movement is signalled by her equal criticism of men and women characters who engaged in inappropriate sexual behaviour without reprimand. There are no examples of reports within the archive on manuscripts that addressed men’s infidelity, so a direct comparison is difficult to make. Indeed, men’s infidelity was not commonly represented in Victorian literature, which is likely the result of pervasive sexual double standards. According to Lynda Nead, marital infidelity was, for a man, “regrettable but unavoidable.” On the other hand, a women’s infidelity was “the betrayal of her father, her husband, her home and her family,” Nead explains. “In other words, while male infidelity

489 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, October 31, 1872, MS 46659, BL. 154

received a limited sanction, female purity and monogamy were regarded as central features of the patriarchal family.”490 If men’s infidelity was viewed as an unremarkable norm, it may not have been seen as a good plot device, particularly for novels that were intended to be sensational.

Yet, Jewsbury did attempt to censure what she saw as inappropriate expressions of male sexuality where they arose. For example, she considered promiscuity an immoral vice. Pronouncing Ouida’s Under Two Flags a “very immoral book … written on the pattern of French novels,” Jewsbury criticized the title for being a dramatized depiction of “the Bachelor doings of a crack regiment of young men,” which included consorting with mistresses and courting multiple women alongside drinking, smoking, gambling, swearing, horseracing and idleness.491 Although not judged as harshly as Under Two Flags, a manuscript called Black and Gold, which also featured young military men, was similarly rejected by Jewsbury. Concluding that “Men and Officers”—particularly “men in India and the colonies”— would like the novel more than “ladies” because it contained too many battles, horses, and romantic entanglements with “maids and mistresses” from an exotic land, Jewsbury proclaimed the work “vulgar,” “flippant,” and “uninteresting.”492 Depictions of seduction for the sake of sexual gratification was not only to be discouraged, she believed, but kept out of print entirely to safeguard the reader. In her report on a manuscript called The Latest Chronicle of Marriage, she wrote: “there are scenes of—what shall I say? Seduction wh [which] are indecent, immoral, and tending to do harm to miscellaneous readers.”493 That Jewsbury neglects to lay the blame for these “scenes of … Seduction” on members of either gender suggests that the very act is objectionable regardless of the perpetrator.

It is perhaps counterintuitive to understand Jewsbury’s attempt to suppress sexuality as an act of allegiance with the women’s movement. However, the disapproval of sexual expression

490 Lynda Nead, Myths of Sexuality: Representations of Women in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 48-49. 491 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, December 29, 1865, MS 46657, BL. 492 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, August 11, 1864, MS 46657, BL. 493 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, April 26, 1869, MS 46658, BL. Jewsbury goes so far as to accuse this novel of falling “under the provisions of Ld Campbell’s act!” which is likely a reference to the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. 155

and gratification woven throughout her reports arguably reflect logic inherent to Victorian feminism. As discussed in chapter one, a common approach to establishing gender equality was advocating that men should also be accountable for upholding sexual morality.494 A letter from Blackwell to Bodichon blames men’s behaviour for the sexual immorality plaguing their society. Reflecting on an article the two had placed in the International Review on the subject, Blackwell complains to her coauthor that “not one of these dull men seem to recognise, that this is the inevitable result of two generations of infamous legal injustice to women, and the double standard of sexuality morality.”495 This letter demonstrates that the women’s movement attempted to publicly shift the narrative surrounding sexual immorality. Rejecting the idea that social morality was the responsibility of women alone, Blackwell blames institutionalized gender inequality for society’s woes. This thinking was central to the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Act (1864), which allowed for the random medical inspection of prostitutes. According to Judith R. Walkowitz, the law highlighted the sexual double standard inherent to Victorian gender ideology: “In pressuring for the medical inspection of prostitutes while refusing to impose periodic genital examination on the enlisted men who were their clients, architects of the acts reinforced a double standard of sexual morality, which justified male sexual access to a class of ‘fallen’ women,” she writes.496 For men, sex was considered a natural impulse—a belief that enabled the lax attitude towards men’s infidelity noted above. Sexual activity was only seen as a moral failure for women.

The solution, leaders of the campaign posited, was to challenge the permissive attitudes towards men’s sexual behaviour. The underlying argument of the repeal campaign was that men were ultimately responsible for the proliferation of prostitution, Kent explains. 497 Under the patriarchal system, women were not self-determined seductresses, reformers argued, but objects for men’s sexual use and abuse. Addressing this issue within Victorian feminism more broadly,

494 See Ch. 1, p. 66. 495 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell to Barbara Bodichon, May 14, 1880s, General Women’s Movement, LSE. 496 Judith R. Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (University of Chicago Press, 1992), 23. The campaign was ultimately successful; the act was repealed in 1884. 497 Kent, Sex and Suffrage, 66-76. 156

Bland notes that the demand for a single sexual standard for both men and women was central to the women’s movement:

Feminists sought transformed sexual relations between men and women in which women were equal and independent and men took responsibility for changing the oppressive aspects of their sexual behaviour. … Feminists wished for the eradication of women’s experience of sexual objectification, sexual violence, and lack of bodily autonomy, to be replaced instead by a new sexual morality in which men lived by the same ethical precepts as women.498

Jewsbury’s previously quoted reports on Under Two Flags and Black and Gold reflect this line of thinking. By associating promiscuous and seductive behaviours on the part of men with widely recognized immoral pursuits, including drinking, gambling, and swearing, Jewsbury positions these behaviours as transgressive. This is a clear challenge to the dominant social narrative concerning gender and sexuality: namely, as Bland puts it, that “lack of chastity was understandable and excusable in men, but unforgivable in a woman.”499

Sexual expression on the part of both genders was discouraged not only because it was morally dangerous, but also because it threatened the place of marriage and the family unit in Victorian society. The nineteenth century marked the transference of marriage and the family from an economic unit to a sentimental arrangement based on love, explains Kent. As a result, women had a vested interest in being seen as romantic companions and mothers rather than sexual property.500 The concern that romantic love was being displaced in favour of sexual gratification, thereby eroding the foundation of the Victorian family and women’s social value, is echoed in Jewsbury’s reports. Her previously quoted assessment of the novel Dolly is one example. From her perspective, the women characters’ focus on “facing and embracing, so familiar and so easy,” destroys the nobility of the love portrayed in the novel. By placing sexual gratification above romantic feeling, the characters render themselves little more than “courtesans,” and such a breakdown of “all sense of shame and modesty” sends them down a “bottomless pit”—essentially banishing them from the social order.501 A report on a novel which

498 Bland, Banishing the Beast, xiii. 499 Ibid. 500 Kent, Sex and Suffrage, 24-27. 501 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, October 31, 1872, MS 46659, BL. 157

acts as a foil to Under Two Flags and Black and Gold further elucidates Jewsbury’s perspective on the significance of privileging romantic love over lust. On the surface, After Three Years has much in common with the two previously discussed titles. According to Jewsbury, the book was “an account of the fortunes and adventures and lives of a certain bunch of young men friends and intimates,” specifically a group of soldiers.502 The manuscript detailed their exploits both at home and at war, personal and professional. Yet, Jewsbury did not have the same visceral reaction to After Three Years. Although she suggested that the book needed “cultivation, trimming and pruning,” such as the altering the “vernacular” language and excising all poetry, she concluded that the manuscript was strong with a “genius smack of reality.” Admittedly, there are a variety of reasons why Jewsbury would have approached this novel differently, including quality, plotline, or even the author’s gender. Indeed, Jewsbury criticizes Ouida for writing about a subject that she could know little about, while praising the author of After Three Years for reflecting on his own life experiences. One explicit difference, however, is how Jewsbury describes the men characters’ interactions with women. The young soldiers in Ouida’s novel were seen to be engaging in acts of seduction. In contrast, Jewsbury believed that the men in After Three Years were on a quest to find romantic love. She relayed in her report that “the women they loved and flirted with and whom they do or do not marry” are central to the “mode of life” of the “English gentlemen” featured in the novel. Although not every courtship within the novel is successful (the women “whom … they do not marry”) it appears to be a case of failed romance and broken hearts rather than spent sexual passion. That the characters’ interactions with women are not categorized alongside activities such as drinking, gambling, and racing means that they are not portrayed as fleeting entertainment.

Certainly, sexlessness was a significant trait of the ideal Victorian woman. As Kent explains, nineteenth-century gender ideology denied women their sexuality, positioning them as wives and mothers “to the exclusion of all other functions and invested in women the responsibility of upholding morality and purity.”503 This view was not exclusively held by traditionalists, Walkowitz points out: “in a culture where women were often the victims of sexual

502 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, May 19, 1868, MS 46658, BL. 503 Kent, Sex and Suffrage, 24. 158

coercion yet blamed for crimes committed against them … defenders of women’s rights could and did regard the social purity doctrine of female passionlessness and males’ sexual self-control as a significant advance over traditional assumptions of a dangerous and active female sexuality.”504 The attitude towards women who were sexually transgressive shows the extent to which passionlessness had become a defining feature of womanhood throughout the period. The fallen woman—i.e. a woman who engaged in impure sexual behaviour—was not only relieved of her social position, but also largely cast out of her gender. An example of this is the Victorian attitude towards prostitutes. Described by Walkowitz as “a grotesque version of the Victorian female figure,” the prostitute was “the public symbol of female vice … a stark contrast to domesticated feminine virtue as well as to male bourgeois identity: she was the embodiment of the corporeal smells and animal passions that the rational bourgeois male had repudiated and that the virtuous woman, the spiritualized ‘angel in the house,’ had suppressed.”505

While sexual purity was a central characteristic of the angel in the house, however, it was not the only defining trait. Women were not only expected to be pure in a sexual sense, but in their approach to all facets of life.506 In their capacity as wives and mothers, women were expected to serve as the religious and moral compass of the family, explain Davidoff and Hall. It was their duty to not only safeguard the piety of their husbands and children, but to ensure that the home itself was a moral space, free from the vices of the outside world.507 To achieve this ideal was to embody a mass of contradictions, they observe; although they upheld the order of the home and were guided by duty, women were simultaneously expected to be childishly innocent, having been shielded from the outside world. They were therefore believed to be

504 Walkowitz, Dreadful Delight, 132-133. 505 Ibid., 21-22. 506 Coventry Patmore’s poem The Angel in the House (1854) conveys the many angelic traits that the ideal Victorian woman was meant to embody. 507 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 21-28, 114-116. Davidoff and Hall cite a number of works by nineteenth century women writers, including Sarah Stickney Ellis’s The Women of England (1838), The Daughters of England (1842), The Mothers of England (1843), and The Wives of England (1843); Hannah More’s Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799), Hints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess (1805), Coelebs in Search of a Wife (1809) Practical Piety (1811); and Ann Taylor’s Maternal Solitude for a Daughter’s Best Interests (1814),Practical Hints to Young Females on the Duties of a Wife, a Mother, and the Mistress of a Family (1815), Correspondence Between a Mother and her Daughter at School (1817), and Reciprocal Duties of Parents and Children (1818) to reconstruct ideology surrounding the separate spheres. See also Caine, English Feminism, 15-17. 159

overly sentimental, romantically obsessed, and irrational creatures who were dependent on the protection of men.508 Yet even in her own time, the angel was understood to be a prescriptive rather than descriptive figure: a “cultural image,” demonstrating what society feared women could be, and idealizing what they could become, explains Poovey.509 Beetham’s exploration of the nineteenth-century woman’s magazine reinforces this point. The ideal femininity portrayed in the pages of such magazines is “fractured,” she argues, because “it is simultaneously assumed as given and is still to be achieved. Becoming the woman you are is a difficult project for which the magazine has characteristically provided recipes, patterns, narratives and models of the self.”510 In other words, each reader is simultaneously assumed to be the ideal woman, while also in the process of becoming her. Furthermore, the angel was an undeniably classed image of Victorian womanhood, almost exclusively applicable to the middle- and upper-class. For example, Roberts has shown that while lower-class women were responsible for childcare and household management, economic necessity simultaneously compelled them to work outside of the home, thereby eroding their ability to enact ideal womanhood.511

Print materials produced by members of the women’s movement throughout the century suggest a concerted effort to debunk the myth of the ideal woman. This was a practical as well as ideological battle. If women’s suffrage, education and professionalization were to be widely accepted, it was important for women to be seen as competent and capable members of society. The article written by Faithfull on the topic of women printers quoted in chapter one is an example of this. As previously discussed, Faithfull wrote the article to counter the suggestion that women’s minds were not sufficiently mechanical to allow them to fulfill the role of printers.512 Publications such as the English Woman’s Journal commonly contained testimonials to women’s abilities. In an article announcing the formation of a new society for women’s employment, Bessie Rayner Parkes writes: “we are sick to our hearts of being told ‘women cannot do this; women must not do that; they are not strong enough for this …’ while we know

508 Ibid., 27-28. 509 Poovey, The Proper Lady, 4. 510 Beetham, A Magazine of Her Own?, 1. 511 Elizabeth Roberts, Women’s Work, 1840-1940 (Cambridge University Press, 1995). 512 Faithfull, “Women Compositors,” 37. 160

and see every hour of our lives that these arguments are but shams; that some of the hardest and coarsest work done in this weary world is done by women.”513 Although Parkes primarily addresses women’s physical abilities in this article, other writers challenged the notion that women were intellectually inferior. Arguing in favour of training women physicians in the article “Female Physicians,” Davies notes that any intellectual inequalities between men and women medical students can be attributed to a difference in access to early education rather than biology.514 She further identifies social pressures as the primary obstacle to the training of women physicians (i.e. convincing women to defy social convention). Archival documents demonstrate that Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers were similarly dismissive of the unrealistic and demeaning impressions of womanhood fostered by the angel in the house. While there is no evidence to suggest that they were working in concert to remove the angel from Bentley and Son’s publications, the rejection of the ideal woman appears to be widespread, if not unanimous.

This is not to say that the women publisher’s readers’ aims were entirely in line with the women’s movement, or that each publisher’s reader was politically motivated. Although some readers, including Jewsbury and Jackson, were demonstrably conscious that representations of women in print could serve as influential social commentary, others, such as Fetherstonhaugh, were simply attempting to eradicate unrealistic, one-dimensional depictions of femininity. For example, Fetherstonhaugh praised a satire intended to disparage women’s suffrage, noting that the idea of making the main character a “A Lady Prime Minister” was “excellent, for the absurd blunders etc. which such a sketch might portray both socially and politically.”515 Yet, her conservative view on women in government did not mean that she intended to perpetuate the notion of women as figures of domestic purity. Fetherstonhaugh was consistently critical of manuscripts that promoted feminine religious and domestic piety. In her dismissal of a manuscript she called “The Sisters of Something-Or-Other,” she declared that the characters

513 Bessie Raynor Parkes, “Association for Promoting the Employment of Women,” in Free and Ennobled: Source Readings in the Development of Victorian Feminism, eds. Carol Bauer and Lawrence Ritt (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979), 145. 514 Emily Davies, “Female Physicians,” in Free and Ennobled, eds. Bauer and Ritt, 152-155. 515 Minna Fetherstonhaugh to George Bentley, undated, Correspondence, UIUC. 161

were too “goody-goody,” and that the novel was not suited for publication in anything but a “commonplace Domestic magazine.” Her belief that the one-dimensional innocence of the characters made the book unpalatable to the adult woman reader is underscored by Fetherstonhaugh’s suggestion that the book “might please juvenile readers,” but not its intended audience.516 She lost patience with a manuscript called The Ministrations of Muriel Baxter for similar reasons, declaring that the book was “spoilt by … long tirades of a ‘goody-goody’ nature on the heroine’s part, wherein she delivers duty lectures to every soul in the story.”517 Yet again, Fetherstonhaugh mentioned that the book may be suitable for “younger readers.” It is significant that she continually connects such morality tales to juvenile rather than women readers. As Davidoff and Hall note, Victorian gender ideology drew a direct connection between women and children.518 Both were considered innocents, who needed to be guided, protected and supervised by patriarchal forces, they explain. The belief that women were childlike in their mental capabilities—i.e. lacking in understanding and critical thinking— influenced the notion of what women could and should read. As seen in Flint’s The Woman Reader, a prevalent concern was that reading sensation fiction would cause women to enact the dramatics found in the pages of their books.519 An article published in La Belle Assemblée, for example, claimed that “novel- reading” was “an indispensable branch in forming the minds of young women,” and as such made them “the slaves of vice.” According to the writer, some of the consequences of novel- reading for women included marrying the first “languishing lover” who approached her or running away with her best friend’s husband.520 Fetherstonhaugh’s insistence that the novels she reviewed were too “goody-goody” for women readers, but potentially appropriate for children, severs the connection between the two categories of readers. Her assumption that women readers were beyond the need for the moral instruction provided by the titles in question indicates a break from the infantilizing approach to women from earlier in the century.

516 Minna Fetherstonhaugh to George Bentley, undated, Correspondence, UIUC. 517 Minna Fetherstonhaugh to George Bentley, May 30, 1881, Correspondence, UIUC. 518 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 28. 519 See Flint, The Woman Reader, 15, 22. 520 “Novel-Reading: A Cause of Female Depravity,” La Belle Assemblée, May 1817, 219-220. 162

Fetherstonhaugh’s distaste for sanctimonious women characters is echoed in the reports of other women publisher’s readers. In a report on a manuscript called Twice Her Age, for example, Jewsbury complained that the novel’s heroine “is a little white doll—and so ingenuine that it almost amounts to idolatry.” According to Jewsbury, both the “little white doll” and her foil, the “horrible” Eva who is portrayed as a “married flirt who tries to do the heroine all the harm in her power and … keep the hero in her toils” showed that the author had little understanding of human nature. The author had created binary caricatures of womanhood who “are all cut out of paper and are not human beings at all,” Jewsbury concluded.521 Jackson was also dismissive of manuscripts where women were one-dimensional. She deemed the women in Ruthless Human Hearts “merely beautiful” and without substance. She was similarly annoyed that the women characters in The Seychelles were excluded from the “nest of … learning” that the men characters inhabited, and that they were “rather sketchy” characters defined only by “virtue and beauty.”522

Frivolous young women were seemingly as offensive to the women publisher’s readers as the pious. Jewsbury was vocal about her dislike of silly women characters whose superficiality defined them. Noting that it was likely written by a “young lady of the present period,” she declared a novel called Ralph O’Brien “nonsense” because it was entirely about “dress,” “slang and the chaff of drawing rooms and balls and the manners and customs of young ladies,” who have no deeper qualities about them.523 Similarly, a novel called Emma Lyons was criticized because the heroine does little beyond indulging in her “love of luxurious rooms fine clothes good eating.”524 With such a “taint of … social soils,” Jewsbury adds, “nothing can make [the book] strong or interesting.” The young woman main character in a novel called No Name was judged to have committed these same sins and more. In addition to being frivolous, Jewsbury also saw her as stupid because she bowed down to her husband in all things, including the keeping of a terrible secret.525 It was not just the women themselves that attracted her ire, but

521 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, September 26, 1870, MS 46659, BL. 522 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, June 18, 1874, October 1, 1874, MS 46661, BL. 523 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., February 17, 1863, MS 46656, BL. 524 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., November 17, 1863, MS 46656, BL. 525 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., May 24, 1867, MS 46658, BL. 163

their environments as well. Novels that portrayed middle- and upper-class domestic life were typically dismissed as dull.526

The reports examined thus far, which address how women should not be represented, raise the question of how the women publisher’s readers believed they should be. As previously noted, they generally preferred women characters who were intelligent and rational rather than silly and superficial, assertive rather than meek, worldly rather than domestic. In this way, the women publisher’s readers promoted the progressive images of womanhood that the women’s movement was attempting to perpetuate. Jewsbury was often enthusiastic about portrayals of women who were engaged in more practical pursuits inside and outside the home. Her reports on novels where women were notable for their intelligence or work were more favourable overall. Proclaiming Arcady a “clever” novel that “smacks of reality,” Jewsbury advised Richard Sr. to “take” the work.527 “The heroine is a labourer’s daughter an artful ambitious girl with some good in her and she interested me … I assure you the work took me several days hard work to read,” she wrote in the report. “Do not let the author slip—he will be worth having… The author knows rural life in England thoroughly and can paint it,” she advised. In this report, Jewsbury makes a direct connection between the quality of the heroine’s character and the quality of the literature. The character’s artfulness and ambition were not only interesting, she noted, but were indicative of good writing. Not only did Richard Sr. follow Jewsbury’s advice and publish the book, but he made Jewsbury its editor.528 After its publication, under the revised title Arcadia, Jewsbury wrote to Richard Sr. to share her delight in the positive review of the novel in the Athenaeum, which indicated that the work had “hit its mark,” she said.529

Establishing a more multifaceted image of womanhood was more complicated than rejecting novels with women characters who were stupid, beautiful and shallow in favour of those featuring women who were smart, serious and determined. Ultimately, the women

526 See Jewsbury’s report on The Great Van Broaek Property. Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., December 1866, MS 46657, BL. 527 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., October 4, 1863, MS 46656, BL. 528 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., January 27, 1864, MS 46657, BL. 529 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., June 12, 1864, MS 46657, BL. 164

publisher’s readers were searching for representations of women who were real. Caricatures of the woman intellectual, who was dull, ugly, and unworthy of romance, were as unwelcome as depictions of women who were unwaveringly pious or brainless flirts. Although the lead woman character in What is Her Story? was undeniably intelligent, Jackson also found her unrealistic. The hero and heroine of the novel were “very lofty minded people,” whose “endless discussions on all sorts of subjects,” including philosophical enquiries into romantic love, are “quite out of the commonplace,” she decreed.530 Jackson thought that the lead woman character’s reaction to the destruction of her romantic life was comical: “the lady is learned in Greek and Latin and when she supposes herself disserted by her lover, she can actually find consolation in doing a little translation from Homer and working out a problem or two in Euclid.”

In contrast, Jackson reacted positively to Cecily, the heroine of an unnamed manuscript whose complexity is a result of grappling with the gender roles that bind her. In the manuscript’s report, Jackson wrote:

Many persons, probably, would be interested in Cecily. She is one of the wild and wilful kind, a sort of ingenue—yet…occasionally expressing herself like a hard woman of the world. Certainly, accepting the possibility of such deplorable domestic surroundings, a girl of an ardent impulsive nature, so neglected and lonely might grow up as wayward, as inconsistent and defiant as this one is described to be.531

Here, Jackson makes a direct connection between Cecily’s wilfulness and her repression. The character is not fulfilled by her residence in the domestic space, as traditional gender ideology would suggest, but oppressed. It is the experience of being shut up in “lonely” and “deplorable domestic surroundings” that encourages the “ardent” and “impulsive” girl to become “inconsistent and defiant,” the publisher’s reader observed. Cecily’s experience, as described by Jackson, realistically modelled that of middle-class girls across Britain and the empire. Carol Dyhouse’s exploration of girlhood corroborates that Victorian and Edwardian girls were stifled by socially enacted and gendered limitations. From childhood, girls were taught that their primary purpose was to provide “an environment—a context in which men could live and work,”

530 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, April 19, 1873, Correspondence, UIUC. 531 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, July 17, 1874, MS 46661, BL. 165

says Dyhouse.532 Even as youths, girls’ structured and subservient existence stood in contrast to boys’ freedom in education and play. Imperfect though Cecily was, then, she perfectly encapsulated the experience of Victorian girls. From Jackson’s perspective, this is what made the character worthwhile, and therefore the manuscript worth publishing.

The women publisher’s readers’ push to revise how women were represented on the page had an impact beyond the literary. As previously discussed, the women’s movement worked to demonstrate women’s capability to counteract gendered stereotypes that prevented women from participating in the public realm. Indeed, in the readers’ reports quoted above, depictions of women as physically and mentally weak, materialistic, and irrational were put aside in favour of manuscripts that introduced women as multifaceted beings who grappled with the complexities of gender ideology in the Victorian age. Arguably, the publisher’s readers’ goal was to perpetuate a more realistic notion of womanhood. It is worth recognizing the ways in which the publisher’s readers’ conception of womanhood and gender roles differs from contemporary feminist ideals. Jackson and Jewsbury’s rejection of female domesticity, for example, is problematic in the context of gender history. As early as the mid-twentieth century, women’s historians argued that the designation of the domestic space, and women’s activities within this realm, as insignificant obscured women’s histories. Mary Beard, the creator of the first women’s archive in the United States, noted that women were not only left out of the historical narrative because their primary site of operation (the home) was deemed historically insignificant, but that historians struggled to recount women’s histories because source material connected to that space was not preserved. More recently, gender historians have endeavored to demonstrate the wide-reaching impact of the domestic sphere and its activities. 533 For Jewsbury and Jackson, however, the domestic space was an active site of oppression from which to break free, rather than a space to reconceptualize as inherently powerful. It is therefore unsurprising that they preferred to see depictions of women participating in the public realm, which was the traditional seat of masculine power.

532 Carol Dyhouse, Girls Growing Up in Late Victorian and Edwardian England (London: Routledge, 1981), 7-11, 26. 533 See Sarah Lubelski, “Kicking Off the Women’s ‘Archives Party’: The World Center for Women’s Archives and the Foundations of Feminist Historiography and Women’s Archives,” Archivaria 78 (2014): 95-113. 166

The publisher’s readers’ interest in changing how women were characterized in print is one facet of their engagement with gender ideology. Another is their criticism of how women were collectively marginalized within social institutions, which is an additional point of connection between the work of Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers and Victorian feminism. From both a legal and social standpoint, marriage reform was a central focus of the women’s movement since the middle of the nineteenth century. Although marriage was newly positioned as a romantic rather than economic arrangement during this period, Kent observes, a married woman was essentially owned. She “had no legal rights to her property, her earnings, her freedom of movement, her conscience, her body, or her children; all resided in her husband,” she explains.534 An extensive body of nineteenth-century print materials bear witness to the oppression of women within marriage. In her well-known essay “Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors,” Cobbe poses an essential question: “why is the property of the woman who commits Murder, and the property of the woman who commits Matrimony, dealt with alike” by English law?535 After systematically identifying and analyzing the issues with marital law through a gendered lens, Cobbe concludes:

The existing Common Law is not Just, because it neither can secure nor actually even attempts to secure for the woman the equivalent support for whose sake she is forced to relinquish her property. It is not Expedient, because … in unhappy [marriages] it becomes highly injurious … it does not tend to fulfil, but to counteract, the Sentiment regarding the marriage union … Real unanimity is not produced between two parties by forbidding one of them to have any voice at all.

It is for these reasons, she adds, that she supports the repeal of the law. Alongside property rights, women’s rights activists also campaigned for improved divorce rights, the ability of women to retain custody after divorce, and the reversal of the exclusion of marital rape from criminal law. This fight for legal rights within marriage is intertwined with the effort to shift social norms. The women’s movement did not advocate against marriage, but for the establishment of egalitarian marriages and homes, says Martin Pugh.536 Bland describes how

534 Kent, Sex and Suffrage, 27. 535 Frances Power Cobbe, “Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors,” in Victorian Writing by Women on Women, ed. Hamilton, 91. 536 Martin Pugh, The March of the Women: A Revisionist Analysis of the Campaign for Women’s Suffrage, 1866- 1914 (Oxford University Press, 2000), 30-31. 167

feminists of the nineteenth century worked to eradicate women’s sexual objectification, sexual violence, and lack of bodily autonomy within romantic relationships and the social environment.537

Issues surrounding Victorian marriage were commonly explored in the literature of the period. As Caine observes, “questions about women’s status and oppression and feminist demands were being consciously addressed within fiction and were thus being made current to a wide reading audience.”538 Addressing the topic of marriage, she notes that protests against the state of marriage could be found in women’s fiction before they were articulated in non-fiction or public debates.539 Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers were an active part of this effort. This is not to say that they rejected the idea of marriage altogether; manuscripts that featured divorce or anti-marriage sentiments were dismissed out of hand.540 However, the women publisher’s readers largely stood against manuscripts that were seen to perpetuate traditional perspectives of marriage. Reporting on an advice book that bore similarities to Sarah Stickney Ellis’s Women of England—a well-known title that advocated for traditional gender roles—Jewsbury proclaimed Comtesse de Greymiere on Marriage “a dreadful bore,” and insinuated that the book was not worthwhile in a literary or economic sense:

I cannot imagine any human being reading it for pleasure and as for profit—has not Mrs Ellis said … to the Women of England all that can be said or done or expected from them in that relationship? There is a certain loquacious eloquence in this French thing wh [which] wd [would] drive a moderately wise woman mad, and as to any practical benefit to be distilled from it, you might as well recommend women to fetch water in a sieve. The effort to read it has made me feel very poorly indeed and if you go and publish it all women to whom it is given will hate you for yr [your] pains.541

537 Bland, Banishing the Beast, 125-138. 538 Caine, English Feminism, 49. 539 Ibid., 137. 540 Fetherstonhaugh criticized a novel in which the hero and heroine appeared to be against the institution of marriage. Jewsbury dismissed a novel out of hand because the plotline was based around a divorce. See Minna Fetherstonhaugh to George Bentley, undated, Correspondence, UIUC; Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, March 28, 1870, MS 46659, BL. 541 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, December 13, 1861, MS 46656, BL. 168

More than a statement on the text itself, Jewsbury’s judgement is indicative of a changing social atmosphere which was increasingly skeptical of traditional marriage roles and laws. Her observation that the work would “drive a moderately wise woman mad,” and that following the advice contained within was akin to fetching “water in a sieve,” shows that she saw such traditional marital roles as impractical. Moreover, the suggestion that “all women to whom [the book] is given will hate” George for publishing such a work indicates that Jewsbury thought her opinions were ubiquitous. A report on a fiction title over a decade later called Bye and Bye further elucidates Jewsbury’s perspective. Although she thought the manuscript was clever and well-written, she also found the author’s traditional views on women and marriage “very disgusting … shallow and pretentious.”542 The problem, as Jewsbury saw it, was that the author depicted marriage as an arrangement for the “welfare and amelioration of the human race,” which was entirely devoid of “sentiment or feeling.” This complaint reflects what Kent describes as one of the goals of the women’s movement: to position marriage as an institution driven by romantic love rather than practicality.543

Beyond blocking works that reinforced oppressive marital values and models, the women publisher’s readers made a concerted effort to publish works that actively critiqued the state of marriage and romantic relationships. Mayer advocated for the publication of a work called Cupid of the Conveniences because it showed the underside of Victorian marriage. “[The author] has certainly been inspired by an enthusiasm against mercenary marriages and marriage worship in every form, with the attendant vices of conventionality and insincerity,” she wrote to George, assuring him that the earnestness of the author’s message was tempered by its humour and humanity.544 The language within this report indicates a growing distrust and rejection of the prevalent model of Victorian marriage on ethical grounds. “Conventionality” is notably equated with “insincerity” and called a vice, and marriage made for economic purposes—still a common

542 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, January 16, 1872, MS 46659, BL; Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, January 20, 1873, MS 46660, BL. It is worth noting that Bentley and Son decided to publish the novel against Jewsbury’s advice. An entry in the agreement memorandum book for 1864-1875 notes an agreement was made with author Edward Maitland on February 17, 1873 to publish the book with an £100 advance on half profits. See MS 46618, BL. 543 Kent, Sex and Suffrage, 27. 544 Gertrude Mayer to George Bentley, September 17, 1892, Correspondence, UIUC. 169

practice in Victorian England—is labelled as “mercenary,” which implies that such arrangements were nefariously motivated. Although the supposed insincerity of marital unions had an impact on both genders, the women publisher’s readers were particularly concerned with the oppression of women within the institution. The same gender ideologies which subordinated women in society were enacted within the microcosm of marriage and romantic relationships; the resulting unequal balance of power between the genders made women vulnerable to manipulation, deception, denigration, and control. For example, Pigott-Carleton declared herself in favour of a book called Ida’s Inheritance, in spite of the “ungainly” plot and inexperience of the author, due to the lesson contained within. “Let me observe that Ida does not take offense at her lover only because he turns out to be rich instead of poor, but because he deceived her and kept her in a false position, the discovery of which was prematurely and accidentally made by herself,” she wrote in defense of the title.545 Addressing the fact that other publisher’s readers had called the plotline of Ida’s Inheritance unrealistic, Pigott-Carleton assured George that she had personally seen similar situations in “real life.” The women publisher’s readers saw such victimization of women characters as problematic, and they were often hesitant about novels that reinforced men’s supremacy over women in the context of romantic relationships. Offering her opinion on Broughton’s novel Second Thoughts, Godfrey objected to the controlling nature of the lead man character. The “one great fault” of the novel, she noted, “is that Gillian has no more reason for her liking for Dr. Barnet than for her great disliking. … the character of the man and his authority of her that she resents so strongly at the outset” remains long past the moment when the characters reveal their love.546 In fact, Godfrey complained that there was “never … a momentary tenderness” between the two characters. As previously discussed, Jewsbury shared similar concerns about the man lead in Broughton’s Not Wisely but Too Well, who she interpreted as domineering and threatening to the woman he supposedly loved.547

The publication history of a novel called Made in Heaven illuminates these issues in detail. The manuscript did not originally solicit much notice from the Bentleys or their

545 Henrietta Pigott-Carleton to George Bentley, undated, Correspondence, UIUC. 546 Mary Rose Godfrey to George Bentley, June 22, 1880, Correspondence, UIUC. 547 See Ch. 1, p. 66. 170

publishers’ readers. Jewsbury’s initial report described a typical sensation novel; she gave George an overview of the plotline—which included a secret marriage, mistaken identities and exotic travel—and recommended the book for publication.548 However, Charles Edward Mudie’s refusal to stock the book at his influential circulating library prompted Jewsbury to defend her assessment of the novel.549 The lengthy letter she wrote to George arguably acts as a gendered analysis of the institution of marriage. Noting that she was thoroughly “vexed” that her employer was likely to lose money on the novel, and that he would have to “hear the reproach of putting [his] name to a work considered improper for circulation by Mr Mudie,” she conceded that the novel included “sins against good taste” and a “reckless way of speaking wh [which] … gives more offense than bad principles.” However, she maintained that the novel’s “main scope and gist” was good.550 Furthermore, she insisted that the publication of the novel was essential given its message: “the way marriages are made on earth, in these days, is so wickedly worldly, that it needs to be shewn in all its unglossed ugliness.” Her reasoning for this was two-fold: first, it was necessary to expose how women were treated as commodities on the marriage market; and second, to show the dangers of women’s complete subordination to their husbands.

Like Mayer, whose criticism of mercenary marriages is quoted above, Jewsbury problematized the practice of arranging marriages for economic advantage. However, she focused on women’s vulnerability in such a system:

Mothers are unscrupulous when it comes to marrying their daughters. … They not only swallow hard and hideous facts, but they ignore them. That picture of the intrigues of the Mothers to force her daughter into that marriage, are as true as a photograph! I, my own self, have heard a mother … say in reference to a marriage she desired to bring about for her daughter, “If she refuses him, I will not of course force her into the marriage, but she will be made to feel it with every bit of bread she puts into her mouth”!551

548 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, January 5, 1872, MS 46659, BL. 549 Mudie was the owner of the largest circulating library in London. His acceptance or refusal of a title was an important factor in its financial success or failure, and he was known for maintaining strict moral guidelines. For a more detailed discussion on Mudie and his influence over the literary sphere, see p. 203-206. 550 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, July 27, 1873, MS 46655, BL. 551 Ibid. 171

In this passage, Jewsbury highlights the tendency for parents to treat unmarried daughters as either assets or liabilities. In the anecdote she shared, a mother warns her daughter that in refusing to marry the suitor at hand, she will be deemed a financial burden. A daughter’s feelings held no sway, Jewsbury noted, in the making of a “match” which is “good” from an economic and social perspective. Additionally, Jewsbury’s charge that mothers ignored “hard and hideous” facts about their daughters’ potential mates indicates that financial considerations were placed ahead of young women’s happiness and safety. The practice of marrying young women to unknown men was dangerous, Jewsbury clarified, because too many ended up being wholly under the control of husbands who were “wild,” “dissipated,” and “inclined to drink,” “gambling,” and “mistresses.” In these cases, Jewsbury chided, a young woman was told that such behaviour was expected, and advised that she should meekly “use her sense and manage him as well as she can! No!” As indicated by the insertion of the word “No!,” Jewsbury protested this reality, and praised the book for exposing the risks facing young women who stood to be wed:

So far from being immoral I consider those strong unvarnished representations of what a husband given to drinking really is—as a good service done. … It is a great line in writers of fiction that they represent without any blame women loving men who have led lives, wh [which] cd [could] not be narrated, except with closed doors and women excluded;— but this present novel does not try to make a muddle of right and wrong—it calls things by their right names and I think tho’ the names are not minced –yet that the tendency of the work wd [would] be to deter readers from meddling with the things signified. Nobody reading the book wd [would] think lightly of the consequences of wrong doing, no matter under whatever temptation.

To Jewsbury, the deliberate criticism of marriage that the book offered was a service rather than a drawback. The common wisdom that wives should stand silently by while their husbands live questionable lives behind “closed doors” was, to her mind, countered by the brutal portrait of marriage contained within.

Jewsbury’s faith in Made in Heaven was reinforced by her unwillingness to admit defeat. Typically, when a novel that she recommended faced financial failure, Jewsbury offered to

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compensate the firm for its financial losses.552 While there is no evidence that the Bentleys ever accepted, such a gesture can be interpreted as Jewsbury’s way of taking responsibility for her literary judgements. In this case, however, Jewsbury took a different approach. Declaring the “outcry against ‘Made in Heaven’ unjust and unfair,” she suggested that George send Mudie her letter as a show of support for the title: “If any thing I have now written cd [could] plead with Mr Mudie in mitigation of his intention to suppress the work from his catalogue pray shew it to him and you may give him my name if you like. The books that really ought to be put down are those trashy weak novels in wh [which] there is no real distinctive manner palpable, between right and wrong,” she concluded. Jewsbury’s was not the sole voice in support of the novel. Broughton also wrote to George about her disagreement with Mudie’s assessment. She declared Made in Heaven “very pleasant, and fresh, original” and noted that it was “likely a great recommendation … in these days of women endangerment.” Finally, she deemed Mudie a “fool” for his opposition to the work.553 This vote of confidence is notable because, as noted in chapter one, Jewsbury and Broughton were often at odds. Indeed, while Jewsbury found Broughton’s work to be overly sensational, Broughton occasionally mocked Jewsbury in her correspondence with Bentley, implying the older woman was conservative and rigid.554 On this novel, however—and specifically the matter of warning women against the dangers of matrimony—the two were in perfect agreement.

Another issue that Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers addressed was women’s education. As previously discussed, Jewsbury and Jackson preferred women characters who were intelligent and educated because they believed such depictions of womanhood would have a positive influence on women readers. Each publisher’s reader’s response to a novel called Forgotten Lives provides additional insight into their position on women’s education. In her description of the novel, Jackson noted that the setting—a charity school for the orphaned children of officers—was ideal for highlighting the differences in boys’ and girls’ education in

552 In a letter from 1877, for example, Jewsbury asks to share in George’s loss on a novel that she recommended that he publish. See Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, December 6, 1877, Correspondence, UIUC. 553 Rhoda Broughton to George Bentley, August 1873, Correspondence, UIUC. 554 In a letter from 1870, for example, Broughton suggested to George that “old” Jewsbury wrote with a “pen dipped in vinegar and gall.” Rhoda Broughton to George Bentley, March 8, 1870, Correspondence, UIUC. 173

Britain. “The author inveighs especially against the unsatisfactory treatment and neglected education of the girls,” wrote Jackson, explaining that the girls are in fact the “forgotten lives” that the title refers to.555 She praised the novel for confronting “the subjection that man puts on woman; crushing her brightness, intellect and hope, and denying her all things, except the poor privilege one day to please a man.” Jackson believed that the novel was marketable in addition to being socially significant. There was enough “incident and interest of the sensational kind as the tale proceeds and the mystery is unravelled, abundantly sufficient to satisfy the cravings” of their readership, she concluded. Jackson’s emphasis on the balance that the novel struck between social significance and saleability is designed to convince George to publish. Her previous reports demonstrate her understanding that a novel’s publishability was not based on content alone.556 Despite Jackson’s ringing endorsement, however, George was unsure about the novel, and he solicited a second opinion. Jewsbury’s reaction to the manuscript mirrored Jackson’s. Noting that the book contained well-developed characters and a “great deal of incidental cleverness,” she told George that Forgotten Lives was a “tale” with “purpose”: “to shew how ill women are used in England and to shew that even in charity schools boys are better taught and heated than girls.”557 Despite the fact that George ultimately decided against publishing the novel, the reports themselves are valuable. They effectively convey the two readers’ stance on the state of women’s education in England and demonstrate Jackson and Jewsbury’s willingness to speak out on the issue.

From the perspective of the women publisher’s readers, publishing content that expressly advocated for women’s education, or showed women’s education in a positive light, was intended to encourage women to engage in the pursuit of knowledge. It logically follows, then, that they would also wish to publish print materials that supported and enabled this pursuit. Mayer and Jackson each leveraged their position at the firm to ensure the publication of works

555 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, September 28, 1874, MS 46661, BL. 556 In a report on a manuscript called The Seychelles, for example, Jackson concludes that while the title features in- depth explorations of significant social issues, she does not believe that the reading public would be engaged enough to justify its publication. See Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, June 18, 1874, MS 46661, BL. 557 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, November 18, 1874, MS 46661, BL. Here, the term “heated” means to be provided with heating. Jewsbury is referring to the fact that in the novel, the boys at the charity school are provided with fires to keep them warm, while the girls are not. 174

that showcased women’s accomplishments and provided educational content for women readers.558 The anthology discussed in chapter three called Women of Letters (developed under the working title Women of Action), edited by Mayer, serves as an example. Jackson had an undeniable influence over the growth of the firm’s women’s history list. She used her connection with the firm to ensure the publication of several titles that focused on women historical figures, arguing that “there were eminent women too, as well as men, and no lack of interesting materials of any kind.”559 Jewsbury’s championing of an edition of Plato’s writing for a female audience is perhaps the strongest example of a woman publisher’s reader harnessing her role to support women’s education. Writing first to Richard Sr., Jewsbury informed the publisher that Chatterton’s translation of Plato had arrived at the firm at her behest. In the letter, she highlighted the works’ social and financial merits: first, she identified an audience for the text, noting that it could serve as a “reading book for the higher classes in Ladies Colleges and the higher sort of schools” and “for general readers to give knowledge of the best portions of old Greek thought and philosophy in a form more manageable and less formidable than the previous translations published by Bohn.”560 However, Jewsbury was also clearly motivated by a desire to change the literary and educational landscape for women: “I think it wd [would] be such a good thing if women were brought up on the fine old healthy teaching of Plato instead of the ill written pretentions and effeminate works wh [which] are put forth to console them for remaining unmarried! And growing old!,” she wrote, citing examples such as The Women of England and Afternoons and Evenings of Unmarried Life. “I feel anxious as a rational being that these selections from Plato well and simply translated as it is—shd [should] be given to the World … as a book of instruction.” Jewsbury’s next letter on the title, addressed to George, demonstrates how important the translation was to her. Appealing to George as the younger, and therefore more progressive of the two publishers, she asked him to influence his father in favour of Chatterton’s Plato, and reemphasized its importance. “I want the public to have the benefit of them especially women to whom so much trash and twaddle is daily administered—what other

558 See pp. 189-192 for a more detailed discussion on Mayer and Jackson’s contributions to the firm’s non-fiction offerings for a female audience. 559 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, December 8, 1889, Correspondence, UIUC. 560 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., August 17, 1861, MS 46653, BL. “Bohn” is likely a reference to academic publisher Henry Bohn. 175

translations I have seen have been heavy + clumsy—these are very readable … I really am sorry for the women who have so much rubbish written expressly for this intention,” she wrote.561 In this case, Jewsbury played to George’s scholarly vanity, hinting that his intellectual reputation would benefit the work. “Take the Plato and try the experiment if it answers,” she advised. “Published by you it wd [would] attain circulation amongst a class of reader who wd [would] be shy of meddling with Bohn or Wherell [academic publishers].”

Jewsbury’s views on women’s education, as portrayed within these two letters, can be contextualized within the women’s movement. By positioning this edition of Plato as a vehicle of social change, she signalled her belief that women should be “brought up” to be educated beings. Her assertion that women were impacted by the “ill written pretentions and effeminate works,” the “trash and twaddle” that is “daily administered” to them reflects one of the central tenets of the movement for women’s education—namely, that women’s intellectual development was limited by the poor quality of educational opportunities and materials—including print—that were made available to them. As previously noted, activists such as Davies, Parkes, and Fawcett argued that it was not lack of ability that held women back, but the poor quality of the education that was offered to them. In an article published in Macmillan’s Magazine, Fawcett asserts that it was a lack of “mental training” that had produced “such a deterioration in [women’s] intellects as … to justify the widely spread opinion that they are innately possessed of less powerful minds than men.” The belief in the “innate inferiority of women’s mind,” she adds, was “absurd.”562 From Jewsbury’s perspective, offering women readers educational materials like this edition of Plato was a step towards closing the intellectual gap that Fawcett identifies.

Additionally, Jewsbury agreed with women’s rights activists that education was a necessary alternative to marriage. This is shown in her letter to Richard Sr. That Jewsbury connects the need for women’s education with unmarried women is a reflection on what was thought to be a pressing social issue during the nineteenth century: the rising number of women who were unmarried and financially unsupported. A. James Hammerton describes the common

561 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, August 17, 1861, MS 46653, BL. 562 Millicent Garrett Fawcett, “The Education of Women of the Middle and Upper Classes,” in Free and Ennobled, eds. Bauer and Ritt, 121. 176

stereotype of the “distressed gentlewoman … the respectable, unmarried lady, educated for an unlikely and elusive marriage” who was an “object of morbid curiosity when her father’s death or ruin brought her to rely on her own meagre qualifications and seek to earn a precarious living.”563 His observation that the growth of the population of distressed gentlewomen in Britain throughout the century stemmed from failing to prepare middle- and upper-class women to support themselves is reflected in nineteenth-century print materials.564 Founder of the Girls’ Day School Trust, Maria G. Grey, warned girls that they could not count on marriage, and counselled that “education should prepare them by the formation of good intellectual and moral habits … [to] take their share of the work of life.”565 Bodichon similarly urged “young girls … waiting listlessly for some one to come and marry you,” to “ar[i]se … Awake! Be the best that god has made you,” and offered this advice: “love is not the end of life. … If we work, love may meet us in life; if not, we have something still, beyond price.”566 Jewsbury’s derision of the typical material that was published for women, which was “put forth to console them for remaining unmarried,” is a reference to such rallying cries. The specific titles that she chose to represent the body of inadequate work (e.g. Afternoons and Evenings of Unmarried Life and Unmarried Gentlewomen’s Ideas of Life and What to Do With It) further strengthens this connection. Indeed, as an unmarried woman who supported herself financially, and who had women colleagues in a similar situation, she would have understood first-hand the need to ensure that women were educated and enabled to live independently.567

The women publisher’s readers’ dedication to women’s education is a strong indication of their alignment with the Victorian women’s movement. Indeed, alongside marriage reform and campaigns against violence towards women, the fight for women’s access to education was

563 A. James Hammerton, Emigrant Gentlewomen: Genteel Poverty and Female Immigration, 1830-1914 (London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1979), 11. 564 Ibid., 20-38. 565 Maria G. Grey, “On the Special Requirements for Improving the Education of Girls,” in Free and Ennobled, eds. Bauer and Ritt, 119. 566 Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, “Women and Work,” in Ibid., 141. 567 Although most of her fellow women publisher’s readers were married, there were several (including Mayer and Jackson) who were the bread-winners of their families. As discussed in Ch. 3, their lack of education and training made it difficult for them to find work. 177

one of the most prominent branches of the women’s movement during the nineteenth century.568 The campaign addressed two major issues: women’s entrance to university programs, including medical school, and practical education that would enable women to be financially independent. It was rare for girls and women to have access to education at the time. Dyhouse and Marks recount how women’s education was widely unsupported, and most middle-class girls were kept at home to engage in domestic chores while their families dedicated financial resources to send their brothers to school.569 Girls’ limited education was typically provided by a governess at home, Dyhouse further explains, and the minority that attended school were exposed to a curriculum that was designed to ready them for marriage and social engagement.570 More than uncommon, however, women’s education could also be controversial. Women who chose to pursue a formal education—beyond feminine pursuits such as music, painting and the domestic arts—were frequently called selfish and seen as a threat to the existence of the traditional family. According to Kristine Moruzi, “a middle-class girl’s decision to pursue any education beyond that offered by governesses or parents is often presented as a choice between her self-interested desire to become more learned and her role as daughter and sister within a family.”571 Even when girls were encouraged to pursue higher education, she adds, it was firmly secondary to their domestic duties.

For women to become educated, then, was not simply an academic exercise, but an act of defiance and self-actualization. Marks notes that access to education opened women’s futures in unprecedented ways. Whether avoidance of marriage was a deliberate choice or an unhappy circumstance, education enabled women to plan for and live independent lives.572 The promise of social and financial freedom was a common inducement to convince parents, and young women themselves, that it was prudent for women to obtain an education and professional

568 Pugh, March of the Women, 37. 569 Dyhouse, Girls Growing Up, 3-4, 26; Marks, Bicycles, Bangs and Bloomers, 90. It is also worth noting that school fees for girls were twice the cost of those for boys. The lack of students meant that there was a higher cost per capita. This is another factor which deterred families from sending their girls to school. See Bauer and Ritt, eds., Free and Ennobled, 108. 570 Dyhouse, Girls Growing Up, 41-55. 571 Kristine Moruzi, “Higher Education and Home Duties: The Morality of Self-Interest in the Periodical Press, 1880-1910,” Victorian Periodicals Review 50, no. 4 (2017): 686. 572 Marks, Bicycles, Bangs and Bloomers, 91. 178

training. Yet, practical and ideological change did not come swiftly. Although education was increasingly available to and pursued by women throughout the century, it was still largely considered unconventional and indecent. According to Marks, a woman in pursuit of education “challenged the physiological, psychological, social and political status quo.”573 The rise in women’s education throughout the century led to anxiety that women were losing their domestic skill set, and women who sought education and worldly success were denigrated. They were not only ostracized from society, but from their gender as well, under the belief that education made women unfeminine by preying on their beauty and fertility. The women publisher’s readers’ pro- stance on women’s education was not a reflection of popular thought, then, but of progressive feminist values. Their use of print to promote women’s education can arguably be interpreted as type of activism, enabled by their professional roles.

Individual titles and reader’s reports have thus far been used to demonstrate the women publisher’s readers’ interest in challenging traditional notions of femininity and advocating for women’s martial and educational rights. Genre-based publishing trends can similarly be used to showcase the women publisher’s readers shifting approach to gender on the page and in society. The growth of the firm’s sensation and new woman fiction offerings from the middle of the century onwards signals its sympathy with progressive gender ideologies. The 1860s is known as the decade of the sensation novel. According to Palmer, sensation fiction capitalized on the new conditions of the press—namely, the “cultural emergence of a ‘modern’ print culture” which saw the mass production of print material for what was described as a “monster audience.”574 Specifically, she adds, “sensation novels, with their cliff-hangers and red herrings, made good use of serialization,” the form in which fiction commonly made its first appearance. At the time, the sensation novel was dismissed as a low-brow and popular form of writing with little literary merit. Nineteenth-century literary critic Austen believed that the proliferation of sensation novels, which “swarm” with “feeble” and “often befooling devices,” reflected the increasingly “insular” nature of the British people, who were disengaged from the political world.575 Beyond

573 Ibid., 90-104. 574 Palmer, “Are the Victorians Still With Us?,” 86. 575 Austen, “Our Novels,” 419-424. 179

reflecting the degradation of society, sensation novels also had a “deteriorating effect on the mind,” Austen argues. “While they fail to instruct, they do not even attempt to elevate … they are neither exact nor exalting; and the world may congratulate itself when the last sensational novel has been written and forgotten,” he concludes in an article ironically published in Bentley and Son’s own Temple Bar. Literary scholars, however, have offered an alternative analysis. Showalter, Flint, and Palmer, among others, have noted that women writers and readers utilized sensation fiction to grapple with their own oppression. Showalter explains that “sensation novels expressed female anger, frustration, and sexual energy more directly than had been done previously. Readers were introduced to a new kind of heroine, one who could put her hostility toward men into violent action.”576 Flint notes that the genre also served to mock the notion that women were uncritical, suggestible readers who were unable to delineate fiction from reality.577

Fahnestock’s previously discussed assertion that Jewsbury was against sensation fiction, then, is a charged one. The intention is to further demonstrate Jewsbury’s rejection of both women writers and the principles of the women’s movement. Fahnestock’s account of Jewsbury as an opponent to the genre is not unfounded. Throughout her reports—and indeed, the reports of her colleagues, including Jackson—the descriptor “sensational” often indicates that a novel is badly written, silly, or the product of a young and inexperienced author. Reporting on a manuscript called George Shorter, for example, Jewsbury told George that she “cannot recommend [him] to accept it. It is a feeble jumble of a foolish sensational story; discussions about ‘women’s rights’ and a gentle love affair—I shd [should] say that the author was a very young man.”578 Crucially, this report, and others like it, reinforce the impression that Jewsbury not only disliked sensation fiction, but that she was anti-feminist. Indeed, Jewsbury positioned the novel’s “discussions about ‘women’s rights’” as a negative feature. Throughout her reports, Jewsbury used the term “women’s rights” to mean women’s suffrage—a cause which, as previously noted, she did not support. While this report supports the anti-sensation narrative, however, there are others that show her acceptance of the genre. In an earlier report on a

576 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 160. 577 Kate Flint, The Woman Reader, 15. 578 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 15, 1873, MS 46660, BL. 180

manuscript called Our Sensation Novel, Jewsbury informed Richard Sr. that this was the “style of novels now fashionable,” and that for the firm’s purposes, she would be searching for sensation novels that were “bright,” “light,” and “clever.”579

True to her word, Jewsbury did find sensation fiction that was to her liking. Chapter three recounts Jewsbury’s role in bringing Wood to the firm, and the long-term significance of the relationship between the sensation author and Bentley and Son. She was also an admirer of Braddon, who was, and continues to be, one of the most famous sensation authors of the century. In Jewsbury’s report on Aurora Floyd, she urged Richard Sr. to acquire the book because it appealed to her as both a literary professional and private reader: “I lose no time in advising you to secure it by all means. I think it superior in point of good writing to East Lynne and quite equal to that novel in strong interest and it will I imagine be quite as successful. I had read already a good portion of it and admired it much. And I have now finished as much as is written and am looking forwards to next month for a fresh instalment!”580 She also recommended that Richard Sr. accept Lady Audley’s Secret, though she believed it to be inferior to Aurora Floyd. Based on the quality of these two novels, she predicted that Braddon would be a success.581 It’s worth noting that Aurora Floyd perpetuates a progressive perspective of gender and womanhood. The title character is strong-willed, independent, and willing to defy social conventions. Although she is punished for making an impulsive marriage below her social rank, Aurora, unlike East Lynne’s Isabel, is afforded the chance to ask for forgiveness and live a happy life with a new aristocratic husband. Jewsbury’s enthusiasm for such a novel shows her to be more liberal than other scholars have described her.

Perhaps even more significant than her interest in Braddon was Jewsbury’s eventual support of Broughton. Jewsbury’s reported acrimony towards Broughton, based on her response to the novel Not Wisely but Too Well, is often used to exemplify Jewsbury’s dislike of the sensation genre as a whole. However, Jewsbury’s opinion of Broughton’s work evolved over time. In a letter to George in 1873, Jewsbury requested that he send her a copy of Broughton’s

579 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., January 20, 1863, MS 46656, BL. 580 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., July 1862, MS 46656, BL. 581 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., July 29, 1862, MS 46656, BL. 181

newest work, Nancy, for personal reading.582 Another letter, sent early the next year, contained a largely positive account of Broughton’s abilities. “Miss Broughton is as clever as she can stand—very bright and very vivid. And singularly free from false sentiment,” Jewsbury wrote to George.583 Although the letter does not entirely consist of praise for the young author (Jewsbury complained to George that there is an “absence of humanity,” “feeling,” and “compassion” in her works), she focused on Broughton’s improvement:

There is certainly no pretense in her novels… she has wonderfully improved since her first “Not Wisely” and if “Nancy” had come as MS I wd [would] have said take it and rejoice! … Miss Broughton can excite deep pity when she chooses for example the suffering of the heroine in “Goodbye Sweetheart” made me shiver—much as I had hated her at first—but Miss B. has a future before her and she ought to lay her responsibilities to heart. So you see I am not unjust to her talents—wh [which] wd [would] be genius, if she put more heart and soul into her work.

In this passage, Jewsbury recognizes Broughton’s potential as an author, and describes her as a developing talent. Her suggestions for improvement—that Broughton become more “humane” and portray her characters, especially women, more sympathetically, are an expression of hope for the future of sensation fiction rather than an outright denunciation. For example, Jewsbury does not take issue with the plot of Nancy but notes that the characters of Nancy’s mother and sisters, who are shallowly characterized as “ogre-ish,” could be better-developed.

Jewsbury’s promotion of sensation fiction and its writers, however reluctant, mirrors a noticeable trend in the firm’s publishing practice. Chapter five shows that sensation fiction was increasingly well-represented within the firm lists, including Bentley’s Favourite Novels series.584 In addition to Wood and Broughton, who were two of the firm’s most important authors, Bentley and Son’s roster of sensation writers included Corelli, Marryat, Charles Reade, and Sheridan Le Fanu. The same sources show that the firm also had an interest in publishing new woman fiction. Admittedly, Bentley and Son’s association with new woman fiction is less pronounced than with sensation fiction. This is likely an issue of timing. New woman fiction, as James Eli Adams attests, initially rose to popularity and prominence during the last decade of the

582 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, 1873, MS 46655, BL. 583 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, January 9, 1874, MS 46655, BL. 584 See Ch. 5, p. 223. 182

nineteenth century, meaning that the genre was ramping up as the firm was winding down.585 Largely due to financial concerns, Bentley and Son was scaling back on their publishing efforts throughout the later 1890s, relying mainly on backlists until their closure. However, there is still a meaningful connection to be made between the firm and a genre that, as Palmer describes, explores female subjectivity.586 Arguing that “sensation fiction provided inspiration, ideas, and fictive models” for new woman fiction to draw on, she explains that “the ‘new woman’ novel followed on from the sensation novel in focusing on aberrant women and on the gender inequalities of the social system … depicting women frustrated or maddened as the result of male abuse of these inequalities.” Flint explains that unlike its predecessor, which offered veiled attacks on gender ideology, new woman fiction was more openly critical of social conditions. The genre included “protests against the restrictive upbringing of girls and the inadequacies of their education; the challenging of the assumptions that woman’s best possible future lay in marriage … the importance placed upon women’s … achievements in their working lives… and the questioning of double sexual standards,” she observes.587

Though the firm missed the heyday of new woman fiction, Bentley and Son published several titles that scholars have identified as early examples of the genre. One is Annie Edwardes’s A Girton Girl. Despite the novel’s reinforcement of the importance of marriage and motherhood, Sarah Bilston says that its depiction of a young woman “actively engaged in taking up new opportunities for woman,” makes it notable.588 The novel takes a sympathetic approach to women’s desire for education, she explains. This is demonstrated by the fact that the heroine, Marjorie, has clear ambitions, including writing the Cambridge University entrance examination, and works to achieve self-governance. Arguably, the fact that Marjorie’s storyline is romantic as well as academic is progressive. By portraying Marjorie as romantically desirable, Edwardes rejects the prevalent notion that intelligent and educated women were inherently plain and unworthy of marriage and motherhood. The true purpose of the story, a review in the Spectator

585 James Eli Adams, A History of Victorian Literature (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2009), 386-387. 586 Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 158-159. 587 Flint, The Woman Reader, 294. 588 Sarah Bilston, The Awkward Age in Women’s Popular Fiction, 1850-1900: Girls and the Transition to Womanhood (Oxford University Press, 2004), 136-139. 183

suggests, is to show the selfishness of men, and the moral and intellectual abilities of women.589 Similarly, the works that Mary Chomondeley published with the firm exhibit traits of new woman fiction. Her novel most frequently associated with the genre, Red Pottage, is not connected with the firm because it was published a year after Bentley and Son was sold. Yet, Peterson argues that Cholmondeley’s experience in working with the Bentleys on her first four novels was formative and had an impact on her future works. It was George and Richard Jr. who first gave her writing an “outlet,” and they encouraged her to “develop into a professional woman of letters,” she explains.590 While Diana Tempest, published by Bentley and Son in 1893, features elements of the sensational—including elopements and mistaken identities—the “heroine whose determination to think for herself, and whose contempt for appearances, raises questions routinely associated with the better-known New Woman protagonists of the 1890s,” argue Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton and SueAnn Schatz.591 Evidence drawn from the Bentley archive reinforces this idea. In a letter to George, Cholmondeley assured her publisher that her representation and criticism of what she calls the “ladies laws,” specifically those which governed marriage, were pronounced legally sound by a lawyer that she had consulted.592 After the novel’s publication, lawyer and historian Frederic Harrison wrote to George to praise the novel and give wishes for its success.593 Describing the work as “vigorous” with “pure style,” “good characters,” “abundant incident,” and “wholesome tone,” Harrison noted his interest in the spirit and independence of the heroine: “The idea of the rage of a vigorous proud girl at any man (even a man she unconsciously loves) daring to ask her to marry him—a rage like that of a Zebra put into traces, or of the lark in a cage—is good, I almost think new,” he wrote. This letter suggests that the novel represents the rage of a woman suppressed, demanding to be set free.

In publishing such works, the firm was not only dealing with progressive texts, but often with progressive women authors who wanted to be seen, and treated, as professionals.

589 “A Romance of the Channel Islands,” Spectator, March 13, 1886, 362. 590 Peterson, Becoming a Woman of Letters, 220. 591 Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton and SueAnn Schatz, Mary Cholmondeley Reconsidered (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2010), 4. 592 Mary Cholmondeley to George Bentley, November 1, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 593 Frederic Harrison to George Bentley, November 26, 1893, MS 46646, BL. 184

Cholmondeley not only insisted on retaining control over the creative direction of her manuscripts, but she was also highly involved in the business of publishing. She insisted on participating in negotiations for the American editions of her work, and was no weak-willed target for George and Richard Jr. As noted in chapter three, the publishers frequently relied on their masculine authority to gain the upper-hand in their dealings with women authors. In a letter to Richard Jr. on the sale of Sir Charles Danvers, Cholmondeley informed the publisher that while she was “well aware of the influence of Mr. Bentley’s name,”—seemingly, Richard Jr. had attempted to use the firm’s cultural capital to justify paying a lower price for the title—she was still insistent on receiving £50 for her work, because she was concerned about her own profits.594 Cholmondeley was also cognisant of her public professional identity. She wrote to Richard Jr. in 1892 to insist that in all future advertisements, she be referred to as Mary Cholmondeley rather than Miss Cholmondeley.595 This request appears to be an indication of a larger significant change. In earlier lists of Bentley’s Favourite Novels, for example, most women authors are referred to by their honorific, while men authors are listed by first name or initial and last name. However, by the mid-1890s, most women authors were listed by their first and last names, just like their men peers.596 Figures 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3, which show lists of Bentleys’ Favourite Novel series included in advertising catalogues from 1886, 1893 and 1897 respectively, show these differences in women author’s names. For example, in 1886 authors Rosa N. Carey and Jessie Fothergill are listed as Miss R. N. Carey and Miss Fothergill. By 1893, they are listed as Rosa N. Carey and Jessie Fothergill. Cholmondeley is listed as Miss Cholmondeley in 1893, but Mary Cholmondeley in 1897. That Cholmondeley explicitly made this demand of her publishers shows that she was not only an author of new woman fiction, but also the embodiment of a new woman, who was willing to demand her rights.597

594 Mary Cholmondeley to Richard Bentley Jr., June 12, 1888, January 1, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 595 Mary Cholmondeley to Richard Bentley Jr., November 8, 1892, Correspondence, UIUC. 596 A list of Favourite Novels from 1886, for example, uses honorifics for 12 out of 16 women authors (75 %). A list from 1893 uses honorifics for 10 out of 19 women authors (52%). A list from 1897 uses honorifics for 7 out of 17 women authors (41%). See Box 12, UCLA. 597 See Marks, Bicycles, Bangs and Bloomers, 2. This passage is quoted in the introduction, p. 20. 185

Detail of Fig. 4.1.

Fig. 4.1. Bentley’s Favourite Novels, 1886, Box 12, UCLA.

The proliferation of non-fiction titles that were published for a female audience also demonstrates how gender ideology progressed within the firm throughout the century. Publishing non-fiction materials for women readers was a noteworthy challenge to traditional gender ideology in and of itself, particularly in relation to literary production. The Victorian women’s

186

movement represented a large-scale effort by women to break out of the limited physical and mental spaces that they had been confined to—including the domestic sphere—and to occupy terrain that was traditionally male dominated, such as public spaces and the political and intellectual realms.598 Within the literary realm, this was represented not only by women’s entrance into professional literary spaces—such as editorship and printing—but in the redefinition of women’s literature. As Peterson explains, women’s literature expanded beyond fiction and drama throughout the nineteenth century to include genres such as essays, reviews and articles, biographies, histories and travel narratives.599 The growth of the firm’s women- oriented non-fiction lists, and how this publishing practice reflected Bentley and Son’s shifting

Detail of Fig. 4.2.

Fig. 4.2. Bentley’s Favourite Novels, 1893, Box 12, UCLA.

598 See Ch. 5, p. 232 for a more detailed discussion of separate spheres ideology. 599 Peterson, Becoming a Woman of Letters, 4. 187

stance on gender ideology, will be analyzed in greater detail in the following chapter. 600 Within this chapter, the trend will be examined in relation to the firm’s women publisher’s readers.

Detail of Fig. 4.3.

Fig. 4.3. Bentley’s Favourite Novels, 1897, Box 12, UCLA.

Ample evidence suggests that the women publisher’s readers were a driving force behind the growth of the firm’s women-oriented non-fiction offerings. Jewsbury’s championing of Chatterton’s Plato, discussed earlier in the chapter, is an important example. Motivated by the need to give women an alternative to the “trash and twaddle” which was normally published for a female audience, Jewsbury made a passionate appeal to both Richard Sr. and George to ensure the title’s publication.601 Her support of this work, however, was not for the sake of the individual title alone. Rather, she saw its publication as the catalyst for a shift in the definition of

600 See Ch. 5, p. 231-232. 601 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, August 17, 1861, MS 46653, BL; Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., August 17, 1861, MS 46653, BL. 188

women’s literature and Bentley and Son’s publishing practices. Her statement that women should be “brought up” on such materials instead of the “ill written pretentions and effeminate works” that were typically available to them signals a need for change in the field of women’s literature. She also noted that such a publication would have an impact on the identity of the firm itself, stating that the publishers could be known for bringing high class, yet accessible works into circulation. Additional archival documents show that Jewsbury’s investment in the title went beyond ensuring that the publishers took notice. In a later letter to Richard Sr., she alerted him to a favourable review of the title that had appeared in the Quarterly and made suggestions for future advertisements. She also pointed to the success of the title: “It appears that there have been notices of it in several papers. And I always see it lying on the counter in whatever good Bookshops I enter,” she wrote.602 Such a reminder of the title’s success served to notify the publishers that the publication, which she had posed as an “experiment” in her letter to George, had paid off as she had promised.603

Jewsbury’s interest in publishing this translation of Plato centered on the desire to provide women readers with a greater variety and higher quality of print materials to engage with. Mayer’s Women of Letters, which was detailed in the previous chapter, was intended to highlight women’s accomplishments.604 Prior to her editorship of the multi-volume work, Mayer not only showed great interest in the work of women writers, but also supported their inclusion among the literary elite. In a letter to George, Mayer praised an article on Eliot that had recently appeared in Temple Bar, noting that it was important to “do justice to the greater side of George Eliot’s mind.”605 Several years later, when arranging an edition of the letters of Leigh Hunt, Mayer campaigned to include correspondence with Mary Shelley in addition to those of his men peers, a group which included John Stuart Mill, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and James Hogg. She added Shelley’s letters, she wrote to George, because they provided a valuable perspective on Hunt, free from the jealousy that she felt characterized other letters and accounts.606 As a

602 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., April 12, 1863, MS 46656, BL. 603 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, August 17, 1861, MS 46656, BL. 604 See Ch. 3, pp. 124-125. 605 Gertrude Mayer to George Bentley, April 4, 1885, Correspondence, UIUC. 606 Gertrude Mayer to George Bentley, 1891, Correspondence, UIUC. 189

public showcase of “the papers of … literary women,” Women of Letters provided Mayer with the opportunity to explore women’s contribution to the profession of letters and their place within the British literary canon.607 Throughout the editorial process, she continually noted the absence of women from literary history, bemoaning the lack of material on the women she wished to include and detailing long hours spent at the British Museum.608 However, Mayer appeared to retain her enthusiasm for the work and the project itself, calling her collection a “menagerie,” and agreeing to Richard Jr.’s suggestion of future editions without hesitation.609 The short prefatory note included in the first of two volumes reinforces Mayer’s intention of bringing women’s literary work to light. The “aim” of the “following papers,” she writes, is “to give some idea of the lives and characters of the women themselves, mainly in their own words, supplemented by the recollections of their contemporaries; thus offering the essence of many volumes of memoirs and correspondence to readers.”610 Mayer’s work in bringing together disparate materials enables a waiting readership to have greater access to these lesser-known literary women. By using “their own words” to paint a portrait of the women’s “lives and characters,” she purposefully gives her subjects a voice, which is in itself a feminist act. Indeed, the project of feminism has been tangibly advanced by women gaining an ability to speak up, to participate, and to tell their stories.

Like Mayer, Jackson worked to bring notable but often unseen women into public view. She was particularly influential when it came to the growth of the firm’s women’s history titles. As a publisher’s reader, Jackson was vocal about her personal dislike of fiction, and, as noted in the previous chapter, often attempted to secure non-fiction reading work for herself as well as steer the firm towards non-fiction titles generally.611 Although her time as a publisher’s reader was arguably cut short due to her aversion to fiction, her connection with the firm was not

607 Gertrude Mayer to Richard Bentley Jr., February 4, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 608 Gertrude Mayer to Richard Bentley Jr., March 9, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC; Gertrude Mayer to George Bentley, undated, Correspondence, UIUC. 609 Gertrude Mayer to Richard Bentley Jr., February 4, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC; Gertrude Mayer to Richard Bentley Jr., November 4, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 610 Gertrude Mayer, Prefatory note to Women of Letters Vol. 1, ed. Gertrude Mayer (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1894). 611 See Ch. 3, pp. 127-128. 190

severed once she was removed from the role. In addition to giving Jackson translation work, George assigned her the task of editing historical profiles for Temple Bar beginning in 1875.612 In this capacity, Jackson encouraged George to publish a greater number of biographical sketches on women subjects. Answering George’s request to provide a list of potential historical figures to profile for the magazine, Jackson wrote: “You asked me to send you another list of Portraits—I enclose it. Get as many ladies as you can—they are … more interesting than men. Some of them are perhaps difficult to obtain but if you can pick up Angelique Paulet and Madame de Rambouillet, they would be a greater augmentation than … Madame de Medici.”613 It is worth noting that Jackson not only designated women subjects as “more interesting than men,” but that she also supported historical enquiry into lesser-known subjects. She advocated that George move away from repetitive work on the few women who had received historical attention and give print space to women who had thus far escaped notice. This shows Jackson to be forward-thinking in her conception of women’s history. According to Smith, nineteenth- century women’s history typically focused on women rulers and royalty.614 Jackson’s attempt to include a greater variety of accomplished women within the historical narrative—as indicated by her preference for musician Angelique Paulet and intellectual Madame de Rambouillet over the famous Italian ruler Catherine de Medici—made her progressive among her peers.

Jackson also used her connection with the firm to bolster her own career. By the end of the 1870s, she was publishing a great number of works in the field of women’s history. This included biographical sketches placed in Temple Bar as well as full-length histories. Writing to George about the contents of a book she was writing on the Old Regime, Jackson revealed her intention to integrate women into the intellectual and political history, noting the importance of including Madame Rolland, Madame de Staël, and Madame Pompadour.615 In her proposal for a history of Bourbon France, she told George that she would “begin by an introductory account of

612 A letter from Jackson to George discusses the editorial choices she made regarding two biographical sketches of historical figures. Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, November 12, 1875, Correspondence, UIUC. 613 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, March 1, 1878, Correspondence, UIUC. 614 Smith, Gender of History, 51. 615 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, February 21, 1879, Correspondence, UIUC. Additionally, a list of Temple Bar articles for the same year shows that Jackson wrote a biography on Madame de Staël for the magazine. 191

the state of the country from 1360; the court, nobility and people; education, manners, customs, costumes, etc.” and that while military history and the reigns of kings would play a significant part, she would by no means exclude the history of women. “There were eminent women too, as well as men, and no lack of interesting materials of any kind. The dates above women invade the reigns of Ch. V VI VII Louis XI and Charles VIII,”616 she explained. Her statement that “the dates above women invade” the reigns of kings is an acknowledgement that women lived alongside the men who dominated historical accounts. Their stories, she insisted, were no less interesting, influential or worthy of notice. The Bentleys evidently agreed; the publishers included Jackson’s work on Bourbon France in a catalogue of their most prominent titles.617

While the publishing practices hitherto explored within this chapter were gender- progressive, it is worth restating that Bentley and Son was a mainstream rather than feminist firm. As such, the firm’s stance on gender ideology was subtly integrated into their lists rather than explicitly expressed. The firm did decline opportunities to become directly connected to the women’s movement or take an open stance on gender politics. One example is shown in a letter from Sophia Jex-Blake, who was an advocate for women’s access to university education and one of the Edinburgh seven—the first seven women students admitted to the University of Edinburgh medical school. Following the success of her book Medical Women, which acts a treatise in favour of opening the medical profession to women and a history of women’s medical education, Jex-Blake wrote to George and Richard Jr. to ask them to publish a second edition: “the first edition (1000 copies) of my work … being now exhausted, I intend to bring out a second edition greatly enlarged, and should be glad to know whether you would be disposed to undertake the publication, and, if so, on what terms,” she inquired.618 While there are no follow- up letters available that speak to the Bentleys’ reaction to Jex-Blake’s offer, her absence from Turner’s index to the firm’s lists shows that they decided against the publication.619 Similarly, Clementina Black, a feminist and trade unionist who was known for her work on the campaign for women’s suffrage, offered her work to the firm and was rejected. In 1881 she sent a

616 Catherine Jackson to George Bentley, December 8, 1889, Correspondence, UIUC. 617 This catalogue is described in detail in the following chapter. See Ch. 5, pp. 229-230. 618 Sophia Jex-Blake to George Bentley and Richard Bentley Jr., May 18, 1878, Correspondence, UIUC. 619 See Turner, Index and Guide. 192

manuscript called Captain Lackland’s Wooing to the publishers, which noted that if they wished to publish the title, she would prefer to edit it herself. Though not wanting to appear “arrogant,” she told them, she believed she had earned the right due to the success of her previous novels, A Sussex Idyl and Orlando.620 Whether the story itself was objectionable, or the publishers were offended by Black’s terms, the firm never published the work. Black’s name does not appear in the index, and there is no evidence to suggest that the story was ever published by another firm.

However, not all figures associated with the women’s movement were turned away by Bentley and Son. For example, the firm had a productive relationship with Anna Jameson, one of the founders of the women’s artists’ collective Langham Place Group. The Bentleys published several of her works on women’s history. One of the most notable women’s rights advocates with whom the firm developed a long-term relationship was Cobbe. The story of Cobbe’s introduction to the firm through Jewsbury is detailed in the previous chapter. There is a significant gap between the time Jewsbury urged George to reach out to Cobbe and the time when the firm began to publish Cobbe’s works more extensively and employ her as a publisher’s reader and editor.621 Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, a small number of Cobbe’s pieces appeared in the pages of Temple Bar, while her books—primarily works that addressed a variety of political and social justice issues—were published elsewhere. The Bentley archive offers little explanation for the slow beginning to what became a close professional relationship, although a single letter from publisher’s reader Stubbs provides a clue. In a report on Cobbe’s manuscript Dawning Lights: An Inquiry Concerning the Secular Results of the New Reformation, Stubbs viciously denounced the work.622 “It is a very shallow, pretentious attempt to tell us what will be the character of religion and its effect on social life,” he complained, going on to describe Cobbe’s work as “thoroughly infidel … ignorant” of the “system it represents” (i.e. Christianity), and “stupid reading.”623 Even the quality of the writing is called into question. Though

620 Clementina Black to Richard Bentley and Son, February 11, 1881, Correspondence, UIUC. 621 See Ch. 3, p. 122. Jewsbury’s initial letter to George about Cobbe was written in 1868. It was not until the 1890s Cobbe developed a close relationship with the firm. 622 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, March 13, 1868, Correspondence, UIUC. 623 William Stubbs to George Bentley, April 25, 1868, Correspondence, UIUC. This title is likely the “collection of Papers on old and modern beliefs” that Jewsbury referenced to George in the letter quoted in the previous chapter, p. 122. 193

conceding that the book had a “certain faculty of expression,” he ultimately deemed it “superficial as there is no true sequence of thought wrapped up in it.” Stubbs’s acerbic response to Cobbe’s views is not surprising given his position as an Anglican bishop. The book, which was eventually published by E.T. Whitfield, analyzed the disarray of the English church in the face of scientific discovery. Cobbe herself called the title a “wicked little book,” and several of her contemporaries admired both the contents and the courage she showed in publishing the work.624

Seemingly, George avoided publishing this potentially controversial title on Stubbs’s advice. As previously noted, however, this did not prevent a relationship from forming. In the coming years, Bentley and Son published some of Cobbe’s less contentious work, typically biographies on historical women figures.625 This steady but distant relationship between publisher and author took a turn in 1893, spurred by the death of George and Cobbe’s mutual friend, actress and author Kemble. Days after Kemble’s death, an obituary appeared in the Times which suggested that her professional life had eroded her womanliness. The journalist called attention to Kemble’s work on the stage and her disastrous marriage; her “refinement” was described as countered by “coarseness,” “modesty” by “bounce,” and “pretty humility” by even “prettier arrogance.”626 In response, George wrote a letter to the newspaper to refute this undeniably gendered criticism of his friend. “Some of the best traits of that impulsive, warm- hearted woman are not recorded,” he admonished the Times’ editor. Detailing Kemble’s “wisdom and wit,” “keen analysis of character” and “eloquence,” he pronounced Kemble a “noble woman” with “nothing small about her. She was no dissembler. She was … ‘a grand old lioness.’”627 Beyond defending his friend, George managed to gain Cobbe’s good opinion through this letter. Cobbe wrote to George to thank him for his “warm hearted letter … in

624 Sally Mitchell, Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1994), 184-185. 625 Throughout the UIUC correspondence collection, there are several undated letters from Cobbe to George discussing articles on Christina of Sweden, Anne of Austria, and Maria Theresa. She also enquires what his readers think of a work called The Queen Regent. 626 “Death of Fanny Kemble,” Times, January 17, 1893, 10. 627 George Bentley, “Fanny Kemble,” Times, January 19, 1893, 8. 194

defence of our dear old friend. … it is as you say, to know her well was to love her well.”628 Their mutual affection for Kemble likely inspired Cobbe to approach George regarding the publication of a volume of Edward Fitzgerald’s letters, which had been left to Cobbe by Kemble. A month after sending her thank-you note, Cobbe wrote to George again, this time to offer him the opportunity to publish the collection of letters that she possessed while she acted as editor— an offer that George accepted.629

With the volume of letters in progress, George made another move to deepen the firm’s professional connection with Cobbe. Letters from the archive show that George had discovered that Cobbe intended to write an autobiography, and that he asked her if he could publish the work. Initially, Cobbe turned George down, motivated by loyalty to the publisher Fisher Unwin, who had “kindly [agreed to] undertake the re-issue of several of [her] old books.” Cobbe apologetically explained that Unwin “was pleased with the prospect of my Autobiography, to come out with the rest of the books, and if he falls in with my views about it I should not (of course) like to withdraw my proposal of publication with him.”630 However, she soon changed her mind. She reported to George that she discovered that Unwin had had “a change in priority, as well as publishing business” that she could not abide by; namely, “that Mr. Unwin has in the press the Autobiography of the Women of England writer with whom I do not wish to be bracketed with in the reviews.” After she explained this “misfortune” to Unwin, Cobbe reported, the publisher released her from her obligation.631 Her request that Bentley and Son publish her autobiography was tempered by warnings about its content. Cobbe revealed that there was a “great deal of ‘Real Women’s Gossip’ … serious chapters, indeed conveying my early religious struggles within the orthodox church,” essays on social justice issues, including her experience with and reflections on the plight of the poor, and chapters on “women’s projects.”632

628 Frances Power Cobbe to George Bentley, January 20, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 629 There are two relevant letters from Cobbe to George contained in the UIUC archive. The first is an offer for Bentley to publish the letters with her acting as editor, and the second provides greater details on the scope of the collection. Frances Power Cobbe to George Bentley, February 16, 1893 and February 27, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. A note from George to Cobbe about payment for copyright shows that he accepted her offer. George Bentley to Frances Power Cobbe, May 15, 1893, Correspondence, UIUC. 630 Frances Power Cobbe to George Bentley, February 28, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. 631 Frances Power Cobbe to George Bentley, June 7, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. 632 Ibid. 195

The information she provided in this letter is supplementary to an earlier letter, in which Cobbe noted that her autobiography perpetuated her “unusual opinions and policies,” and referred to herself as a “social reformer.”633 Furthermore, the title’s stance on women’s rights is made clearer by the fact that Cobbe refused to have her work published and advertised alongside the autobiography of the “Women of England writer.” Ellis, the author of The Women of England (1838), was well-known for her traditionalist perspective on gender roles. Her works, which include The Daughters of England (1842), The Wives of England (1843), and The Mothers of England (1843), in addition to her first title, instruct women on how to best discharge their religious and moral duties. She believed that women were emotional rather than intellectual beings, whose rightful place was in the home and under the dominion of men protectors.634 By removing her autobiography from Unwin’s hands, Cobbe did more than signal her personal objection to Ellis and Ellis’s views. She also showed her insistence on working with publishing firms that were willing to embrace her liberal perspective. In publishing Ellis’s autobiography, then, Unwin became an unacceptable business partner for Cobbe. That she turned to Bentley and Son as an alternative meant that, from her perspective, the firm was an appropriate home for her progressive works. Cobbe was clear that she had no intention of negotiating the books’ content or making editorial changes to suit the firm. Instead, she described her work in detail to ascertain whether George was willing to take the project on, knowing the topics it addressed. She wanted to know upfront, she informed him, if her “programme” was “prohibitive to [his] adoption of the book.”635

George’s decision to move forward with the project, despite Cobbe’s warning about its liberal content, was a profitable one. In the fall of 1894, publisher’s reader Evans wrote to George to comment on the success of the title, which found unsurprising given that the book was “vastly entertaining.”636 Cobbe wrote to George to comment on the extensive library sales.637 A

633 Frances Power Cobbe to George Bentley, February 28, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. 634 See Sarah Stickney Ellis, The Women of England: Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits (London and Paris: Fisher, Son and Co., 1838). 635 Frances Power Cobbe to George Bentley, June 7, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. 636 H.E.G. Evans to George Bentley, November 18, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. 637 Frances Power Cobbe to George Bentley, October 5, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. 196

few months after the autobiography’s publication, George commented to Richard Jr. that sales were going well, and had reached £700.638 It also publicly associated Bentley and Son with a progressive literary circle. The success of this project convinced Cobbe to align herself more wholly with the firm. In November 1894, Cobbe formally severed her relationship with Fisher Unwin, ostensibly due to the poor sales of her back titles. The defensive tone of a letter from Unwin to Cobbe hints that she had requested that Unwin transfer her titles to the care of Bentley and Son for financial reasons. Assuring Cobbe that they were “advertising the books as desired,” he reasoned that she was responsible for low sales: “I cannot say that the success of the Life has influenced our sales. Possibly if you had allowed the publisher who took up the large miscellaneous stock to have issued your Life, it might have been a different matter,” he concluded. Cobbe was not swayed by Unwin’s defence, however, and asked George to take on the responsibility of selling the reissues of her old works, originally published by Fisher Unwin.639 As a result, the firm became the guardian of many of Cobbe’s political works. While this included works supporting religious reform—much like Dawning Lights—religion was not Cobbe’s only, or even primary interest. Sally Mitchell describes Cobbe as a “celebrated … suffragist, essayist, journalist, theologian and social reformer.”640 Mitchell further credits Cobbe with advocating for “delinquent girls and the sick poor,” being the “first person to formally propose that women be admitted to English universities,” serving on the Central Committee for Women’s Suffrage, publicizing and fighting against domestic violence, as well as founding two animal rights organizations. By the late Victorian period, Cobbe had produced an impressive body of work addressing such subjects, which Bentley took on as part of his stock.641

Working with Cobbe and other authors who espoused liberal views in print demonstrates the extent to which Bentley and Son was friendly to progressive perspectives. However, there were limits to the publishers’ permissiveness, which can be explored through their interactions with Gissing. References to one of Gissing’s most famous works, New Grub Street, are woven

638 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., January 26, 1895, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 639 Frances Power Cobbe to George Bentley, November 22, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. 640 Mitchell, Frances Power Cobbe, 1. 641 George wrote to Richard Jr. that as of the end of the financial year, Cobbe would be transferring “her books to us” from Fisher Unwin. George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., March 22, 1895, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 197

throughout this dissertation to illuminate the late nineteenth-century commercial book trade. It is ironic, then, that Bentley and Son was arguably one of the industrial publishers who inspired Gissing to craft a novel which exposed the exploitative practices of late Victorian literary production. Gissing’s relationship with the firm began almost a decade before the publication of New Grub Street, with the submission and acceptance of a novel called Mrs. Grundy’s Enemies. Writing to his brother in December of 1882, Gissing informed Algernon that Bentley and Son had purchased the manuscript for fifty pounds, and he was hopeful for its future: “the Bentleys are men of standing, & there is every hope of their making a success of this book,” Gissing told his brother.642 In the following two years, however, Gissing became increasingly frustrated by an ongoing delay in publication. At various points, the author reported to his brother that the novel was being reviewed and edited by a third-party, George, and himself.643 Yet, these efforts towards revision were unending. Despite placing an advertisement in the Athenaeum in October 1883 announcing the forthcoming publication of Mrs. Grundy, George was requesting major revisions from Gissing as late as August of 1884.644 Gissing told his friend Frederic Harrison that he had been asked to rewrite volumes II and III, a process which took him six weeks to complete.645 From Gissing’s perspective, George’s indecision on publication was made more mysterious by the publisher’s inability to identify the source of his concern. “I had much rather Bentley dictate desired changes, than run the chance of altering things which perhaps he would permit to stand,” he complained to Algernon.646

That the project was eventually abandoned lends interest to the history of Gissing’s work; the question of why it was discarded is more significant to this dissertation. Few clues remain as to why George vacillated on the novel, and eventually dropped it altogether. Mrs. Grundy’s

642 George Gissing to Algernon Gissing, December 17, 1882, in The Collected Letters of George Gissing Volume II, eds. Paul F. Mattheisen Arthur C. Young, and Pierre Coustillas (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1991), 111. 643 See The Collected Letters Vol. II. Letters throughout this collection indicate ongoing delays and rounds of editing. 644 The advertisement, which appeared in the Athenaeum on October 13, 1883, announced that Bentley and Son were publishing “a novel dealing with a grade of society not often treated since Dickens’s ‘Oliver Twist,’ entitled ‘Mrs. Grundy’s Enemies,’ by George Gissing.” See The Collected Letters of George Gissing Volume IV, eds. Paul F. Mattheisen Arthur C. Young and Pierre Coustillas (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993), 138. 645 George Gissing to Frederic Harrison, August 17, 1884, in The Collected Letters Vol. II, 241. 646 George Gissing to Algernon Gissing, February 14, 1883, in Ibid., 116. 198

Enemies was never published, and the manuscript has since been lost, meaning that its contents cannot be known. None of the surviving letters contained within The Collected Letters of George Gissing detail plot, characters, or its overarching message. What is clear is that the publisher was concerned about the novel’s morality rather than its quality. Presumably responding to a suggestion that he legally compel Bentley and Son to publish the work, Gissing wrote to his brother:

The thought of legal proceedings with regard to ‘Mrs. Grundy’ has never occurred to me. … you cannot force a man to publish a book which would be an offence against morality. This is the line of defence Bentley would take, & your knowledge of the average Philistine goes far enough to enable you to imagine the impression which would be produced on a British jury by the reading forth of a few pages of ‘Mrs. Grundy.’647

Certainly, George framed his dilemma as a moral one. In an attempt to explain the ongoing delays to Gissing, the publisher wrote to the author: “I am afraid I have been long, & perhaps intruding my opinions, but I think you will excuse me, since I do it under an idea that you have the welfare of your fellow-creatures at heart, & would not sow one seed that shd [should] bring up an unhealthy crop.”648 This letter indicates that George was not inclined to lay blame on either his own sensibilities or market forces—presumably reasons that Gissing would be able to counter. Instead, he appeals to Gissing’s demonstrated interests in the betterment of the human condition by invoking the “welfare” of his “fellow-creatures.” According to George, Gissing’s work had the power to do great social injury as “one seed” that could “bring up an unhealthy crop.” Neither Gissing, nor the scholars who have researched this interaction between George and Gissing were fooled. Reflecting on the episode in 1889, Gissing told Edith Sichel that “at the last moment (after even announcing the book)” George “was afraid to publish it” because “it dealt with base life, and was likely to prove offensive.”649 This letter is among the pieces of evidence that led Frederick Nesta to conclude that Mrs. Grundy’s Enemies was “suppressed by

647 George Gissing to Algernon Gissing, April 28, 1884, in The Collected Letters Vol. II, 211. 648 George Bentley and George Gissing, August 25, 1884, in Ibid., 246. 649 George Gissing to Edith Sichel, November 4, 1889, in The Collected Letters Vol. IV, 138. 199

Bentley both for fear of Mudie and because he could not reconcile realistic writing to his own moral standards.”650

More specific explanations for the suppression of Mrs. Grundy are somewhat speculative and circumstantial. For example, the title of the book itself could be an indicator of its contents. Mrs. Grundy was not a character of Gissing’s invention, but a well-known cultural figure who personified the tyranny of convention. First appearing in the play Speed the Plough (1798), Mrs. Grundy is notably seen to be policing the behaviour of her neighbour Dame Ashfield.651 From this point onwards, Mrs. Grundy became a cultural reference.652 John Poole’s novel Phineas Quiddy, originally published in 1841, references “Grundyism,” and paints Mrs. Grundy as an authoritarian, omnipotent figure: “many people take the entire world to be one huge Mrs. Grundy, and, upon every act and circumstance of their lives, please, or torment themselves, according to the nature of it, by thinking of what that huge Mrs. Grundy, the World, will say about it,” Poole writes.653 An article published in 1908, which takes the form of a mock interview with Mrs. Grundy conducted by journalist London Truth, provides a detailed exploration of the figure, including her origins and the ideologies she represents.654 Explaining that she was given her name by “a certain dramatist of the early nineteenth century who introduced me … as a person whose censure all respectable persons live in mortal dread of incurring,” Mrs. Grundy defines her “pet abomination” as “impropriety in any shape,” defined as “the open transgression of any of the recognized conventionalities.” Essentially, Mrs. Grundy is the personification of Victorian propriety. When asked the question “are you censorious” she responds: “very. It is what I am here for.” As the guardian of social morality, Mrs. Grundy’s rules and dislikes are many.

650 Frederick Nesta, “The Commerce of Literature: George Gissing and Late Victorian Publishing, 1880-1903” (PhD Diss., University of Wales, 2007), 10, http://cadair.aber.ac.uk/dspace/handle/2160/645. 651 Thomas Morton, Speed the Plough (Philadelphia: Printed for Mathew Carey by T. &G. Palmer, 1807). 652 A letter to the editor of the Times, written by Earnest Law in 1926, claims that Mrs. Grundy is based on a “Housekeeper of that name at Hampton Court Palace in the late forties and early fifties of last century,” who had a carefully guarded gallery that nobody was admitted to. However, this would have been half a century after her appearance in Slow the Plough. See Earnest Law, “Mrs. Grundy at Hampton Court,” Times, June 7, 1926, 15. 653 John Poole, Phineas Quiddy; Or, Sheer Industry (London and New York: Routledge, Warnes, and Routledge, 1859), 164. 654 London Truth, “Mrs. Grundy,” Life, May 7, 1908, 510. 200

It is worth noting that Mrs. Grundy’s censure is undeniably gendered. In her view as portrayed by the article, her mission to uphold the laws of decency manifests in the suppression of “all natural humanity” generally, but “all natural femininity in particular.”655 Indeed, she further specifies her role in controlling women’s behaviour, including monitoring their dress, and fostering strict boundaries between women belonging to different social classes. Mrs. Grundy’s function as a guardian of gender ideology is underscored by contemporary scholarship. She is positioned as a foil to progressive conceptions and representations of gender. Heilmann, for example, titled an article on the gender-progressive works of Margaret Oliphant, Mrs. Grundy’s Rebellion.656 Another article called Making Mrs. Grundy’s Flesh Creep analyzes the work of new woman writer George Egerton and her challenging of Victorian censorship.657 In the same vein, the title of Gissing’s novel likely indicates that its characters were progressive figures who would attract the ire of the socially conservative Mrs. Grundy.

George’s treatment of Gissing’s next two submissions to Bentley and Son could shed further light on the nature of his objections. In contrast to the slow death experienced by Mrs. Grundy, the second manuscript Gissing submitted to the firm, called The Unclassed, was swiftly and decisively cut down. Telling Gissing that he could not accept the novel, George was clear that his decision was informed by the subject of the novel rather than its quality: “it is not from want of talent that I feel obliged to decline your book, but the nature of the story itself,” he wrote to Gissing.658 Furthermore, George did Gissing the courtesy of identifying what aspects of the book he objected to:

You will see what the reader says and about the heroine who is a prostitute being represented as good and noble and pure. Though we know in this unfortunate class there are many with kindly instincts yet the nature of the life tends to deaden and in time to destroy the good originally present. It does not appear to me wholesome, to hold up the idea that a life of vice can be lived without loss of purity and womanly nature. I confess that I am of opinion that the realistic treatment of such a subject works for evil as well as

655 Ibid. 656 Ann Heilmann, “Mrs. Grundy’s Rebellion: Margaret Oliphant Between Orthodoxy and the New Woman,” Women’s Writing 6, no. 2 (1999): 215-237. 657 Anthony Patterson, “Making Mrs. Grundy’s Flesh Creep: George Egerton’s Assault on Late Victorian Censorship,” Victoriographies 3, no. 1 (2013): 64-77. 658 George Bentley to George Gissing, January 4, 1884, MS 46644, BL. 201

for good, and possibly more for the former. I do not doubt your motive, which I believe is the noble one of bringing before the public a class, not enough considered with a view to an amendment of their conditions and removal of their temptations.

George’s overruling objection to the novel—that the main character is a prostitute who is represented in a positive light—is unsurprising given the firm’s position on representations of women’s sexuality discussed earlier in this chapter. Later in the letter, George shared his concern that the “book might familiarize some with a condition of things best not dwelt on,” and could therefore be injurious to young readers of “both sexes.” From George’s own perspective, it was impossible for a prostitute to retain either their virtue or “womanly nature” when engaging in a “life of vice,” he told Gissing. The unwholesomeness of the novel outweighs what he sees as Gissing’s “noble” intention to bring attention to the plight of marginalized populations.

The acceptance of a third manuscript that Gissing submitted to Bentley and Son adds further perspective to George’s assessment of The Unclassed. The Emancipated, which Gissing submitted to Bentley and Son in 1889, similarly challenged conservative social and political views. As Gissing himself explained, “‘The Emancipated’ simply means the English people who have delivered themselves from the bondage of dogma & from the narrow views of morality that go therewith.”659 Although this refers to the rejection of rigid Victorian conventions more broadly, the novel, which tells the story of an English widow who shirks convention by traveling to Italy and pursues artistic passions, specifically challenges traditional gender ideology. It is the nature of the women characters’ emancipation that distinguishes this novel from The Unclassed, and presumably Mrs. Grundy. According to contemporaneous reviews of the novel, the experience of the women characters is central to the plotline of the book. One critic proclaimed that Gissing took “too seriously … the altered relation of the sexes” and “the complex modern woman.”660 The reviewer recounts how the heroine, Miriam Baske, “gradually, amid fresh scenes and new influences, shakes off the sectarian yoke,” only to fall in love and become “a happy wife.” The other women characters who count among the emancipated, the reviewer

659 George Gissing to Edward Bertz, November 4, 1889, in The Collected Letters Vol. IV, 139. It is worth noting that The Emancipated contains several references to the figure of Mrs. Grundy. Whether the author included these references as a jab towards the publisher with reference to the previous novel, or simply a method of referring to the socially orchestrated oppression of women, is unknown. 660 “Belles Lettres,” Westminster Review, July 1890, 333-337. 202

warns, “make shipwreck of their lives—apparently, in direct consequence of their emancipation.” In another review that appeared in the Spectator, the critic notes that Baske is “simply detestable when she gets free” from the traditionalist rules that governed her life and wonders how the man she ultimately marries could love such a woman. Additionally, he or she implies that the marriage of a second character, the educated intellectual Cecily Doran, is unhappy not because her husband is an unprincipled man, but because she is unwilling to accept her lot in life.661 Quoting a passage in which Cecily discovers her husband’s indiscretions, where the character resolves to revolt against his control because she is “of the emancipated order,” the reviewer questions whether it is her marriage, or her resistance to finding happiness even in the worst of circumstances as a more traditional woman might, that truly causes her unhappiness.

The fate of The Emancipated is not a happy one; it did not sell particularly well, and it was over this novel that George and Gissing had an irreversible falling out.662 Regardless of its eventual failure in the literary marketplace, however, its publication reveals much about George’s approach to gender in print. According to Gissing, George “made no kind of moral objection” to the novel, which took the author by surprise.663 “If it had been by an unknown man, he would have objected—I am sure—to twenty things in it,—as you will see,” Gissing speculated in a letter to his friend Edward Bertz. Indeed, this was not the first time that Gissing warned friends and family that they would find aspects of The Emancipated objectionable. In a letter to Sichel he called the book “strange” and “uncomfortable,” and told her that she “will not like it.”664 By Gissing’s account, George’s decision to publish the book is worth querying. The insinuation that George was relying on Gissing’s fame to sell the novel is arguably overstated. By most accounts, Gissing was a relative unknown until the publication of New Grub Street in 1891, and the offer George made for The Emancipated (£150 up front, with another £50 when

661 “The Emancipated. By George Gissing. 3 vols. (Bentley and Son).” Spectator, June 21, 1890, 23. 662 In the attempt to collect all of Gissing’s published works together under one firm, Gissing and his new publishers, Lawrence and Bullen, offered to purchase the copyright of The Emancipated from Bentley and Son. Based on records held in the British Library, several scholars have concluded that Bentley cheated Gissing on the transaction, claiming that he lost a total of £52 pounds on the novel when he only lost a total of £23 16s 5d according to his own account books. See Matteisen, Young and Coustillas, introduction to The Collected Letters Vol. V; Nesta, “The Commerce of Literature.” 663 George Gissing to Edward Bertz, October 21, 1889, in The Collected Letters Vol. IV, 130. 664 George Gissing to Edith Sichel, November 4, 1889, in Ibid., 139. 203

the book sold 850 copies, and £50 for the sale of 1000 copies) is not consistent with the type of compensation offered to best-selling or well-known authors.665 When analyzed through a gendered lens, however, George’s decision to publish the novel becomes clearer. Just as The Unclassed violates the boundaries that the firm placed on women’s sexuality, The Emancipated takes several gender-progressive positions that were perpetuated by the firm and its employees, detailed earlier in the chapter. This includes a positive portrayal of women’s education, a critical perspective on traditional marriage—with emphasis on women’s marginalization within the institution—and the rejection of the Victorian angel in the house, who represented conservative social values and gender ideology. Furthermore, the outright rejection of The Unclassed, and the acceptance of The Emancipated, allows for speculation on the contents of Mrs. Grundy’s Enemies. When contextualized by the known assessment of the two titles that followed, George’s ambivalence towards Mrs. Grundy raises the possibility that the novel straddled the line between what the firm considered acceptable representation of gender, and that which was deemed immoral.

George’s claim that any hesitancy in publishing Gissing’s works was caused by moral conflict indicates that, to some extent, the firm policed themselves out of a desire to shield the public from indecency. It is impossible to know whether the publishers were personally offended by Gissing’s work or they believed that the contents would be harmful to the public. However, the choice to stay away from potentially controversial titles was, at least in part, commercially motivated. The firm’s relationship with Mudie demonstrates this point. As the owner of one of the most prominent circulating libraries in Victorian Britain, Mudie held considerable sway over the literary marketplace. J.A. Sutherland explains that his Select Library was an unparalleled vehicle for sales and access to the reading public. 666 The building of personal libraries was still, at the time, an expensive proposition, and public libraries were only beginning to be established. Much of the reading public sourced their reading materials from circulating libraries, which charged a fee for access to their holdings. Mudie was the largest purchaser of novels in the world in the nineteenth century; with over 120,000 titles in circulation, his library’s influence over the

665 See Ch. 3 for a more detailed discussion on authorial compensation. 666 J.A. Sutherland, Victorian Novelists and Publishers (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1976), 26. 204

literary landscape was assured.667 In 1860, Mudie was at the height of his power. A move to a larger premises in London that year came to epitomize “Mudie’s unchecked control over the London literary market and literary culture,” says Peter J. Katz, and unleashed widespread protest.668 An article published in the Saturday Review noted that Mudie was “in a position to make himself the dictator of literature.”669 Katz describes an article published in the Literary Gazette—one of 40 that appeared in the periodical press on the subject over a four month span— entitled “Mr. Mudie’s Monopoly,” which served as a “scathing call to arms against Mudie and his ‘right to selection’—his right to choose which books he sold and lent.”670

Scholars have shown that Mudie’s control over the literary landscape was both financial and social. Roberts recounts how, due to the purchasing power of the library, Mudie could not only demand deep discounts from publishers (up to 50 percent) but also forced the continuation of the expensive three-volume format for novels. “The three-volume novel was an object which was produced in order to supply the circulating libraries, and it was this particular format and genre which provided the basis of Mudie’s success,” he explains.671 The retail price of the three- volume novel, 31s 6d, would have been too expensive for most individual customers. Demanding that publishers continue to favour this format, then, ensured that readers were tied to the circulating library. Furthermore, a novel in three physical parts could circulate among more clients simultaneously, particularly since a reader could only check out one volume at a time. As the primary providers of literature to the reading public, circulating libraries stood as a barrier between publisher and reader. Sutherland, Flint, and Guinevere Griest have argued that Mudie used this position to act as a censor, particularly for women readers.672 Touting the morality and high tone of the books he carried, he publicly stated that he curated his collection so that it

667 Ibid. 668 Peter J. Katz, “Redefining the Republic of Letters: The Literary Public and Mudie’s Circulating Library,” Journal of Victorian Culture 22, no. 3 (2017): 399. 669 Qtd. in Sutherland, Victorian Novelists, 26. 670 Katz, “Redefining the Republic of Letters,” 399. 671 Lewis Roberts, “Trafficking in Literary Authority: Mudie’s Select Library and the Commodification of the Victorian Novel,” Victorian Literature and Culture 34, no. 1 (2006): 2-3. 672 See Flint, The Woman Reader, 144-145; Guinevere Griest, Mudie’s Circulating Library and the Victorian Novel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970), 136-140; Sutherland, Victorian Novelists, 26. 205

reflected what he found to be appropriate reading material for a sixteen-year-old girl, says Flint. Advertisements for the library, which state that “novels of objectionable character or inferior ability are almost invariably excluded,” reinforce this charge.673 Publishers were consequently beholden to Mudie’s personal conception of morality. Noncompliance with his subjective standards resulted in exclusion from the circulating library, meaning blocked access to readers and almost certain failure. Several references to Mudie in the Bentley archive speak to his power over the publishing process. As previously discussed, Mudie’s rejection of the title Made in Heaven threatened the novel’s success. Jewsbury’s offer to George to approach Mudie herself to plead for the book shows how important it was for a title to be carried at his library.674 In another case, Jewsbury assured Richard Sr. that she heard that Mudie had subscribed “very moderately” to Lady Audley’s Secret, which meant that the publisher should consider Braddon’s choice to publish with another firm “an escape rather than a loss.”675

Mudie’s tenure as the “dictator of literature,” however, did not outlast the century. Although he dominated the circulating library market, opening 125 locations across the United Kingdom from 1843 to 1875, the businessman was facing severe financial difficulties by the mid-1860s. Feather explains that this was due to an increase in competitors, who undercut his prices, and Mudie’s own extravagant lifestyle.676 So important was his circulating library to the British publishing industry, however, that a group of major London-based firms, including Bentley and Son, decided that it was too big to fail. They organized a secret, privately funded bailout scheme to save Mudie from financial ruin.677 While his Select Library continued, however, Mudie’s power seemed to wane. In letters held in the Bentley archive from the 1890s, Mudie is referenced mockingly, and positioned as a figurehead of a dying literary era. Cobbe

673 Qtd. in Sutherland, Victorian Novelists, 26. 674 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, July 27, 1873, MS 46655, BL. 675 Geraldine Jewsbury to Richard Bentley Sr., October 22, 1862, MS 46653, BL. Jewsbury was misinformed about the sales of Lady’s Audley’s Secret. The novel was a massive success, and the publisher of its three-volume format, William Tinsley, is said to have purchased a summer home—dubbed Audley Lodge—on its proceeds. See John Sutherland, “Braddon,” in The Longman Companion to Victorian Literature, 2nd ed (New York: Routledge, 2016), 77. 676 Feather, British Publishing, 123. A letter from the library to George Bentley dated February 7, 1881 indicates that he was a shareholder of the company. See Correspondence, UIUC. 677 Ibid., 124. 206

reported to George that she was surprised that the “libraries are taking a fair many copies” of her book, and laughingly declared that she had come a long way since “Mudie tabooed me on account of my hysterics!”678 Cholmondeley bitingly criticized Mudie for “his usual instinct to supply us [the reader] with what we want least.”679 Mudie’s fading hold over the literary sphere, as indicated by these letters, was financial as well as cultural. By the mid-1890s, publishers finally decided to do away with the three-volume novel, regardless of the library’s preferences.680 In a letter to Charles’s son Arthur, Richard Jr. informed the library owner that “it is probable that you will receive fewer novels from us during the next few months in the three volume form.”681 Explaining that they would be beginning a trial period in which the firm would publish “a certain number of stories” in one-volume format, Richard Jr. stated that “if a sufficiently large number are sold in the new form it would be beneficial to us … as well as to the Libraries.” This letter indicates that Mudie, the one-time dictator of the literary landscape, had quietly fallen.

The conflicted relationship between publishers and the circulating libraries provides insight into the slow-moving work of feminizing the publishing industry. Although print is undeniably a vehicle of change, Darnton’s, Adams and Barker’s, and other models discussed earlier succinctly demonstrate how the circumstances of print’s production are influenced by greater social, cultural, economic, legal, and political forces, which can act as a barrier to progress as often as an impetus. Mudie’s Select Library, and its economic and social control over the literary marketplace for the better part of a century, is one example of a force that worked in opposition to change. Regardless of its own approach toward gender ideology, Bentley and Son walked a delicate line between progress and profit. Examples of the firm’s use of print to challenge women’s marginalization—such as the publication of Made in Heaven to expose the pitfalls of marriage—must be considered alongside by the refusal of manuscripts, such as Forgotten Lives, that readers and publishers feared would not sell despite the significance of the

678 Frances Power Cobbe to George Bentley, October 5, 1894, Correspondence, UIUC. Cobbe continues, noting “how long ago” it seems that her works were considered “dark units” which were “quite improper.” 679 Mary Cholmondeley to George Bentley, February 9, 1895, Correspondence, UIUC. 680 See Feather, British Publishing, 125-127. 681 Richard Bentley Jr. to A.O. Mudie, August 31, 1894, MS 46646, BL. 207

message contained within. The sensation and new woman fiction, and women-oriented non- fiction titles that demonstrate an advancing understanding of women’s literature and the woman reader continued to appear on publishing lists alongside titles that perpetuated traditional gender roles in terms of content and notions of authorship and readership. In many ways, the publishers and readers were constrained by prevailing norms. However, they were also not the passive victims of outside forces. As Braddon, Wood, Broughton and other Victorian women writers pointedly remind us in their fictional works, the greatest threats to women can often be found inside the house. This chapter shows how the publishers and women publisher’s readers simultaneously challenged and reinforced oppressive gender ideology. The firm is positioned as a site of inquiry from which to explore the roots of the industry’s feminization, rather than as an example of an already-feminized firm, for this reason. This portrait of Bentley and Son is not a clear picture of an end-point, but a snapshot of a firm in motion. Its conclusions—and lack thereof—can be more valuable for it. Analyses of contemporary firms can answer the question of what a feminized industry looks like. This study of Bentley and Son, on the other hand, approaches the question of how the industry feminized.

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Chapter 5 Gender in Print: Reading the Publisher’s Lists

Bentley and Son’s evolving approach towards literary production, particularly as it related to gendered labour and representations of gender in print, is admittedly most transparent from the back-stage perspective taken in the previous chapter. In no small part, this is due to a certain degree of secrecy that Victorian publishers maintained in relation to their publishing practice. This was particularly true when it came to the activities of publisher’s readers. Gettmann notes that “information on the publisher’s reader is scattered and tantalizingly sketchy,”682 and Chester claims that the readers’ task is hidden behind a “veil of secrecy.”683 By all accounts, publishers’ readers were employees who were to remain masked, and whose work was to be hidden. Indeed, the Bentleys were noticeably cautious about revealing information about their publisher’s readers.684 Today, the Bentley archive makes once enigmatic publishing processes and labour accessible. Letters, readers’ reports, and internal documents evidence the activities of the firm’s employees, which illuminates developments in the firm’s approach to literary production for posterity. This raises the question of whether these internal workings were communicated to the firm’s reading public, and how.

Publisher’s lists are valuable resources for this line of enquiry. Harper Collins’ glossary of book publishing terms defines the publisher’s list as “the books a publisher or imprint has available for purchase or soon to be published.”685 Typically, a publisher maintains several lists, which are separated by “type of book” or literary genre. Simple as this seems, the publisher’s list is arguably an interface between the firm and the public; carefully curated and constantly

682 Gettmann, A Victorian Publisher, 187. 683 Gail Chester, The Not So Gentle Reader: The Role of the Publisher’s Reader as Gatekeeper, with Particular Reference to Macmillan and Co., 1895-1905 (master’s thesis, University of London, 1996), 3. 684 When writing to authors or other members of the public, the Bentleys would only refer to publisher’s readers as unnamed critics. They consistently protected the identity of their readers, never revealing names or offering to make introductions. For example, in a letter to author Octavious Rooke, Richard Jr. informed Rooke that “our readers’ reports are confidential.” Where Bentley’s publisher’s readers are in touch with authors, it appears that they have made contact of their own volition. See Richard Bentley Jr. to Octavious Rooke, February 5, 1877, MS 46644, BL. 685 “Glossary of Book Publishing Terms,” Harper Collins, accessed March 22, 2018, http://filestore.harpercollins.co.uk/prepress/mirrored_docs/glossary.html#l. The category of “list” is further defined in the glossary by the terms “backlist,” which refers to books published in previous years that are still in print, and “frontlist,” which are the books published or due to be published in the current year. 209

evolving, it communicates and defines a firm’s self-constructed identity, including the place it occupies (or hopes to occupy) in the marketplace and literary landscape, its history, and intended direction. While lacking the detail and candor of the aforementioned internal documents, Bentley and Son’s lists still provide a glimpse into the workings of the publishing house and the minds of the publishers themselves. As Bruce R. Smith points out in his work on “reading” lists of plays, lists are “radically paratactic” in that “connections among the items exist primarily in the writer’s mind.”686 The reading of a list, then, provides insight into its creator. Yet, few scholars have analyzed the publisher’s list as a genre. In his exploration of the Dutch literary environment, Thomas Franssen establishes the publisher’s list as an under-utilized, but high-potential resource: through a “study of publisher’s lists … it will be possible to identify the structure of the ‘literary space,’” including the relationships between genres, and the function of each genre within the space more broadly, he argues.687

In this chapter, I examine Bentley and Son’s publisher’s lists as an outward-facing expression of their publishing processes and policies, providing insight into how the Bentleys positioned their firm as an agent of literary production and print culture. Catalogues, series lists, publication ledgers, advertising department documents and other archival material is used to evidence the content of the firm’s lists. The categories or genres that occupy the publisher’s lists communicate Bentley and Son’s commercial identity to consumers and competitors alike. Indeed, according to Liam Cole Young, lists within cultural industries are not only reflections of the industry and marketplace, but also embody “preference and taste,” function as a “marketing device,” act as a method of communication between “producers, critics and consumers,” and provide a window into the social environment at large.688 Importantly in the context of this dissertation, the relationship between publishing categories and the firm’s publisher’s lists is indicative of the gendering of their content. The growing significance of fiction—and in particular, women-oriented fiction genres—within the publisher’s lists will be considered as an

686 Bruce R. Smith, “Reading Lists of Plays, Early Modern, Modernist, Postmodern,” Shakespeare Quarterly 42, no. 2 (1991): 128. 687 Thomas Franssen, “Diversity in the Large-Scale Pole of Literary Production: An Analysis of Publishers’ Lists and the Dutch Literary Space, 2000-2009,” Cultural Sociology 9, no. 3 (2015): 383. 688 Liam Cole Young, List Cultures: Knowledge and Poetics from Mesopotamia to Buzzfeed (Amsterdam University Press, 2017), 46. 210

indication of the feminization of the firm’s offerings. In addition, the firm’s publisher’s lists demonstrate how boundaries between masculine and feminine publishing categories began to break down throughout the later part of the nineteenth century, which is indicative of shifts in the gendering of print materials. This includes the growing number of women-oriented non-fiction titles in categories that were seen as masculine, such as history and travel literature.

It is worth noting how feminized or women-oriented print is defined within the context of this dissertation. In both literary studies and popular culture, women’s literature is typically synonymous with women’s writing. In their respective studies of women’s literary culture, for example, Peterson and Showalter focus almost exclusively on women authors. Furthermore, there is a presumption that literary works produced by women authors were read solely by women readers. Flint’s The Woman Reader examines how women readers interacted with—or were prescribed and assumed to interact with—novels produced by women authors for a female audience. 689 When Eliot refers to “lady’s novels,” in “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists,” she means work produced both by and for women.690 Of course, this definition of women’s literature is not limited to the nineteenth century. In his history of readership, Manguel recounts the creation and consumption of literature among the women of the Heian-Kyo court in ninth- to eleventh-century Japan. Isolated from the outside world, the women of the court created their own literature and circulated it among themselves, even developing a written language for the works which was known as “women’s writing.”691 Within the twenty-first-century publishing landscape, the often-denigrated genre of chick lit is defined as works of fiction written by women, for a female audience, featuring women heroes and feminized subjects.692 While the term women’s literature traditionally takes on a dual meaning, then, referring both to literature authored by women and literature read by women, it simultaneously suggests a closed loop. Using women’s literature as his primary example, Manguel describes this as an “enclosed

689 See Ch. 1 for more detail on these studies. 690 Eliot, “Silly Novels,” 442-461. 691 Manguel, History of Reading, 228-231. 692 Lucinda Rosenfield, “What Was Chick Lit? A Brief History from the Inside,” Lit Hub, February 3, 2017, https://lithub.com/what-was-chick-lit-a-brief-history-from-the-inside/. 211

literary space” which both contains and excludes.693 The definition of women’s literature within this dissertation differs in that it assumes no such closed circuit. Instead, women’s literature, or women-oriented literature as it referred to in this chapter, is defined by its consumers. Taking the perspective of the publisher as my primary lens, women-oriented literature means works that were marketed to, and presumed to be consumed by, women. Certainly, the gender of a work’s author, and its subject matter, contributed to the Bentleys’ assessment of which consumer group the work was intended for. However, it is also not necessary for a work to be authored by a woman, or confine itself to women characters and feminized subjects, to be defined as women- oriented literature here. Essentially, women-oriented literature is understood within this dissertation as a commercial rather than a literary category.

An internal document that details Bentley and Son’s various publishing categories creates the impression of a diversified mainstream firm. The categories identified in the document include: • History

• Biography

• Travel and Adventure

• Painting and Music

• Drama

• Poetry

• Scientific

• Cookery

• Miscellaneous

• Sporting and Natural History

• Religion

693 Manguel, History of Reading, 228. 212

• Legal

• Fiction

• Serials, Maps, Reviews and Papers

• Query Libraries and New Editions694

Of course, not all categories were weighted equally. Several documents held in the archive show that four categories—history, biography and autobiography, travel and adventure, and fiction— were spotlighted. A catalogue of prominent titles published by the firm, for example, draws primarily from these four categories, which indicates that they were the most valuable to Bentley and Son.695 Additionally, the firm’s marketing efforts were focused on these four categories. Although a notice issued by the advertising department indicates that “all the books in sale have the attention of the advertising department,” the firm’s advertising scrapbook and sales catalogues tell a different story.696 The advertising scrapbook—a collection of outgoing advertisements maintained by the advertising department—accounts for 429 advertisements placed in newspapers and magazines by the firm. Few advertisements were dedicated to works that did not fit into the four major categories, including: 27 advertisements for religious works; 6 cookery books; 6 works of sporting and natural history; 5 books of poetry; 3 plays; 3 collections of papers (i.e. essays); 3 miscellaneous including 2 dictionaries and a textbook; and 2 books each on painting and art, and science.697 Comparatively, there were 105 advertisements for works of biography or autobiography; 103 fiction titles; 90 books on travel and adventure; and 74 works of history. A similar focus on the top four categories is conveyed by catalogues produced by the

694 Unnamed, undated document, Box 3, UCLA. It is worth noting that in the categories of lists included here, “query libraries” is the most enigmatic. I have been unable to uncover the origin or meaning of the term in formal research. In private correspondence, Leslie Howsam has theorized that these categories may refer to “files” which contain tasks that specific employees are responsible for. For example, she suggests that query libraries could be a task, wherein an employee is meant to touch base with libraries regarding sales or the reception and circulation of certain titles. 695 See pp. 229-249 for a description and discussion of this catalogue, and an examination of the notion of value it contains. 696 “Advertising Department (Outgoing),” September 1866, Advertising Department, UIUC. 697 Advertising Scrapbook, UIUC. The outgoing advertisements included in this scrapbook were published throughout the 1850s and 1860s, so this is a snapshot of two decades of advertising practices, rather than a holistic representation of all their advertisements. 213

firm for the benefit of booksellers and librarians attending their annual trade lunches.698 Although each catalogue contains an order form in its back pages which includes all available titles arranged alphabetically, the front pages of the catalogues are comprised of advertisements for selected titles, which are highlighted both visually and spatially. Exclusively titles drawn from the history, biography and autobiography, travel and adventure, and fiction lists are distinguished in these front pages. This arguably reflects the publisher’s expectations regarding prospective sales; the catalogues would reasonably have been designed to draw attention to the titles that buyers were most likely to purchase.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, fiction began to pull ahead of the other three main categories in quantity and visibility. On the outline of the firm’s lists detailed previously, the importance of fiction is indicated visually; the word is positioned alone on the top right-hand corner of the page, underlined, and with an asterisk. Turner’s Index to the Bentley Lists, as well as publication and agreement ledgers held in the Bentley archive corroborate this focus; from the 1850s to the 1890s, there was a noticeable upswing in the publication of fiction titles, which comes at the expense of other genres.699 Previously discussed notices, including a call for Temple Bar submissions and an outlay department memo, speak to the almost total dissolution of minor lists, such as religion and sporting and natural history, as well as the reduced print-runs for historical, biographical and autobiographical, and travel and adventure titles.700 The Bentleys frequently referenced the declining popularity of such genres in the later nineteenth century, warning authors that they would see lower print-runs and sales. Writing to Jane Wilde on her travel title, Driftwood from Scandinavia, George noted that the work would appeal to “the more cultivated classes of readers and not to the masses,” which would result in a “limited … sale.”701 Charles Edwardes received a similar notice regarding his Letters from Crete. The publishers

698 Catalogues titled “A Collection of New and Standard Works which will be Offered upon Especial Terms to the Principal Librarians and Booksellers of London and Westminster,” for the years 1885 to 1897, are held in Box 12 at UCLA. According to an article in the Bookman, Bentley and Son was the only publisher who held such “sales dinners” for the trade until the end of the nineteenth century; the event was described as both a social and commercial event “devoted to new and current literature.” See “Messrs. R. Bentley and Son’s Sales Dinner,” Bookman, December 1891, 106. 699 See Turner, Index and Guide; Agreement Memorandum Books, MSS 46617-46626, BL. 700 See Ch. 2, pp. 82-83. 701 George Bentley to Lady Jane Wilde, April 3, 1884, MS 46644, BL. 214

informed the author that Bentley and Son was inclined to publish his work, but they had “doubts as to its commanding a very large sale amongst the public,” due to readers’ partiality towards fiction.702 This had a direct impact on the author’s compensation. In a follow-up letter, Edwardes was offered a royalty for his work rather than a copyright purchase as he requested, because, as Richard Jr. told him, the “future prospects of the book are too uncertain from a business point of view.”703 These letters speak to a shift in the firm’s approach towards the travel and adventure category in particular, in which both Wilde’s and Edwardes’ works belonged. In the advertising scrapbook mentioned previously, 90 titles of travel and adventure are represented, which reinforces the category as a staple of the firm at midcentury. A catalogue of the firm’s self- designated prominent titles similarly indicates that for much of the century, Bentley and Son placed a high value on travel and adventure works. It is noteworthy, then, that the firm became wary of non-fiction genres that once formed a significant portion of their offerings.

As non-fiction publishing waned at Bentley and Son, fiction increasingly became a staple. This change in focus was consciously undertaken. A letter from publisher’s reader J.W. Cole to George shows the care with which the firm was approaching the building of their fiction lists: “As our literature increases in extent, there will be an increasing tendency towards selection,” he wrote. “I think this may be so even with writers of considerable eminence, and it will have to be regarded still further where the writer is less known, and most of all in case of a revival of a name which has almost completely passed away.”704 That the Bentleys considered themselves among the foremost publishers of fiction is shown by Richard Jr.’s assessment of the industry and their competition: “In real literature Macmillan are by far the most serious competitors we have (more so than Murray or Longman) as they ‘go’ for intellectual books— which are very rare to get. Low Kegan [Paul] or Chatto [and Windus] do no harm and H&B [Hurst & Blackett] do even good in finding a port for distressed craft of small tonnage,” he wrote to his father.705 Both letters provide insight into the Bentleys’ manufactured identity; their

702 R. Bentley and Son to Charles Edwardes, December 10, 1886, MS 46645, BL. 703 Richard Bentley Jr. to Charles Edwardes, December 15, 1886, MS 46645, BL. 704 J.W. Cole to George Bentley, July 3, 1874, MS 46643, BL. 705 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, February 11, 1889, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. All the firms listed in this letter were major Victorian publishing firms, and Bentley and Son’s competitors. “Kegan” refers to Kegan Paul, 215

employees and the publishers themselves saw the firm as a primarily literary house, with a focus on quality material. Evidently, this self-conception was successfully communicated to their readership and the literary industry. In a profile of the firm that appeared in Sketch in 1894, journalist W. Roberts calls Bentley and Son an “aristocratic house” whose “literary connections have always been of the highest intellectual rank.” The publishers were associated with “some of the best and most popular authors of the day,” from both England and the rest of Europe, he adds, claiming that the firm had “given a prominent place to fiction.”706 This impression of the firm is echoed in other accounts of Bentley and Son in the press. To mark the closing of the firm, the Academy published a brief history of the business, remembering the publishers as surrounded by a “remarkable band of men of letters and artists,” including Charles Dickens.707

The growing significance of the firm’s fiction list hints at Bentley and Son’s interest in publishing for the female market. Although a commercially motivated practice, it also became a fundamental aspect of the firm’s identity. According to Tuchman and Fortin, Bentley and Son gained a reputation among their peers for not only producing literature that would interest the female market, but also for adopting marketing or “puffing” tactics geared towards women consumers.708 Due to the way genres were gendered in the nineteenth century, a Victorian firm’s fiction lists are often an indication of their effort to appeal to women audiences. Approaching the gendering of genres from the perspective of the author, Showalter argues that the novel was the only genre recognized as feminine in the nineteenth century. She explains that based on allegedly feminine traits, such as an obsession with romance and sentiment, interest in trivial matters and a propensity for gossip, “Victorian critics agreed that if women were going to write at all, they should write novels.”709 Outside of the realm of fiction, Tuchman and Fortin categorize genres as male specialties (e.g. natural and physical sciences, geography and economics); high prestige specialties (e.g. philosophy, history, politics, public policy, and

“Chatto” to Chatto and Windus, and “H&B” to Hurst & Blackett. Interestingly, Richard Jr. chose to distance Bentley and Son from these firms, which were better known for popular literature than Macmillan, Murray and Longman. 706 W. Roberts, “Messrs. Richard Bentley and Son,” Sketch, October 10, 1894, 582. 707 “The House of Bentley,” Academy, August 27, 1898, 195. 708 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 32. 709 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 82. 216

literary criticism); mixed specialties (e.g. biography, travel, and reference books); and women’s specialties (e.g. women’s topics and children’s books).710 High prestige specialties were also masculinized, they clarify; 89 percent of manuscripts published in this area were written by men. The woman reader was similarly intertwined with fiction in the nineteenth century. Flint observes that discussions surrounding what women should and should not be reading revolved almost entirely around the novel, with the presumption that other genres were either inappropriate, or intellectually out of reach, for women readers.711

Within Bentley and Son, the division of genres by gender of primary audience largely mirrored the divisions that Showalter, Tuchman and Fortin, and Flint establish. One way to determine how genres were gendered within the publishing house is to trace how manuscripts were distributed to the firm’s publisher’s readers along gender lines. As representatives of the audience, publisher’s readers were expected to have insight into the minds of the readers. Their job was to predict how the audience would respond to a work, which determined whether or not it would sell. The Bentleys assumed that their publisher’s readers had special insight into the wants and needs of their own gender. Consequently, a manuscript’s assumed audience is reflected by the gender of the publisher’s reader who was asked to assess it. Fiction manuscripts were almost exclusively relegated to Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers, while non- fiction works that fell under the male, high prestige and mixed specialties that Tuchman and Fortin identify were typically given to men publisher’s readers. It is no coincidence that most of the women publisher’s readers’ reports examined in the previous chapter concern fiction manuscripts. Moreover, the non-fiction manuscripts that they handled—for example, Chatterton’s translation of Plato—were considered to be for a primarily female audience. Indeed, the tension between Jackson and the Bentleys described in chapter three was fostered by her desire to assess historical works rather than fiction, and the Bentleys’ resistance to this shift in the status quo.

710 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 144. 711 See Flint, The Woman Reader. 217

For most of the century, the men publisher’s readers had the inverse experience. The majority of the reports by men preserved in the Bentley archive are assessments of non-fiction manuscripts, including political, historical, religious, scientific, and travel works. Cole, a historian who published three titles with the firm in addition to working as a translator and editor of historical works, was typically assigned titles in line with his professional experience. Of his 15 surviving reports, only two concern fiction titles, both of which have men protagonists. One manuscript, which tells the story of a man who falls in love with a stranger at first sight, was simply dismissed as “vulgar.”712 The second report, on a manuscript called Hurricane Hurry, is more in-depth. Cole found the nautical novel set in the American War of Independence problematic: it was “nothing but battle, shipwreck and forms, hair-width escapes and perilous adventures,” with no “originality of thought, character or incident,” he reported.713 Yet, the most troubling thing about the novel was its lack of audience. In this regard, Cole’s criticism of the novel is gendered. His assertion that the lack of “humorous relief” or “female interest” in the work meant that “few people will read it” reveals his presumption that the novel was a feminine literary form intended for women readers. Indeed, Cole was unsure where a naval adventure novel fit into Bentley and Son’s lists—an uncertainty that was underscored by his request that the manuscript be sent to “Miss Jewsbury,” an acknowledged expert on fiction, for a second opinion. Similarly, Stubbs, a professor of history and an Anglican bishop who focused on religious and historical manuscripts, reported on few works of fiction. Both novels that he was asked to assess had masculine qualities. Stubbs dismissed Piratic Days as a “bombastic … romance of the old days,” meaning a romanticized adventure tale.714 On a Mountain was a novel that ostensibly detailed a scientific expedition. Stubbs’s lukewarm review centered on the fact that the book was a thinly disguised “little love story” with a “flimsy” plot.715 Notably, none of the fiction works read by men publisher’s readers were recommended for publication. The palpable confusion as to how to approach and categorize works that were novels, yet not

712 J.W. Cole to George Bentley, December 28, 1860, MS 46661, BL. 713 J.W. Cole to George Bentley, February 9, 1861, MS 46661, BL. 714 William Stubbs to George Bentley, January 29, 1862, MS 46661, BL. As per Stubbs’s reference to novels “of the old days,” adventure novels were popular in the early Victorian period. This is highlighted by the fact that Bentley’s Standard Novels series focused primarily on this genre, as noted on p. 219. 715 William Stubbs to George Bentley, March 22, 1862, MS 46661, BL. 218

feminine in subject or tone, shows the degree to which the novel was feminized as a literary form.

The expansion of the firm’s fiction lists indicates that Bentley and Son was increasingly focused on the female market for print. More significant to a gender analysis of the firm’s print materials, however, is the evolution of the fiction lists’ content. An overhaul of the firm’s reprint series demonstrates the shift in the gendering of the firm’s fiction offerings throughout the century. Bentley’s Standard Novels, introduced in 1831, represented an emerging nineteenth- century publishing practice; namely, the publication of cheap editions for mass-market consumption. According to John Carter, Bentley and Son was the first firm to produce a fiction series, which became the “most influential and probably still the most famous series of cheap novels in the history of English publishing.”716 The series was originally conceptualized as reprints of great eighteenth-century novels. It was not until the end that the series morphed into cheap reprints of the firm’s contemporary bestsellers. On a comprehensive list of the entire series of Bentley’s Standard Novels, the publishers include an excerpt from an 1849 review from the Morning Herald to describe the series.717 Positioning the series as a departure from Bentley and Son’s offerings more broadly, which belonged to the “higher and graver departments of history and the belles lettres,” the unnamed journalist calls the Standard Novels “a unique and uniform collection of cheap and elegant volumes, the principle works of fiction that have appeared in England during the last quarter of a century.” Furthermore, the journalist assures readers that the series is high culture, writing that the “remarkable” collection “confers such honour upon the literature of the country; it is stamped with a distinction of a nobler kind … In no other … collection, does there exist a body of fiction so unexceptionable in point of taste, and impressed throughout with so pure a spirit of morality.” The language used here, particularly the characterization of the titles as honourable and noble, would have been considered masculinized in the nineteenth century. Of the authors that the journalist names to represent the series, the majority are men: Edward Bulwer Lytton, Captain Frederick Marryat, G.P.R. James, James Fennimore Cooper, Thomas Colley Grattan, Theodore Hook, James Morier, and John Galt.

716 John Carter, Victorian Fiction: An Exhibition of Original Editions (Cambridge University Press, 1947), 10-11. 717 “Bentley’s Standard Novels & Romances, 1831-1854,” Box 17, UCLA. 219

Comparatively, only four women authors are named: Catherine Gore, Frances Trollope, Mary Mitford, and Jane Austen. This authorial snapshot approximates the series more broadly. Of the 134 titles contained in the 127 volumes issued as part of the series, 96 are written by men authors, and 38 by women. Additionally, while all the titles are fiction, most are men-oriented. The series primarily encompassed adventure novels with men protagonists engaged in military campaigns or colonial travel.718 In sum, the list embodied the early novel.

Financial difficulties likely induced the firm to sell the series to Routledge in 1856. Bentley’s Standard Novels were then incorporated into Routledge’s Standard Novels series and continued to be issued under the new publisher.719 In fact, many of the titles were not only printed from Bentley stereotypes, but on paper that Bentley and Son had already purchased for the series.720 By 1863, however, the firm was able to invest in a new reprint series, which was called Bentley’s Favourite Novels. Though the sale of their first series was undeniably a blow to the Bentleys, who were suffering from severe financial strain at the time, it ultimately presented them with an opportunity to reinvent their reprint fiction list. While the second series retained the original’s focus on reissuing single-volume editions of the firm’s best-selling titles, there were essential differences. Carter notes that the new series did not directly compete with other cheap series, but instead “bridged the gap between these and the three-decker for those who wanted a presentable and decently printed edition to keep on their shelves.”721 This is a reference to the quality of both the material product as well as the labour. According to Carter, the “revised texts testify to the editorial care of the publisher.” In the context of this dissertation, the most noteworthy difference between the two series is the gendering of their content. Where the Standard Novels list was dominated by men-authored adventure novels, the titles on the Favourite Novels list were primarily women-oriented fiction genres, such as domestic, sensation,

718 Ibid. 719 In 1855, letters between George and Richard Sr. show that the firm was significantly in debt, and the publishers were considering various solutions to their economic troubles. The sale of the series would have alleviated a significant portion of their debt. See Ch. 2, pp. 79-80 for more in-depth discussion. A notice placed in the Leader in 1856 notes that Bentley and Son raised almost £7000 from the sale. See “Bentley’s Standard Novels,” Leader, March 8, 1856, 236. 720 Carter, Victorian Fiction, 12. 721 Ibid., 14. 220

and new woman fiction, written by women authors. That Jane Austen’s works were the only titles to be included on both lists shows the extent of the break between the old and the new. Notwithstanding issues of copyright, these decidedly domestic works were the only titles from the previous series that fit the scope of the new reprint list.722

Complete lists of the Favourite Novels series printed in sales catalogues throughout the 1880s and 1890s confirm the feminization of the firm’s reprint fiction lists in terms of content and intended audience. One of the final iterations of the list seen in figure 5.1, which was prepared for an annual sale of new and standard works to the librarians and booksellers of London in 1897, includes a total of 90 titles attributed to 28 authors.723 The prominence of women authors is not especially pronounced when considering the proportion of women to men authors represented—of the 28 authors listed, 17 are women (60 percent). However, many of the women authors represented had a significant number of their works included in the series, whereas most men authors had no more than one or two of their works included. Indeed, Le Fanu and Maartens were the most well-represented men authors, with three and five of their titles included on the list respectively. Comparatively, the most well-represented women authors were

722 The Bentleys would have been unable to reuse some titles from the Standard Novels series due to constraints of copyright, specifically the newer titles whose copyright belonged to Routledge as part of the sale of the series. Still, the Standard Novels series did contain other classic works which, like Austen’s, could have legally been included in the Favourite Novels series. Therefore, it is still relevant to the character of the Favourite Novels list that Austen is the only author whose works were adopted into the Favourite Novels series. 723 See Fig. 5.1. 221

Broughton and Carey.724 Fourteen of Broughton’s works, and 17 of Carey’s, were included in the series. In all, 70 of the 90 titles (78 percent) were authored by women.

Fig. 5.1. Bentley’s Favourite Novels, 1897, Box 12, UCLA.

222

Of course, the prevalence of women’s authorship within the Favourite Novels series is not the sole evidence of its feminization. A more obvious clue is the prominence of genres that have been identified as women’s literature. One such genre is sensation fiction, which Showalter notes was characterized by the expression of “female anger, frustration and sexual energy.”725 Both sensation writers and their women readers were preoccupied with “self-assertion and independence from the tedium and injustice of the feminine role in marriage and the family,” she adds. Current scholarship corroborates Showalter’s reading of the genre. Andrews calls sensation fiction a vehicle for “social change,” noting that it allowed authors and readers to explore the corruption and power inherent in social institutions.726 For example, “women and prisoners occupy similar roles in these novels, trapped as they are by the institutions confining them to expected behaviours,” she explains. On the 1897 Favourite Novels list, sensation fiction is represented by Broughton and Le Fanu, whose works exemplify the genre.727 The works of Wood and Marie Corelli, which were included in the series until the early 1890s, are also representative of sensation fiction.728 Novels of the domestic genre—including Carey’s works— and new woman fiction—such as Mary Cholmondeley’s novels and Annie Edwards’ The Girton Girl, whose connection to new woman fiction was analyzed in the previous chapter—also make up a significant portion of the list.729 Finally, where the titles were advertised provides an additional clue as to the gendering of the series. The firm chose to advertise the Favourite Novels series in periodicals with a primarily female readership. A letter from office manager Johnston to

724 Wood’s novels were originally included in this series and would have made up a significant portion of the list at 34 titles. However, they were removed from the list and constituted as their own list (called “Mrs. Henry Wood’s Novels”) and sold for 3s 6d each. 725 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 160-161. 726 Andrews, “Sensation Fiction as Social Activism,” 89. 727 See Pamela K. Gilbert, ed., A Companion to Sensation Fiction (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2011). Broughton and Le Fanu are each the subject of chapters, in a section dedicated to sensation authors and titles. 728 The removal of Wood’s novels from this series is explained in a previous footnote. It is likely that Corelli’s novels were removed from the series when she asked Richard Jr. to transfer all her literary properties to another firm in 1895. See Ch. 3 for a detailed discussion of Corelli’s relationship with the firm. 729 Carey and Cholmondeley were both compared to earlier women writers such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Yonge, and their works were considered wholesome depictions of the female experience, the English countryside, and the upper classes. See Jane Crisp, “Rosa Nouchette Carey,” Victorian Fiction Research Guides, accessed April 2, 2018, http://victorianfictionresearchguides.org/rosa-nouchette-carey/; “Mary Cholmondeley,” Victorian Fiction Research Guides, accessed April 2, 2018, http://victorianfictionresearchguides.org/mary-cholmondeley/. 223

Richard Jr. indicates that Johnston had placed a full-column advertisement for the firm’s novels, focusing on selections from the Favourite Novels series, in the Woman’s Herald as usual.730

This gendered shift in Bentley and Son’s publishing lists did not go unnoticed by the public. Roberts’ earlier quoted article on the firm captures the transition from men- to women- oriented fiction. The fiction of the firm’s early days, exemplified by the works of Lytton, Marryat, Reade and Collins, had been replaced by “those of Mrs. Henry Wood, Miss Broughton, Miss Corelli, W.E. Norris, Maarten Maartens, and others,” he writes.731 Furthermore, Roberts recognizes Wood as the author who ultimately defined the firm. That the firm was able to maintain a reputation as a high-culture, literary house despite their association with women’s literature is seemingly against the odds. The “cheap” literature that critics railed against in the later half of the nineteenth century was largely connected to women authors and readers. Firms that were associated with women’s fiction were often considered low culture. Minerva Press is a well-known example. As a publisher of romances, the press was synonymous with cheap, low quality novels for the female market, much like the contemporary publisher Harlequin. In an article on “light literature” in the early Victorian period in the Saturday Review, the press’ works are referred to as “phantom nightmares.”732 A reviewer of a work called Linda di Chamoundi references the Minerva Press to illustrate their negative impression of the novel: “The characters that surround Linda are miserable commonplaces, or senseless abstractions,” the reviewer complains; “a more tawdry set of nonentities was never sent out from the workshop of the Minerva Press.”733 Jewsbury herself referenced the press in her reader’s reports when she wanted to mock manuscripts; for example, she pronounced one submission to be “romantic rubbish like nothing in art or nature, except some of the old Minerva Press novels but not quite so good.”734

Unlike Minerva Press, however, Bentley and Son’s association with women’s literature did not preclude them from being considered publishers of quality literature. The earlier quoted

730 Robert Keith Johnston to Richard Bentley Jr., September 7, 1893, Johnston Letterbook, UIUC. 731 Roberts, “Bentley and Son,” 582. 732 “The Light Literature of Other Days,” Saturday Review, December 27, 1862, 766. 733 “Cruvelli’s Linda,” Musical World, August 2, 1851, 482. 734 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, February 9, 1869, MS 46658, BL. 224

profiles of the firm speak to its position among the literary elite. This raises the questions of how Bentley and Son avoided the cultural downfall of being known as a publisher of women’s fiction. Tuchman and Fortin’s account of the firm’s relationship to women’s fiction offers one explanation. Unlike other major firms, such as Macmillan, Bentley and Son did not actively exclude novelistic forms employed by women (e.g. romance) from high culture, they claim.735 What Tuchman and Fortin do not speculate on are Bentley and Son’s motives for taking this position. They note only that they could not state with certainty that the firm made such publishing decisions for the sake of profit. It would be overly generous to assume that the Bentleys’ cultural valuation of women’s literature was entirely altruistic. As noted in chapter two, both Richard Sr. and George privately expressed a preference for men-oriented fiction, histories and political works. The publishers also showed distaste for the commercial market for print that had become so influential throughout the century.736 Yet, the publishers were aware of the value of women-oriented fiction to their economic success, and, as previously discussed, Bentley and Son turned to their fiction lists to bolster sales as the century wore on. Whether to protect their financial interests, or to highlight the quality of their lists, the publishers maintained their identity as purveyors of high-brow literature throughout this transition. Indeed, in a previously quoted letter, Richard Jr. not only associated their firm with Macmillan, but notably placed Bentley and Son above “low” firms such as Kegan Paul, Chatto and Windus, and Hurst and Blackett, the last one of which he described as a “port for distressed craft of small tonnage,” meaning the titles that were beneath Bentley and Son’s notice.737

This self-perception is enshrined within letters and readers’ reports that circulated among the publishers and their employees. Reporting on a manuscript called Gerald Ormansly, Jewsbury counselled George to reject the novel because it was not up to the firm’s standards. If low-brow fiction was the “staple” of their lists, she conceded, she would tell him to “lay it amongst the ruck—but for you please remember that this MS contains nothing either powerful or exciting—it will have no run nor make any sensation nor have any success beyond a mere

735 Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, 81. 736 See Ch. 2, p. 81-82. 737 Richard Bentley Jr. to George Bentley, February 11, 1889, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 225

circulating library existence as ‘a new novel.’”738 Jewsbury’s assertion that the novel was unworthy of inclusion in their lists because it lacked power, excitement, and the potential for longevity shows the esteem with which she held the firm’s fiction offerings. She judged the firm to be above the “ruck” that had supposedly flooded the literary landscape throughout the century. The characterization of the firm as a high-brow publisher is echoed throughout the archive. Cole’s earlier quoted letter, for example, indicates that the firm built their fiction lists with a “tendency towards selection.” In a report on a novel called A Fight for Rome, Jewsbury encouraged George to publish the novel because it was “of a class that only a high class publisher could afford to venture upon.” Her insinuation that Murray would accept the work acts as signal to her employer that he should strive to operate in the same high-culture space.739

The employees’ conception of the firm was undoubtedly informed by their employers. Writing to his son about the publishing business from his country home in Slough in the final years of his life, George advised Richard Jr. to consider the commercial success of the house, while simultaneously safeguarding its reputation. Several letters council Richard Jr. to consider their publishing decisions from a business perspective; this included only accepting manuscripts that suited their lists, avoiding the half profit model for the sake of accounts, and considering the potential sales of any title for the purposes of acceptances and advertising.740 One example is a letter on a manuscript called Carol. Although George told Richard Jr. that he would like to accept the novel based on the reader’s report alone, the unlikelihood that Mudie would carry the title prevented the firm from publishing it.741 However, George also portrayed the firm as a literary house that put art above profit. Writing specifically on Maartens, George insinuated that the firm’s decision to publish Maartens’s works was altruistic. He noted that Maartens’s novels were “too thoughtful and too pure to command a large circulation.”742 This perspective of the

738 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 17, 1863, MS 46656, BL. 739 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, November 4, 1876, Author and Reader Correspondence, UIUC. This reference to Murray is significant in light of the firm’s reputation as an influential and high-culture publishing house. It was associated with canonical authors including Lord Byron, Walter Scott, and Charles Darwin. 740 See George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., January 7, 1895, January 20, 1895, February 19, 1895, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 741 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., February 2, 1895, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 742 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., March 26, 1895, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 226

firm as a patron of the literary arts is reflected in article George wrote for Temple Bar on his editorial process, in which he describes himself as a “conscientious Editor” who painstakingly waded through “twaddle” to find the “one [manuscript] in a thousand that rewards the patient search.”743 George’s commitment to art in the face of the proliferation of commercial print is described as both mentally and physically depleting. He conjures an image of himself “plod[ding] over the well known fields” to find “great” writers and works that show “thought and study.”

It was presumably necessary for the Bentleys to claim high-culture status for the women’s literature they published to avoid risking their carefully cultivated reputation. The firm was demonstrably protective of women authors and their novels, particularly in the face of public criticism that maligned their titles’ literary quality. Following a poor review of a novel by a Miss Matthews, George wrote to the author to defend the publication and provide encouragement:

You need not concern yourself about ‘The Saturday Review.’ … the writer has somewhat overshot the mark judging from letters I have received and one authoress of great celebrity wrote to me on Friday saying ‘…I think she is the most promising young author we have seen this year or two. You will see therefore that those who read the novel and the review will be in a position to do you justice.744

This letter was more a kindness than a strategic maneuver; George went on suggest that Matthews focus on the review published in the Pall Mall Gazette, which provided a fair criticism of the novel, and assured her that she could improve in the future. This was not the case when it came to countering criticism of the firm’s more prominent authors. A notable example is George’s championing of Broughton. Arguably, Broughton’s work embodies the type of woman’s novel that was considered low culture. Undeniably categorized as sensation fiction, her novels boast the dramatic plot lines and torrid love affairs that define the genre. Indeed, as discussed in chapter one, Jewsbury was highly critical of Broughton’s work.745 Additionally, Broughton apparently saw her own novels as amusing and market-friendly commodities rather

743 George Bentley, “An Editor’s Growl,” undated, George Bentley MS, UIUC. 744 George Bentley to Miss Matthews, July 27, 1875, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 745 See Ch. 1, pp. 65-66. 227

than artistic works.746 Yet, the novelist’s titles were lucrative for the firm, and Bentley and Son could ill afford slights to her reputation. This is made clear in a letter to Eliza Lynn Linton, in which Bentley informed the author that her work would be pulled from Temple Bar due to its critical perspective of Broughton:

There are some things in your paper on Miss B which might become a source of difficulty with me in my relations with her, and I am sure this is so far from your wish that I do not hesitate to propose to you to allow me to withdraw it, of course sending you the honorarium. … from your point of view I take a rather too high view of Miss Broughton’s claims, and indeed I consider her last novel as in some respects her best, I think Mrs. Proctor, Leslie Stephen, Mrs. Clifford, Mrs. Kemble and the Archdales all think much the same on this, and I was anxious to place this point of view before the public, and if it should so happen that you shared it, I felt the cause could not be in better hands. … if you do not quite take this view of mine and others it is because your critical faculty cannot do so, or it wd [would] if it cd [could].747

Although George acknowledges in this letter that maintaining his relationship with Broughton contributed to his decision to pull Linton’s paper, he largely lays blame on Linton’s critical perspective. He not only establishes his own opposition to Linton’s remarks, but also cites the opinions of well-known authors to support his point of view. Ultimately, George defends the quality of Broughton’s work by denigrating Linton’s abilities; the suggestion that Linton “would” align her assessment of Broughton’s work with those of literary and critical giants if she “could” implies that it is Linton’s “faculty,” and not Broughton’s written product, that is faulty. Furthermore, in dismissing Linton’s assessment because she does not share the “point of view” that he was “anxious” to “place … before the public,” George shows that shaping public perception—and therefore reception—of Broughton is of the utmost importance.

746 See pp. 245-246 for a discussion on Ethel M. Arnold’s profile of Broughton. 747 George Bentley to Eliza Lynn Linton, February 18, 1887, MS 46645, BL. 228

A printed catalogue held at UCLA provides additional focused insight into gendered publishing trends at the firm, the publishers’ own perspective on their lists, and the valuation of

Fig. 5.2. Title page, A Selection of a Few of the More Prominent Books.

Fig. 5.3. Titles selected for 1850, A Selection of a Few of the More Prominent Books. 229

women-oriented titles. Described as a “selection” of the more “prominent books” published by the firm, the catalogue is a curated list of publications for each year from 1829 to 1888.748 The increased attention paid to fiction and the female market by Bentley and Son is reflected in this catalogue to some extent. Drawing data from the catalogue at five-year intervals as a sample, it is possible to see an upward trend in the inclusion of fiction, as seen in figure 5.4. From 1830 to 1855, novels make up an average of 26 percent of the selection of prominent books for a given year, compared to an average of 38 percent from 1860 onwards. However, this trajectory is not consistent. In two of the years included in the first half of the sample, fiction made up a sizeable percentage of the list: 39 percent in 1835 and 41 percent in 1840. On the other hand, two years included in the second half of the sample saw a low percentage of fiction: 18 percent in 1860 and only 15 percent in 1870. The shift towards women-oriented fiction is more distinct. Until 1850, men-oriented fiction makes up a significant portion of the fiction represented within the catalogue: 67 percent of fiction in 1830; 45 percent in 1835; 70 percent in 1840; and 100 percent in 1845. From 1850 onwards, however, there is a drastic decline, with men-oriented fiction almost disappearing off the list altogether. Men-oriented fiction represents: 14 percent of fiction titles in 1850; 0 percent in 1855; 25 percent in 1860; 17 percent in 1865; 0 percent in 1870; 18 percent in 1875; 0.8 percent in 1880; and 0 percent in 1885. This demonstrable shift away from men-oriented novels in favour of women-oriented reinforces conclusions drawn from the previous examination of the Standard and Favourite Novels series. Additionally, it shows that women-oriented novels were not just publishable, but valuable, as indicated by their inclusion in the highest tier of the firm’s publications.

748 A Selection of a Few of the More Prominent Books Published in Each Year in New Burlington Street During the Sixty Years, 1829-1888, May 1888, Box 16, UCLA. 230

# Women- # Dual- Year # Titles # Fiction Titles Oriented # Men-Oriented Gendered

1830 58 15 5 10 0

1835 23 11 6 5 0

1840 22 10 3 7 0

1845 15 2 0 2 0

1850 24 7 6 1 0

1855 14 3 3 0 0

1860 23 4 3 1 0

1865 24 12 10 2 0

1870 20 3 3 0 0

1875 20 11 9 2 0

1880 23 12 11 1 0

1885 23 11 10 0 1

Fig. 5.4. Women- and men-oriented fiction in A Selection of a Few of the More Prominent Books.

Examining Bentley and Son’s understanding of the novel as a literary form is not the only method for establishing the feminization of their lists, however. Also indicative of shifts in the gendering of the firm’s print materials is the marked increase in non-fiction titles, in genres such as travel, history, biography and autobiography, that were women-oriented according to the publisher. Drawing once again from the catalogue, there is only one woman-oriented non-fiction title represented in the sample per year from 1830 to 1855. This doubles to two titles per year from 1860 to 1870, and for the last three sample years (1875, 1880, and 1885) there are three travel, history, and biographical and autobiographical titles that were published for the female market. This is a far more radical change than an increase in fiction or even women-oriented fiction specifically. As previously discussed, the novel was considered a feminized genre in the nineteenth century. The firm’s novel output, while certainly indicating a rising interest in, and valuation of, the female market for print, was by no means a break from convention. Arguably, 231

however, the publishing of non-fiction titles for the female market was progressive in that it made accessible to women genres of writing from which they had long been excluded. The feminization of print materials and intellectual spaces that had previously been male dominated mirrors women’s efforts to enter the public sphere throughout the nineteenth century, which included the political, educational, and professional realms. Scholars have noted that separate spheres ideology—a theory which describes and analyzes the division of society into a masculinized public sphere dedicated to politics and economics, and a private or domestic feminized sphere—was more conceptual than practical.749 However, Davidoff and Hall explain that the relegation of women to the domestic space served to subordinate them in legal, political, and social ways.750 The spheres were not only defined by “bricks and mortar,” they write, but “territories of the mind,” meaning gendered physical spaces and social conventions that dictated gender relationships, roles and behaviours. Various facets of the women’s movement throughout the nineteenth century, including the campaign for women’s suffrage, access to education, and wage-earning work described in the previous chapter, represented women’s efforts to move outside of the domestic space and participate meaningfully in the public sphere. Arguably, the publication of women-oriented titles within traditionally masculinized non-fiction categories contributed to this process. With such works, Bentley and Son aided women authors and readers to not only infiltrate masculinized intellectual spaces, but also to add their own voices to ongoing conversations that shaped the world around them. Regarding the literary landscape more specifically, this publishing practice eroded the distinction between masculinized and feminized literary spaces.

749 Susie Steinbach has noted that separate spheres ideology was more “prescriptive than descriptive,” and Amanda Vickery argues that few women actually lived by the standards set forth by separate spheres ideology and compares the ideology to an unread advice manual sitting on a desk. As a result, she believes it is impossible to ascribe women’s marginalization entirely to separate spheres. See Susie Steinbach, “Can We Still Use ‘Separate Spheres’? British History 25 Years After Family Fortunes,” History Compass 10, no. 11 (2012): 826-830; Amanda Vickery, “Golden Age to Separate Spheres: A Review of the Categories and Chronology of English Women’s History,” Historical Journal 36, no. 2 (1993), 383-414. 750 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 319. Davidoff defended the use of separate spheres as a category of analysis in a later article, pointing out that separate spheres ideology was less about the gendering of physical spaces than it was about the masculinization of concepts tied to the public sphere and the feminization of those tied to the domestic. See Leonore Davidoff, “Gender and the ‘Great Divide’: Public and Private in British Gender History,” Journal of Women’s History 15, no. 1 (2003): 11-27. 232

A meaningful parallel to this boundary-shifting publishing practice can be found in the periodical press. In her study of women’s authorship and editorship in nineteenth-century periodicals, Palmer demonstrates that the makeup of a women’s magazine, regarding its fiction and non-fiction content, is an indication of the magazine’s politics. Within mainstream magazines, a greater proportion of fiction to non-fiction articles, particularly political, scientific or legal articles, was a reliable indication that the publication was women-oriented.751 Within the group of three magazines (the English Woman’s Journal, the Englishwoman’s Review, and the Victoria Magazine) that were connected by both content and labour to the feminist organization the Langham Place Group, the negotiation between fiction and non-fiction content functions as a political statement.752 Certainly, the content of the articles contained in each magazine—which focused on issues such as women’s education, marriage and divorce laws, and sexual politics— marked these publications as mouthpieces of the women’s movement. The utilization of non- fiction genres to communicate politicized messages was also significant, signalling the women editors and authors’ intention to enter and meaningfully participate in spaces that had once been populated by men alone. Each of the three magazines maintained a different fiction to non- fiction ratio, which was reflective of their political ideology. According to Palmer, Faithfull’s Victoria Magazine was most hospitable to fiction, publishing women poets and novelists in its pages to demonstrate women’s excellence in the arts and foster a community of women writers. Within the magazine, which functioned as a vehicle of both popular leisure reading as well as a representative of the feminist reform movement, she explains, “the popular and the polemical” worked hand-in-hand, which allowed Faithfull to position her ostensibly feminist publication as part of the mainstream market.753 Bessie Parkes’ English Woman’s Journal was more cautious in its approach to fiction. Although serialized novels appeared in its pages, the magazine’s book reviews section largely ignored fiction in favour of “useful, practical, or inspirational non-fiction texts … which enact the capability of women and … which attempt to make women capable,” for example Florence Nightingale’s Observations of the Sanitary Conditions of the Army in

751 Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 19. 752 The Langham Place Group was established in the late 1850s with the goal of coordinating the various campaigns that constituted the Victorian women’s movement. 753 Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 46-47. 233

India.754 As the most extreme example, the Englishwoman’s Review, edited by Boucherett, eschewed fiction altogether. This was largely done to reinforce its political position. Dedicated to securing women’s rights in the fields of education, suffrage, and labour, the Englishwoman’s Review functioned as a call to action, and communicated its mission by limiting its content to non-fiction articles that were tightly focused on these topics.755 Although Bentley and Son’s women-oriented non-fiction titles were not as political in content and tone as the aforementioned articles, the fact that the firm was increasingly giving over list space to these titles is indicative of an expanding definition of women’s literature and print culture.

Of course, to conclude that Bentley and Son increasingly published both fiction and non- fiction titles for a female audience it is also necessary to identify the gender of each title’s primary audience. As previously discussed, the category of women’s literature, or women- oriented literature, is understood as a commercial category within this dissertation, meaning works that are geared towards women as a segment of the market for print. For this reason, it is worth establishing how each book has been assigned to a gendered primary audience within the sample that I have drawn from the catalogue. The gendering of genres described earlier in the chapter shows that genre can often be a reliable method of discerning the gender of the title’s readership. Yet, as this examination of the catalogue of prominent titles indicates, gendered barriers between genres were also not absolute. The increase in titles for a female market that ostensibly belonged within masculinized genres at Bentley and Son suggests that these lines became more blurred as the century wore on. Whether a book was designated as man- or women-oriented by the publisher is then most reliably determined by subject. The most obvious indication that a history, travel, biographical or autobiographical title was intended for a female audience was the prevalence of either women protagonists or subjects that were considered feminine, such as marriage, child rearing, or the domestic space. In her study on the impact of gender on historical practice, Smith observes that throughout the nineteenth century a growing subset of histories focused on “woman worthies”—queens, noblewomen, and other famous

754 Ibid., 40. 755 Ibid., 41-42. 234

women who were considered exceptional in some way and could be fashioned as heroines.756 Although Smith problematizes these histories of exceptional women, noting that they “glossed over the ways in which women were misused and discriminated against in society at large,” she also acknowledges that these were among the first types of historical works that women produced for a female audience. Indeed, Bentley and Son’s lists reflect this trend. In the categories of history and autobiography and biography, women-oriented titles were those that focused on famous women. Anna Jameson’s Beauties of the Court of Charles the Second, published in 1830, was an early example of this type of history. The book contains a series of short biographies of courtiers, focused mainly on their romantic lives and accented by their portrait.757 Although there were an increasing number of these titles published throughout the century, the format and content remained consistent. In the sample drawn from the catalogue, there are several titles in this grouping. They all contain either a collection of women’s biographies (e.g. A. de Barrera’s Lives of the Queens of Spain) or biographies of a single figure, made worthy by their position as royalty, nobility, or a cultural icon (e.g. The Autobiography of Mary Granville (Mrs. Delaney), edited by Augusta Hall).

Beyond histories, biographies, and autobiographies that featured women protagonists, there was also a rise in social and cultural histories that focused on feminine subjects. Smith also includes travel narratives in this category, which she argues were often histories veiled as travel narratives to make them more feminine. The Chronicles of Fashion, written by Elizabeth Stone and published in 1845, exemplifies this kind of feminized social and cultural history. The book recounts elements of fashionable society from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries in England. Famous historical figures punctuate the narrative, and a detailed table of contents includes chapters on food and banquets, etiquette and customs, dress, homes and décor, and entertainment. The author offers her work, which she calls a “superstructure of amusement on the firm basis of history and truth,” to readers who “seek to beguile their leisure hours with

756 Smith, Gender of History, 51. 757 See Anna Jameson, Memoirs of the Beauties of the Court of Charles the Second (London: Bentley and Colburn, 1830). 235

something more substantial than fiction.”758 This is an indication that the book was intended for a female audience; it was middle- and upper-class women readers who were assumed to fill their seemingly endless leisure time with novels in the domestic realm, while fathers, brothers and sons occupied themselves in the public sphere. The gendering of the book and its audience is further reinforced by the feminizing of its subject matter and the book-object itself. The book’s subject is distilled into one word— “Fashion”—which is personified as a “guide and goddess.” According to Stone, the historical inquiry into her “birth,” “parentage,” and “home” provide the framework for the book.759 The physical book is similarly referred to in feminine pronouns, with the author declaring that “her materials have been carefully and studiously collated.”760 While the travel narratives are distinct from such social and cultural histories in some regards— including the use of the first-person narrative—they touch upon similar subjects. True to Smith’s assertion, many can be considered primary histories on the social environment of international locales, typically from the perspective of women inhabitants. Emmeline Lott’s exploration of women’s experiences as part of the Harems (a separated space and population comprising of wives, concubines, and women servants) of elite households in Egypt and Constantinople is one example. Although touted as the travel stories of an English governess, the book serves as an exploration of upper-class women’s experiences and histories, as well as gender relations, in the Middle East.761

The gender of the author is also a useful, but not infallible, indication of intended audience. Within the catalogue, for example, most books written by women also had women as their primary audience. However, there are some notable exceptions to this rule. Wilhelmine Von Beck’s Personal Adventures, published in 1850, is an example from this catalogue. Although the narrative is told from Von Beck’s perspective, the full title and preface clarify that her book is intended for a male audience. Despite being listed in the catalogue as only Personal Adventures,

758 Elizabeth Stone, The Chronicles of Fashion from the Time of Elizabeth to the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1845), iii. 759 Ibid., 1. 760 Ibid., iii. 761 Emmeline Lott, The English Governess in Egypt: Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1865). 236

which could feasibly point to a book dedicated to a domestic life, the title page of Von Beck’s autobiography reads: Personal Adventures During the Late War of Independence in Hungary Comprising an Account of Her Missions Under the Orders of Kossuth to the Different Posts of the Hungarian Army During the Contest. The longer title shows that the adventures Von Beck is referring to are military in nature. More than an observer, as a soldier’s wife might be, she is an active participant in Hungary’s war of independence, with missions of her own to recount. The preface further reinforces the gendering of the book as masculine. “Although a woman, I have taken the most ardent interest in the contest, having enjoyed the confidence of the noble and heroic men who took the lead in that national movement,” she explains to her readers. “I have stood by their side in moments the most exciting; have heard their deliberations; have witnessed their actions … I feel it to be a sacred duty to impart to the public my own personal knowledge, both of the men and of the object which they strove to accomplish.”762 Furthermore, she shares with her readers that she was not induced to recount her experiences due to “female vanity,” but rather to “discharge … a solemn obligation.” Finally, the reader is referred to using masculine pronouns (e.g. “him”), who Von Beck vows to regale with tales of “life-and-death struggle on the battlefield.”

Here, Von Beck excuses and distances herself from her femaleness, instead identifying with the “noble and heroic men” who fought for independence. Likely aware that it would be unusual for a woman to write on the masculine subjects of war and politics, and even more unusual for men readers to consider her an authoritative source, Von Beck strives to not only establish her credentials, but also to court her men readers. The reader is assured throughout the preface that Von Beck is no outsider, but a confidante who has been by the side of the key (men) players. The act of sharing her experience is positioned as not a shallow feminine act, but a “sacred duty,” the keeping of which serves to reinforce her belongingness within the band of worthy men who surround her. Having established her authority, she attempts to draw her men readers in with promises of an action-packed narrative. Von Beck assures her reader that her account will not be limited to the type of soft diplomacy that women are more frequently able to

762 Wilhelmine Von Beck, Personal Adventures During the Late War of Independence in Hungary (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1850), vii-viii. 237

observe—such as political gatherings in the homes of important figures—and instead, will address the gritty reality of the battlefield—a space that is undeniably masculine. The effort that Von Beck puts into justifying her authorship of the work in question demonstrates how unusual her authorship was; indeed, there are few titles of any genre written by women for a male audience. Yet, such exceptions show that an author’s gender alone cannot be used to determine the primary audience of a work.

This is more strongly evidenced by the subset of titles within the catalogue that were written by men authors for a female audience, of which there are considerably more. Most of these titles appear within the fiction category, which was largely associated with women readers regardless of the author’s gender.763 Unlike women authors working in masculine genres, men authors were widely accepted as fiction writers who wrote on feminine subjects such as romance and marriage, the family, and domestic life. A novel called Angela Pisani by George Smythe is an example of a man-authored work that is undeniably women-oriented. Classified as a book of the “romantic kind” by the Saturday Review, the novel chronicles the heroine Angela’s decision between two suitors.764 Some of these novels are less easily categorized. Hawley Smart, for example, whose work is included in the catalogue of prominent titles, wrote primarily from the perspective of men characters of military rank. While this could be an indication that his books were men-oriented, they were not always considered so. Two Kisses, listed as a prominent title for 1875, is one such ambiguous title. Although one reviewer concedes that Smart may have intended to write for men, the book was too “Bohemian” for a respectable man to read.765 Additionally, it is described in decidedly feminine terms. The reviewer deems the novel to be “too easy,” improbable, inaccurate, absurd, frivolous, and containing “the tone of feminine morality … we should expect to find in the salon of the mistress of a third-rate French boarding- house.” This assessment reinforces Showalter’s claim that women’s literature was seen as artless

763 An exception to this was the adventure novel, which were typically set in far-flung locales and followed male protagonists, such as soldiers or colonists. These novels were far more popular in the early to mid-nineteenth century and were associated with authors such as J. Fenimore Cooper and G.P.R. James, whose work appears in the catalogue of prominent titles frequently in the 1830s and 1840s. 764 “Angela Pisani,” Saturday Review, April 10, 1875, 478-479. 765 “Two Kisses,” Saturday Review, April 24, 1875, 547-548. 238

and trivial.766 Another reviewer avoids the confusion in the title’s gender-orientation altogether. By highlighting the drama surrounding the romantic relationships in the novel as the central plot, he or she identifies the book as women-oriented.767 In addition to fiction titles, there are also numerous examples of women-oriented non-fiction titles authored by men. Many such titles are standard profiles of woman worthies, including John Doran’s The Queens of England of the House of Hanover, published in 1855. Another example is a dictionary of cookery terminology, written by R. Dolby and published in 1830 for the female market.768 Having a man author, then, did not guarantee that a title was man-oriented in terms of audience.

It is worth noting that of the reviews I read of these three titles, there are no examples of reviewers questioning whether men authors had the necessary abilities or qualities to write about feminine subjects. Indeed, in the case of Two Kisses, the reviewer in the Saturday Review was more critical of Smart’s ability to capture a male audience, insinuating that the book was not respectable or artistic enough to be understood as masculine. Similarly, a review of Doran’s biography on the Hanoverian Queens declares the book “womanish” in “tone and manner.”769 In the Academy, the reviewer criticizes Doran for treating his subject lightly and without the academic vigour that often characterized historical works: “he writes in an easy jaunty fashion, at times verging on flippancy, is never dull, and contents himself with selecting only the lighter and more amusing episodes in the biography of his heroines. He delights in recording the gossip of the back stairs, naughty flirtations and domestic wrangles.”770 As these examples indicate, the subject and treatment of a work ultimately dictated how it was gendered. Furthermore, these reviews demonstrate the extent to which quality was itself a gendered characteristic. Regardless of the genre, it appears that the work of a man author could be allocated to a female audience if it

766 Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, 82-90. 767 “New Novels,” Graphic, April 10, 1875, 347. 768 Although this title is the only cookery book within my data sample, Turner’s Index indicates that it was not uncommon for domestic instruction books, including books on cookery and gardening, to be written by male authors for a female audience. A cookbook which contains everyday recipes the Bentley family had at home is attributed in the Index to “Bentley,” which given the year (1860) could be a reference to either Richard Sr. or George. See Turner, Index and Guide, 232. There is also the possibility that the book was written by the same “Miss Bentley” whose letter to Natalia MacFarren indicates that she was involved in the production of cookery books described in chapter two. However, this is more of a theory than substantiated fact. 769 “Queens of England of the House of Hanover,” Fraser’s Magazine, August 1855, 136. 770 “Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover,” Academy, March 13, 1875, 258. 239

failed to meet a high literary standard. Of course, it is likely that this showcases a distaste for subject matter designated as feminine—such as the social history recorded in Doran’s work— rather than an objective flaw in writing or scholarship.771

The increase in titles within this catalogue that are either intended for a female audience, or written by women, is indicative of a rise in value of women-oriented titles from both a commercial and cultural perspective. By singling out these titles for inclusion in their catalogue of prominent titles, the publishers marked them as worthy of inclusion in the firm’s own canon. Indeed, the subjectivity of the publisher is implicit within this catalogue; the status of “literary landmark” here is conferred upon a title not by an exclusively objective measure, such as sales figures, but by the publishers themselves. The question of how the Bentleys decided which of their titles were worthy of inclusion is worth asking: criteria for inclusion could include saleability, critical and reader reception, artistic or literary merit, or the title’s ability to define or bring prestige to the firm, for example. The catalogue itself gives few clues as to the method for designating a book as prominent. In the front matter, the rationale for preparing such a document is described as a response to the need for “rapid reference for the leading books in any particular year.” Although the publishers are aware that the catalogue represents a snapshot of their lists (in their words, “content most incomplete”) they insist upon the importance of this document—and the titles contained within—by stating that it showcases the “principle literary landmarks of each year, while excluding the great mass of ordinary publications.” Furthermore, the publishers note that the catalogue provides insight into the popular authors in each period, and reflects social, technological, political, and economic events, such as various wars, the development of the railway system in Britain, and the economy. According to Turner, the purpose of this catalogue is to “list … some of the more important volumes published.”772 However, he does not attempt to elucidate how a title would have been designated as important.

The content of the catalogue, however, allows for the inference of the criteria the Bentleys employed. Rather than pointing to a singular measure of prominence, the lists reflect a

771 See Tuchman and Fortin, Edging Women Out, and Showalter, A Literature of Their Own, for descriptions of how feminine subjects and genres were relegated to low culture. 772 Turner, Index and Guide, 4. 240

multifaceted approach to the valuation of print materials. John B. Thompson identifies five categories of capital which shape notions of value and power within the publishing industry: economic, human, social, intellectual, and symbolic.773 These categories provide a useful framework for investigating how the publishers developed their canon of prominent titles. The economic value of a title was an undeniably significant factor. Many of the works that appear in the catalogue were in fact the firm’s bestsellers. Barham’s Ingoldsby Legends, which is included in the list of prominent titles for the year 1840 (the first year that the tales appeared in three- volume format), is one of the most famous titles that the firm published. It went through several editions throughout the nineteenth century, and archival materials confirm that the sales remained high. Publication ledgers show that decades after initial publication, the book was still selling in the thousands on a yearly basis: in 1860, 6,000 copies were sold, and throughout the 1870s, sales remained in the thousands per year, topping out at 7,502 copies sold in 1879.774 The book is included in a list of Victorian bestsellers; according to Richard Altick, Ingoldsby Legends sold over 450,000 copies from 1840 to 1895.775 Similarly, Wood’s East Lynne, published in 1861 and listed as a prominent title for that year, is considered one of the best- selling fiction titles of the century. By 1862, George reported to his father that the novel was steadily earning the firm £100 monthly.776 In the first year after publication, East Lynne sold 8,343 copies. Throughout the 1870s, the publisher sold a total of 66,650 copies, with a peak of 10,097 copies sold in 1877 alone.777 Although the data available for East Lynne sales in the 1880s is not as complete as in the previous decade, it is clear that numbers were consistent. From 1882 to 1887, sales ranged from approximately 6,000 to 9,000 copies yearly.778 In total, Bentley and Son sold 430,000 copies of the novel from the time of publication until the sale of the house

773 John B. Thompson, Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Plume, 2012), 5. 774 Publication ledgers, MSS 46595-46598, BL. 775 Richard D. Altick, “Nineteenth-Century English Best-Sellers: A Further List,” Studies in Bibliography 22 (1969): 203. Ingoldsby Legends appears on a list alongside other best-selling poetry and poetic drama titles, such as Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome, which sold over 100,000 copies between 1842 and 1875; and Coventry Patmore’s The Angel in the House, which sold between 200,000 and 250,000 copies from 1854-1896. 776 George Bentley to Richard Bentley Sr., August 13, 1862, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 777 Publication Ledgers, MSS 46595-46598, BL. 778 Publication Ledgers, MS 46599, BL. 241

in 1898.779 Together, Ingoldsby Legends and East Lynne were the best-selling titles in the firm’s history.780

The same examples simultaneously show that social and symbolic capital contributed to the valuation of a title, and therefore its inclusion in the catalogue. The Bentleys themselves considered Ingoldsby Legends one of the literary monuments of their time, and saw the title as inextricably linked with the publishing house.781 This perception was not limited to the Bentley family, or even to the firm. Early reviews of the Legends show that the title had quickly endeared itself to the reading public. The Literary Gazette declared the first edition “clever and humorous … original in matter, unique in treatment, and most harmonious in versification.”782 In Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, the tales are called “Mirth-raising in their narrative effect,” and the author’s “management of out-of-the-way metres and rhymes” were said to indicate “a genius of no common stamp.”783 Beyond enjoying long-term commercial popularity, as the previously quoted sales figures indicate, Ingoldsby Legends became engrained within British culture. The area of the country that the author, Barham, called home, was referred to as “Ingoldsby Country.”784 In 1864, an unnamed reviewer referred to a new edition of the title as an “old friend in a new coat,” and thanked “Mr. Bentley” for offering the public a “well-seasoned dish” that was as much a part of British society as “the roast turkey and the flaming plum-pudding of yule tide.” Indeed, the edition was said to be as welcome to as the Christmas season itself.785 Perhaps the most telling item is a letter to the editor written in the early twentieth century. Furious that a contributor to the magazine had attacked the Legends by calling the author “ingenious, but not profound,” reader Leslie V. Sharp wrote to the Academy in defense of the work. Sharp declares the contributor a “dyspeptic cynic,” lacking a “human heart” and a “healthy brain,” and notes

779 K. Theodore Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846-1886 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 388. 780 Miscellaneous Correspondence and Manuscripts, MS 46682, BL. 781 “The Standard Novels,” 1892, Box 3, UCLA. 782 “The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels,” Literary Gazette, February 15, 1840, 103. 783 “Ingoldsby and His Legends,” Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, February 13, 1847, 107. 784 “The Ingoldsby Country,” Field, January 30, 1904, 172. 785 “The Ingoldsby Legends,” The Rose, the Shamrock, and the Thistle, January 1865, 307. 242

that “to him who has a sense of humour … Ingoldsby will never be dull.”786 Such a spirited defense of a 60-year-old title shows the esteem in which the Legends was held by British readers.

While East Lynne’s economic success rivalled that of Ingoldsby Legends, it never carried the same air of literary prestige. The publishers’ approach to the work betrays an initial reservation; although Wood was certain of the book’s success—writing to George that she was “convinced it will be a very popular book”—the publishers took the book on the arrangement of half profits rather than offering an advance and royalties, and with the understanding that Jewsbury would edit the work substantially.787 Reviews of the novel were moderate, describing it as entertaining rather than literary, good rather than monumental.788 Yet, the title arguably went on to become a popular culture phenomenon. Edward Salmon’s often-quoted article What Girls Read, which functions as both a study of which books were popular among women readers as well as an instructive article on what women should read, indicates that while East Lynne was not inducted into the English literary canon, it was certainly part of a popular canon. Over twenty years after its initial publication, Salmon cites East Lynne as a novel that “ought to be placed in every girl’s hands as soon as she has arrived at an age when she may find that life has for her unsuspected dangers.” Likely referring to the fate of the story’s woman protagonist, who is punished for abandoning her husband and children with disfiguration and death, he explains that “the work teaches many lessons valuable to young ladies, especially those of a jealous or impulsive disposition.”789 For mass audiences, the story was more a source of entertainment than moral instruction. The novel became so popular that it was adapted into a play in 1866—albeit without the involvement or permission of the author or publisher. Eventually, Wood’s apprehension surrounding the stage version of East Lynne evaporated. In 1874, an authorized version of East Lynne premiered at St. James’s Theatre; a reviewer noted that the drama was

786 Leslie V. Sharp, “Ingoldsby Legends,” Academy, December 14, 1901, 597. 787 Ellen Wood to George Bentley, May 31, 1861, Author and Reader Correspondence, UIUC; Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, June 19, 1861, MS 46656, BL; Agreement and Publication Ledgers, MS 46629, BL. 788 One reviewer, for example, deemed East Lynne a “really good novel.” Although a “novel of the second class” with “no wit,” it is said to be “interesting,” and boast a “good plot carefully worked out.” See “East Lynne,” Saturday Review, February 15, 1862, 186-187. 789 Edward Salmon, “What Girls Read,” Nineteenth Century 20, no. 116 (1886): 524. 243

“well received by a highly appreciative audience.”790 Although the novel had been a hit before its adaptation as a play, the stage version was nonetheless crucial to the story’s notoriety. According to a British Library article on the novel, “it is said that a staged version of East Lynne was performed somewhere in the English-speaking world every Saturday night for over 40 years.”791 The popularity of the story persisted into the twentieth century, when several adaptations of novel were made for the screen.

The Ingoldsby Legends and East Lynne are undeniably the two most noteworthy examples contained within the catalogue, representing the highest levels of economic, cultural and social value. In fact, East Lynne’s adaptation across media platforms would be a marker of success in the twenty-first-century publishing industry. Reframing contemporary publishing companies as “media conglomerates,” Ann Steiner notes that publishing today is increasingly tied to the entertainment industry and relies on several “cross-media synergies,” which includes “the transfer of content to other media formats,” such as films, games and apps. These synergies are not additions to the book, but part of a holistic media package: “all these products enhance the brand … to the point where it can be argued that the book has become but one of many products in the large-scale media company,” she explains.792 However, it is not the case that a title had to meet the standard achieved by these two titles to be considered a success. Also included in this catalogue are the works of authors such as Broughton and Corelli, which were undeniably lucrative for the firm. As discussed in chapter three, Broughton and Corelli were among the highest-earning and best-selling authors at Bentley and Son.793 In the decade following publication, Broughton’s first novel with the firm, Cometh Up as a Flower (1867), sold steadily at an average of 1,302 copies per year.794 Corelli’s first novel, A Romance of Two

790 “St. James’s Theatre: East Lynne,” Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, June 13, 1874, 366. 791 “Melodrama: East Lynne by Ellen Wood,” English Timeline, The British Library, accessed March 15, 2018, http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126924.html. 792 Ann Steiner, “The Global Book: Micropublishing, Conglomerate Production, and Digital Market Structures,” Publishing Research Quarterly 34, no. 1 (2018): 119-120. 793 See Ch. 3 for detailed information on the publishing agreements between the firm and Broughton and Corelli. 794 Cometh Up as a Flower was Broughton’s second novel, but the first to be published at the firm; her first title, Not Wisely, But Too Well, was rejected by Jewsbury. Sales numbers for the years 1869-1871 are missing from the ledgers, so this average takes into account the years 1867-1877, minus the three years’ worth of missing data. Publication Ledgers, MSS 46596-46598, BL. 244

Worlds (1886), also had noteworthy sales. The publication ledgers contained in the Bentley archive record four years’ worth of sales of the title in the decade following publication (1893- 1896) which averaged 2,675 copies per year.795

The success of these early novels earned both authors visibility, and therefore value, within the literary marketplace and the firm. The inclusion of their subsequent novels in the catalogue reinforces the value of name recognition in a title’s ascension to prominence within the firm’s own canon. Indeed, the publishers themselves gesture towards this element of social capital in the front matter of the catalogue by noting that the contents reflect the popular authors of each period. In this way, the catalogue corroborates claims that the Victorian period ushered in the age of literary celebrity. As Alexis Easley explains, the “proliferation of new media” in the second half of the nineteenth century came with a “corresponding obsession with the lives, homes, and bodies of literary celebrities,” who served as “engines of popular print culture,” and “whose works met the burgeoning demand for literary commodities.”796 Authors were not just prized for their ability to create saleable works, but their own marketability. A commemorative article on Broughton, written after her death in 1920, emphasizes this point. The novelists’ death is described first and foremost by Ethel M. Arnold as a “real and irreplaceable loss to English social life.”797 Arnold, the author of the article and Broughton’s self-proclaimed friend, notes that placing society’s loss over literature’s loss is a deliberate choice, made in deference to her friend’s own conception of literary production and the social nature of storytelling:

Rhoda Broughton wrote her novels, or ‘Works,’ as she preferred to call them … because she discovered early in life that she had a gift for storytelling, and because … she also discovered that her stories were eminently marketable commodities. In other words, she wrote novels because it amused her to do so, and because the sale of them added considerably to her income and consequently to her rich enjoyment of life. The portentous attitude of the modern novelist towards his ‘Art’ … would have been wholly impossible to her.

795 Publication Ledgers, MS 46601, BL. 796 Alexis Easley, Literary Celebrity, Gender, and Victorian Authorship, 1850-1914 (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2011), 11. 797 Ethel M. Arnold, “Rhoda Broughton as I Knew Her,” Fortnightly Review, August 1920, 262. 245

To Arnold, Broughton’s interest in literary marketability was not a moral failing, but a mark of accessibility. By refusing to equate writing with artistic creation, Broughton reaffirmed her commitment to her “large public,” to whom she wished to bring “pleasure” through her writing. Arnold’s suggestion that it is Broughton herself, and not her works, that are the essence of her popularity, captures a fundamental principle of literary celebrity; that the author’s social capital sells. The inclusion of the author’s entire body of work in the catalogue supports this argument, suggesting that the publishers recognized Broughton’s prominence as a whole rather than the value of each of her works in isolation.

The explosive popularity of a single title could certainly pave the road to literary celebrity. Wood’s own trajectory, from unknown writer to a one of the defining figures of Victorian sensation fiction, was arguably set by the success of East Lynne. However, social capital in the literary realm could also be conferred by association. One example of this is the literary dynasty. The works of Frederick Marryat—many of which are included in the Bentley’s Standard Novels series—frequently appear in the early years of the catalogue. In later years, his daughter Florence Marryat (later Ross Church) rose to similar prominence; like her father, her works are included in the firm’s reprint series and designated as prominent titles. Archival evidence implies that George first accepted the younger Marryat’s work on the strength of her name rather than her talent.798 Reader’s reports of her early work are unfavourable, with Jewsbury consistently recommending that they be rejected. The manuscript of Nelly Brooke, for example, was proclaimed to be “very dull” and “poorly constructed” with a “flat style.”799 On another occasion, Jewsbury asked George to pull a novelette of Marryat’s called The Poison of Asps, then running in installments in Temple Bar, because she had overheard several people complaining about it.800 In the end, however, Jewsbury’s poor opinion of Marryat carried little weight. Bentley and Son published 15 of her works and appointed her the editor of their magazine London Society. That Marryat wrote and published a biography of her famous father’s

798 Palmer similarly observes that Marryat’s publishers were willing to publish her work based on her father’s name. See Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 5. 799 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, February 29, 1868, MS 46658, BL. 800 Geraldine Jewsbury to George Bentley, September 12, 1870, MS 46659, BL. Jewsbury’s opinion on this work appears to have carried at least some weight. Although the novelette was published in one volume in 1876, it was not published by Bentley and Son. 246

life—one of the few non-fiction titles to her name—indicates that she intended to make use of her literary pedigree. According to Palmer, Marryat not only “performs the role of dutiful daughter and literary executor,” by undertaking this project, but also “exercises some control over the ways in which critics represented her in the light of her father’s career. … As Marryat presents her father as a ‘leading’ man of literature, she simultaneously asserts the importance of both his biography and of his biographer—herself,” Palmer explains.801 Ultimately, authoring her father’s biography served to publicize her own name and raise her celebrity status. Given the fame of its subject, it is not surprising that The Life of Captain Marryat is listed as a prominent title for the year 1872.

Social capital gained in another realm—such as the political or aristocratic—could also be transferred into the literary sphere. A review of the earlier cited novel Angela Pisani indicates that publishers were not only aware of, but commonly attempted to cash in on, this type of renown. According to the reviewer, identified as L.G.R., the novel was a “matter of interest and satisfaction” to those who found it significant that the author Smythe, known in society as Viscount Strangford, had “filled an important place in both the political and social history of the day.”802 A large portion of the review is focused on Smythe’s political career, as well as the autobiographical nature of one of the main characters. Although Angela Pisani is not wholly painted in a negative light, the reviewer notes that the novel was an “unfinished study” which the author, who died before finishing the work, would not have “permitted … to have been published in its present form.” L.G.R. ultimately speculates that it was regard for the author himself, and not the merits of the novel, that inspired its publication. Letters held in the Bentley archive substantiate the reviewer’s assumption. In 1884, George wrote to Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, the Earl of Dufferin, to suggest that he author a novel to be published by the firm. George not only offered favourable terms in advance, but also assured Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood that the novel would be well-received.803 Although Hamilton- Temple-Blackwood was well-known as a diplomat and authored non-fiction works based on his

801 Palmer, Women’s Authorship and Editorship, 126-128. 802 L.G.R., “Angela Pisani,” Examiner, April 17, 1875, 442-443. 803 George Bentley to the Earl of Dufferin, July 24, 1884, MS 46644, BL. 247

political career, there is no evidence to suggest that he had an interest in, or talent for, creative writing. Since Bentley and Son never published any of his works, it is fair to assume that George’s offer was turned down. Yet, George’s willingness to provide a competitive financial offer before a novel was even in progress, which was a courtesy typically reserved only for best- selling authors, shows the value of Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood’s name and reputation.

The strengthening connection between social capital and literary success, and the subsequent emergence of the literary celebrity during this period, supported the development of women’s literary careers. Easley observes that “popular interest in the lives of literary celebrities provided new opportunities for employment in emerging culture industries, especially for women.”804 Women were thought to be particularly suited for writing lifestyle articles or profiles for newspapers and magazines, for example, because they were presumed to have an interest in other people’s homes and lives. Additionally, women authors could benefit from Victorian celebrity culture, using the heightened interest in author’s homes and personal relationships for self-promotion.805 This did not mean that women had an advantage over their men peers. As Easley explains, women still had to be cautious about their public exposure, while men had more freedom to build a public persona. However, this new interest in the private space of the literary celebrity arguably provided a new avenue for women authors to participate in literary culture and to gain socially sanctioned visibility. Articles such as the profile on Braddon cited in chapter one show that, due to the public interest in authors’ domestic lives, women authors did not have to venture outside of their prescribed space to market themselves and build public personas. In “Miss Braddon at Home,” Braddon is positioned as an aspirational and beloved figure. Located within a “Georgian mansion” and surrounded by lush gardens, fine china, rare books bound in the “richest and most perfect dress,” and other luxury goods, she is at once a domestic goddess and the picture of literary success.806 Her name is described by Mary Angela Dickens as a “household word” among “that great army of novel readers which has instinctively the truest comprehension of the function of the novel; which wants to be amused, interested, and thrilled,

804 Easley, Literary Celebrity, 11-12. 805 Ibid. 806 Dickens, “Miss Braddon,” 415-416. It is worth noting that the author of this article was the granddaughter of the original literary celebrity, Charles Dickens. 248

and by no means preached at or depressed.” Dickens assures the audience that as much as Braddon’s readers are devoted to her, Braddon equally “loves her public, as one must surely love a friend.” The article functions as a site of interaction between Braddon and her readers; by inviting her reading public into her private sphere, she is at once at home and in the public eye, thereby establishing a professional identity without compromising her femininity. The boundary- crossing that Braddon performs in this article is indicative of a larger trend that Bentley and Son’s catalogues, series, and advertising materials evidence. While the women’s literary sphere was expanding throughout the nineteenth century, it was no longer self-contained. Women writers and readers, and women-oriented literature, were working their way into previously masculinized literary spaces.

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Conclusion

To the authors and employees that had been with Bentley and Son for years, the firm’s sale to Macmillan in 1898 happened seemingly overnight. In his initial correspondence with his new publisher, Charles Wood—the son of Ellen Wood, and manager of her estate—wrote that he had only been given twenty-four-hours’ notice that his mother’s works were being transferred to a new firm.807 Another letter to his former publisher, written days later, betrayed Wood’s anxiety about the sudden change. While he was pleased to work with Macmillan, Wood told Richard Jr., he was also worried that his mother’s works would not be valued there, as the firm was known to prize “heavier books” and “despise novels.”808 Manuscripts department head Nathaniel Beard was similarly struck by the abruptness of the news. Upon being notified of Richard Jr.’s “final arrangement and decision,” he wrote to his now former boss:

That the matter had to be announced at such very short notice, I make no doubt was necessary. The break of so long an association cannot but be painful to me—and when I reflect upon what the labour and weight of the transaction must have involved—to say nothing of the … trial of feeling that the whole affair must have cost you, I am constrained to express some of the admiration, sympathy, and regret which I so strongly feel.809

Despite Beard’s obvious sorrow in losing his long-held position, he expressed gratitude to Richard Jr. for “the forethought which seems to have been evinced for the future welfare of the staff.” Beard’s meaning is evidenced by a letter that he wrote to Richard Jr. in October of that same year.810 It is not the content that is notable, but the fact that it was written on Macmillan letterhead, which indicates that Richard Jr.’s care for his employee’s “future welfare” involved ensuring the had continued employment with the publisher who bought out the firm.

Gettmann captures this feeling of abruptness in his history of Bentley and Son. I have previously argued that Gettmann downplayed Richard Jr.’s role in the firm, portraying the publisher as a disinterested party whose sole act was to prepare the firm for sale. Calling

807 Charles W. Wood to Mr. Macmillan, August 12, 1898, MS 46648, BL. 808 Charles W. Wood to Richard Bentley Jr., August 15, 1898, MS 46648, BL. 809 Nathaniel Beard to Richard Bentley Jr., August 16, 1898, Beard Letters, UIUC. 810 See Nathaniel Beard to Richard Bentley Jr., October 8, 1898, Beard Letters, UIUC. 250

attention to the new demands of the marketplace for fiction in the 1890s, Gettmann ends his history by musing that “the first Richard Bentley would not only have survived the shock of the new competition, but he would have done so with spirit and success. His grandson and namesake, however, was of a different temperament, and he shortly retired from publishing to enjoy his library and garden and eccentricities.” 811 Here, Gettmann brings the history of Bentley and Son to a distinct end. While the publishing profession, publishing industry, and print culture bounds into a new century in Gettmann’s history, the firm (represented by the “eccentric” Richard Jr.) fails to keep pace, and as a result, fades quietly into the past. Admittedly, there is little doubt that Richard Jr. ultimately sold his family’s business to Macmillan because he deemed the challenges that the firm faced from the evolving mass marketplace insurmountable. Indeed, several sources from the late 1890s speak to issues surrounding dwindling profits and difficulties regarding choices on pricing and format.812

Where Gettmann’s work focuses on closure, however, this dissertation highlights continuities. It was not the case that Richard Jr. simply walked away from a business that he had no aptitude or passion for. Leading up to the sale of the firm and beyond, the publisher worked to provide security for Bentley and Son’s lists, authors, employees, and legacy, which suggests that his choice to leave publishing was guided by more than a combination of economic need and a disinterest in the business. The choice of Macmillan as a buyer for his firm was not altogether haphazard. Years prior, the Bentleys entered into an agreement with Macmillan to publish their works in the United States through Macmillan’s New York office—the Macmillan Company of New York—meaning that Macmillan was already familiar with, and had a vested interest in the success of, Bentley and Son’s lists.813 Additionally, negotiations with Macmillan went beyond

811 Gettmann, A Victorian Publisher, 263. 812 In 1895, George told his office manager that business was at the lowest he had seen since 1861: “Not only is no profit being made, apart from Wood novels, but that the business is not paying its way,” he wrote to Johnston. In another letter, he wrote to Richard Jr. that “publishing is fast becoming a losing business.” See George Bentley to R.K.J., March 16, 1895, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC; George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., March 29, 1895, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. Additionally, George’s letters show that he and Richard Jr. were struggling to decide in what format books should be published (e.g. three-volume or single-volume), and how their works should be priced. See George Bentley to Richard Bentley Jr., February 2, 1895, Bentley Family Letters, UIUC. 813 In a letter from the firm of Macmillan to Bentley and Son, Macmillan asks permission to add Fanny Kemble’s book of letters to the collection of Bentley’s works already published through their New York office. See Macmillan to Bentley and Son, January 23, 1895, Correspondence, UIUC. An additional letter from Macmillan to Bentley and 251

sale price to include how the firm was expected to approach Bentley and Son’s lists and ongoing contracts. In May of 1898, four months before the sale was announced to Bentley and Son’s authors and employees, George Lillie Craik wrote to Maurice Macmillan suggesting that they contact Richard Jr. to clarify what their responsibilities were to the titles that Bentley and Son had already contracted and which were in various stages of production.814 In the years following the sale, Macmillan continued to consult Richard Jr. regarding Bentley and Son’s former titles, employees, and Temple Bar content. For example, Maurice wrote to Richard Jr. to inform him that Egerton Castle had requested that his novel The Pride of Jericho be included in Bentley’s Favourite Novels series, and to ask Richard Jr. for his opinion.815

The previously quoted letters from Wood and Beard, as well as the correspondence between historian Michael Sadler and Richard Jr. discussed in chapter three, provide further evidence that Richard Jr. was highly conscious of and sensitive to his responsibilities to the firm’s legacy. It is worth calling attention to the fact that beyond expressing their shock, Wood and Beard each thanked Richard Jr. for his attention to their future interests—the well-being of his mother’s literary estate, in Wood’s case, and continued employment in Beard’s. Sadler and Richard Jr.’s ongoing correspondence, which spanned decades, shows the former publisher’s eagerness to perpetuate the history and influence of the firm that his grandfather and father had built. In Morgan’s account of the sale in his history of Macmillan, he describes not only the titles that Macmillan acquired, but the labour force as well. With the “formidable acquisition” of Bentley and Son’s titles, Morgan noted, “came members of Bentley’s staff whom the Macmillans learned to value. They arrived in the top-hats and formal dress which were the custom of Bentley’s employees.”816 By his account, Bentley and Son’s lists and employees were eventually integrated into Macmillan’s holdings. Although Bentley and Son was no longer a tangible business entity after August of 1898, then, it also did not cease to exist. That many of the works that made up Bentley and Son’s lists continued to be printed, circulated and read into

Son seeks permission to publish colonial editions of Marie Corelli’s works. See Macmillan to Bentley and Son, October 23, 1886, Correspondence, UIUC. 814 George Lillie Craik to Maurice Macmillan, May 22, 1898, MS 54789, Macmillan Archive, BL. 815 Maurice Macmillan to Richard Bentley Jr., December 29, 1898, Correspondence, UIUC. 816 Morgan, The House of Macmillan, 185. 252

the following decades, and even centuries, represents not only the perpetuation of individual texts, but also the publishing practices, labour, and ideologies that surrounded their production.

Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers, and the firm’s approach towards gender and print, are arguably part of this legacy. Indeed, Macmillan took on their first woman publisher’s reader—Gertrude Mayer—as a result of the Bentley purchase. Although her presence among Bentley’s former employees is ignored by Morgan, she was one of the many employees who moved over to Macmillan in 1898, and she became one of their most prolific publisher’s readers, as evidenced by readers’ report ledgers held in the Macmillan archive at the BL. The same purchase brought a slew of women-oriented fiction and non-fiction—many with either a progressive representation of gender or progressive in their feminization of a traditionally masculinized genre, as described in chapters four and five—to Macmillan’s lists. Although he downplays their significance, Morgan does acknowledge the transfer of such works, noting that Macmillan inherited a “list of fiction strong in women.”817 That this signalled a change in Macmillan’s offerings and professional identity is indicated by Wood’s letter to Richard Jr., in which he shows concern that Macmillan was known to “despise” the type of book that his mother’s work represented. It is clear, then, that the Bentley purchase had a tangible impact on the gendered environment at Macmillan, from their staffing to their lists.

This is not to say that Bentley and Son set off an immediate and widespread chain reaction. There was no other contemporaneous firm known to employ a cohort of women employees, particularly those whose labour was formally integrated into the process of literary production. Histories of women working in the literary field throughout this period attest to the fact that women in publishing often worked in isolation—likely as an editor for a periodical such as Braddon and Marryat—or within a group of women brought together by a common political aim—as was the case with the Victoria Press, or the other publications associated with the

817 Ibid., 184. Morgan does write that some of the titles Macmillan inherited from Bentley were significant but lists only male-authored and oriented works as examples. Otherwise, he declared, few of the books that came with the Bentley purchase were “memorable,” which included the “list of fiction strong in women.” Likely, Morgan determined Bentley’s lists to be largely without value and longevity due to the feminized nature of defunct firm’s offerings. 253

Langham Place Group discussed in the last chapter.818 Yet, while Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers had no counterparts in other mainstream firms during their tenure, they do stand as an early example, or perhaps indication, of what was to become ubiquitous. As previously noted, women began to enter the publishing industry in increasing numbers from the mid-twentieth century onwards.819 This went beyond the niche of feminist publishing, which experienced a period of growth that corresponded to the second-wave feminist movement, to the mainstream. According to a survey conducted by WiP, women represented 60 percent of the publishing workforce by 1988.820 Perhaps unsurprisingly, the distribution of women across the publishing sector in the late twentieth century corresponded with the Bentleys’ assessment of where women professionals could be used to best advantage: women were numerically dominant in general fields such as editorial, publicity and rights, whereas areas such as sales and marketing, dispatch and distribution still had more men employees.821 It was a shift in the industry, and the gendering of the literary environment, that Jewsbury herself had often gestured towards. In a letter to her close friend and sometimes editor and publicist Carlyle, Jewsbury hypothesized that the two women were “indications of a development of womanhood which as yet is not recognized” in both their “intellect and aspiration,” and added that she saw herself as “a faint indication, a rudiment of the idea, of certain higher qualities and possibilities that lie in women.”822

This is not the introduction to the story of the fall of the gentleman publisher and subsequent rise of the gentlewoman publisher, however. While the decline of the family owned, male-run firm has been dated to the same period in which women became numerically dominant in publishing, it was media conglomerates—and not women professionals—who emerged as its

818 Examples cited in this dissertation include Stone’s Emily Faithfull and Hughes’s biography of Isabella Beaton. Peterson’s Becoming a Woman of Letters and Palmer’s Women’s Authorship and Editorship construct more holistic landscapes that women in publishing operated within. However, they still attest to the fact that most women working in nineteenth-century publishing worked alone, often as editors of magazines. 819 See the introduction, p. 4. 820 Fiona Colgan and Frances Tomlinson, “Women in Book Publishing—A ‘Feminized’ Sector?,” in Women in Organisations: Challenging Gender Politics, eds. Sue Ledwith and Fiona Colgan (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Business, 1996), 48. 821 Ibid., 52-53. 822 Geraldine Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle, Letter 96, in Selections from the Letters, ed. Ireland, 348. 254

new authorities.823 Within this framework, women flooded the lower levels of a field that was losing credibility as a high-culture institution. The emergence of the mass market throughout the nineteenth century—and the perception that publishers were now commercially rather than culturally motivated—led critics of the literary industry to conflate cheaply produced books with a lower quality of literature. In her essay “The Byways of Literature,” for example, Oliphant complained that “good sense, good thought, truth, excellence, or refinement of any kind, are by no means included in what is called the spread of literature … there is an abundance of reading in these days which requires no intellect … wastes of print, which nothing possessing intellect could venture on.”824 This diminished perspective on literary production, which was abundantly represented in the Victorian periodical press, continues to plague the industry. Debates over the commercialization of publishing institutions, explains Miller, “have commonly been understood in terms of a tension between the pressures of the market and a commitment to ‘good’ books,” a tension that “is frequently expressed as an opposition between culture and commerce.”825 Whether publishing has been culturally devalued as a result of women’s entrance into and visibility within the industry, or women were increasingly enabled to engage in literary production due to its cultural devaluation, remains an open question which has been similarly raised in studies of other feminized professions, such as teaching and nursing. Regardless, that women’s publishing labour has been consistently devalued within the industry—particularly in comparison to their men peers—is an observation that rings equally true whether examining the Victorian or contemporary industry. Questions surrounding power and influence within the publishing industry (e.g. who holds power, how is influence gained, used and maintained) woven throughout this dissertation ultimately serve to highlight the fact that presence is not synonymous with power. In other words, entering the industry, and gaining social, cultural, and economic authority within the industry, are not mutually inclusive processes.

As Fiona Colgan and Frances Tomlinson report, in the same year (1988) where women made up 60 percent of the publishing workforce overall, they were underrepresented in

823 David Finkelstein, “The Globalization of the Book 1800-1970,” in A Companion to the History of the Book, eds. Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 337-338. 824 Margaret Oliphant, “The Byways of Literature,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, August 1858, 202. 825 Miller, Reluctant Capitalists, 6. 255

managerial positions, making up 40 percent of management and only 22 percent of company directorships. In comparison, men were only 40 percent of the industry overall, but occupied 60 percent of managerial roles and 78 percent of directorships. Essentially, this meant that women in publishing were low in the professional hierarchy, with many filling clerical or administrative roles.826 Colgan and Tomlinson observe that “although women comprise the majority of publishing employees and are the major purchasers of both new and secondhand books, they continue to be under-represented in senior positions within publishing.” Furthermore, “women are more likely to be steered into ‘jobs’ with limited prospects than the ‘careers’ which can lead to positions of power within publishing companies.”827 While these conditions resulted in a notable pay gap between men and women employees, it was the power inequalities that stood out, reflects Clare Baker, who worked as a sales representative for Routledge, Keagan Paul, and Cambridge University Press throughout the 1980s and 1990s. “It was very much about the glass ceiling,” she explains in an interview for the WiP’s Oral History Project: “because there were so many women in publishing why weren’t we running the industry? We were more interested in the power aspect than the salary aspect… it was certainly more about who gets promoted and why, and who goes on to run the company.”828 The challenges facing women in publishing in the late twentieth century are hardly out of date. As Philip Jones observes in an article published in 2015, “women tend to … dominate the trade—from recent Booker winners, to best-selling commercial fiction, to agenting, to publishing, and finally (perhaps crucially) to readers … It is more of a wonder, therefore, that all of the chief executives running our major trade publishing businesses are men.”829 According to an article that appeared in Publishers Weekly in 2017, 51 percent of management roles are filled by men in an industry where 80 percent of the workforce

826 Colgan and Tomlinson, “Women in Publishing,” 48. 827 Ibid., 44. 828 Clare Baker, “Clare Baker Discusses the Glass Ceiling and ‘Twice as Many, Half as Powerful,’” September 3, 2018, in WiP: An Oral History, audio, 1:01, http://www.womeninpublishinghistory.org.uk/content/interviewees/clare-baker/6-clare-baker-discusses-glass- ceiling-twice-many-half-powerful. 829 Philip Jones, “Generation XX,” Bookseller, February 13, 2015, https://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/generation- xx. 256

is comprised of women.830 The top positions, it seems, continue to elude the disproportionately female workforce that drives the industry.

Additionally, women have been subject to more precarious employment conditions than their men peers. Reflecting on what she calls the “Macmillan Massacre” of 1974, in which 185 employees were fired, Janet Schulman, who was the marketing director of the children’s division at the time, notes that to cut costs Macmillan sacrificed profitable departments that were mainly staffed by women to save those that were dominated by men.831 “Wall Street viewed it as a business blunder. Others viewed it as a Machiavellian scheme. It was both,” she testifies. Specifically, this event is contextualized by the activities of the Macmillan Women’s Group, which was established in 1973 to address issues of sexual discrimination in the workplace. It is no coincidence, Schulman charges, that the firings occurred mere months after the group filed its first class-action complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Indeed, all the signatories to the complaint were among those fired. Colgan and Tomlinson found that women’s jobs are less stable during times of corporate restructuring and economic downturn.832 Replicating the survey that they originally conducted in 1988, they found that in 1993, after a period of industry decline, women represented only 53 percent of the workforce, which indicates that “women working in publishing have been disproportionately affected by the restructuring of employment within the industry,” in other words, the effort to create “leaner” corporate structures. As Penny Mountain, former deputy editor of the Bookseller explains it, bad economic conditions drive publishing firms to put their companies in what they see as stable hands— “and those hands are seen as male,” she says.833

830 Rachel Deahl, John Maher, and Jim Milliot, “The Women of Publishing Say #MeToo,” Publishers Weekly, October 20, 2017, https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/75175- sexual-harassment-is-a-problem-in-publishing.html. 831 Janet Schulman, “Looking Back: The 1974 Macmillan Massacre,” Publishers Weekly, April 10, 2008, https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/15635-looking-back-the- 1974-macmillan-massacre.html. 832 Colgan and Tomlinson, “Women in Publishing,” 48-51. 833 Qtd. in Harriet Marsden, “A Gentleman’s Profession? The Women Fighting for Gender Equality in Publishing,” Independent, April 6, 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/women-publishing- gender-pay-gap-wage-british-library-hachette-penguin-random-house-a8285516.html. 257

Bentley and Son has been characterized throughout this dissertation as a firm in progress; far from examining a fixed point in the firm’s history, I have shown that their organizational structure, culture and identity was constantly in flux, responding to and perpetuating shifts in social, cultural, economic, and political values and norms, particularly those relating to gender ideology and literary labour, production, and consumption. The same is true of the publishing industry more broadly, from both a historical and contemporary perspective. Just as Minna Fetherstonhaugh, Mary Rose Godfrey, Catherine Jackson, Geraldine Jewsbury, Gertrude Mayer, and Adeline Sergeant were building their careers in a moment of change, women publishers today believe that their profession is in a period of transition regarding how gender issues are approached, and women professionals are treated within the industry. As Felicity Wood and Sarah Shaffi report, there is an abundance of talented women within in the industry.834 Now, the challenge is to ensure that this talent flows into the top tiers of management. Corporate publishers need to provide more flexible work environments that meet the needs of women employees, so that they ultimately aren’t left behind if they choose to have children, Wood and Shaffi council. Literary agent Jane Gregory observes that publishing firms are beginning to embrace these measures.835 While women having children will inevitably take a career break, she says, companies are becoming more flexible towards women employees with children. The industry is also beginning to grapple with issues of sexual harassment and assault. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Publishers Weekly conducted a survey to ask women professionals about their experiences. Authors Rachel Deahl, John Maher, and Jim Milliot report that industry veterans “spoke of unwanted physical advances and interactions that edged closer to assault. Younger women in the business spoke with a more expansive view of sexual harassment, citing incidents ranging from physical encounters to unwanted comments, leering, and suggestive language.”836 It is essential, they argue, to address the power imbalance in publishing—not only in the effort to address the pay gap and to ensure the promotion of women, but also to curtail the abuse of masculine power that the industry’s discriminatory practices foster.

834 Felicity Wood and Sarah Shaffi, “Glass Ceiling Hinders Women in the Trade,” Bookseller, February 13, 2015, https://www.thebookseller.com/news/glass-ceiling-hinders-women-trade. 835 Marsden, “A Gentleman’s Profession?” 836 Deahl, Maher, and Milliot, “#MeToo.” 258

What has changed, women in the industry widely attest, is that women are increasingly speaking out about their experiences and demanding better. In the 1970s, journalist Harriet Marsden recounts, women publishing professionals “began to meet up, to network and to agitate for positive change. They fed off the external politics of the time: the women’s liberation movement, and women in general politics, clamouring to be full citizens … and wanting their voices to be heard.”837 Professional women are now furthering this effort, Mountain notes: “Younger women’s expectations are now much greater. So I think that the second wave of feminism, and certainly a lot of work achieved by the WiP, set a new standard for women to be able to question and to push.” While the work of Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers—and their potentially countless undiscovered contemporaries—has long gone unacknowledged, their successors are being seen and heard. This is a distinction with a difference.

In her essay “A Short History of Silence,” Rebecca Solnit poignantly observes that women’s history is marked by silence; that “the history of women’s rights and lack of rights” can be considered “as a history of silence and breaking silence.”838 She describes the process of women’s liberation as one of storytelling—of breaking and making stories, breaking silences, and forging a place for women’s stories to be told, believed and valued. Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers are part of this work. The analysis of their labour within the firm provides crucial insight into the feminization of nineteenth-century literary production and print materials, as well as Victorian gender ideology. In functioning as gatekeepers, they were in a unique position to enable the telling of women’s stories. They frequently used this power to enable the production of novels and non-fiction works that challenge traditional notions of womanhood, support women’s social, cultural, and intellectual advancement, and celebrate women’s accomplishments and histories. In this way, the women publisher’s readers contributed to the ongoing debate surrounding the role of women in Victorian society. While the production of gender-progressive print materials is part of their contribution to the feminist project,

837 Marsden, “A Gentleman’s Profession?” 838 Rebecca Solnit, “A Short History of Silence,” in The Mother of All Questions (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2017), 19-20. 259

however, it was not their only contribution. As paid professionals who modelled women’s ability and independence, they embodied the ideals of the Victorian women’s movement. Moreover, because their work involved forging a place for women in a male-dominated field, their lived experience can arguably be understood as a feminist act.

Simultaneously, Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers are part of the fabric of a much larger narrative—one that is still being written and has only begun to be told. As previously discussed, Scott has described gender history as a process of deconstruction and rebuilding; it does not introduce women into an existing historical narrative, she argues, but instead seeks to question current historical practices and thinking to create new frameworks that consider the impact of gender and gender ideology.839 Alongside contemporary efforts to give voice to women’s experiences in publishing, including WiP: An Oral History, the story of Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers is part of the effort to write the history of the “gentleman’s profession” anew. Their experiences, as told through their letters, readers’ reports, and other company documents, speak to the impact of gender on an industry that has been, and continues to be, a sphere of cultural production that is inescapably intertwined with economics, politics, and socially constructed systems of power and marginalization.

In analyzing the nineteenth-century publishing ecosystem through a gender lens, this dissertation has explored how the publishing industry transitioned from a masculinized to feminized space. Increasingly, certain aspects of literary labour—primarily manuscript reading and editing—were designated as feminine throughout the nineteenth century, which afforded women a place in literary production that persists to this day. Indeed, according to the Lee and Low survey quoted in the introduction, the highest concentration of women in twenty-first- century publishing, 84 percent, is in editorial departments.840 This suggests that the industry feminized not because women’s abilities were reconsidered, but because the nature of the labour itself was re-designated as feminine. Print materials, too, were increasingly gendered as feminine. Works intended for women readers—particularly novels—formed a significant market

839 Scott, Politics of History, 3-4. 840 “Straight, White Women Run Publishing.” 260

segment. In addition, the definition of what constituted feminized print materials began to shift during this period. The boundaries between feminine and masculine genres blurred as writers and readers of both genders participated in production and consumption within a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction genres. Perhaps more significantly, however, this study of Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers has modelled a new historical framework of the publishing industry—one in which women’s labour is visible, and gender functions as a category of historical analysis. From this vantage point, it is possible to examine the impact of gender ideology on the circuit of literary production, distribution, and circulation. Yet, like the gendered environment at Bentley and Son, this framework is not static—nor was it intended to be. My hope is that it will remain in a state of constant revision to account for varied gender histories of the publishing landscape.

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